What did members of the community have to say?

John Clarke is an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

• Clarke said, “Like many people here, I am distressed but not entirely surprised.”
• He stressed two points: First, the importance of this site in particular and the surrounding area is significant. “It really is at the heart of an area that faces enormous difficulties and enormous problems and great injustices." He added, “To have that site become instead another development for upscale housing would be harmful and destructive in ways that I don’t think are possible to exaggerate. It would have an enormously retrograde impact on the community in terms of gentrification and displacement."
• Second, for years there have been efforts by the local community to build housing that meets peoples’ needs, especially through social housing. Clarke said, “Whatever you decide here today, you are not going to remove the necessity, remove the need. There is a determined effort underway to ensure that that location does not become Kingsett Castle, but it becomes instead a place that really does become a place that meets the needs of the community — that provides vitally needed social housing.”

Erin Wotherspoon said the city has not listened to community members who have advocated for the need for social housing at this property. "Every single progressive city councillor should be ashamed to accept this proposal, including Mayor Chow," she said.

• Wotherspoon criticized progressive councillors for what she deemed as hypocrisy for not supporting the need for social housing at this location, and instead voting to approve this for-profit housing. 
• She said Kingsett is greedy and does not care about the communities that they are developing in. She added that it is “disturbing and gross” that developers who do not really know about the communities they are developing in are being approved in our city’s planning process. 
• Wotherspoon said condos like the one that's proposed to be developed are sitting empty. They are too small and overpriced and not suitable for families, she added.
• Wotherspoon expressed frustration that city councillors are not listening during deputations, and that they are “sitting on their phones and drinking lattes” and leaving the room. “It is disturbing that this is our planning process. Is this the city you all want to live in? It’s not the city I want to live in," she said.
• Moise asked Wotherspoon if she understands why this amendment is being proposed. She responds that while the community has emailed his office many times, they do not respond in a way that a layperson and the public can actually understand, so no, she does not really understand.

Macdonald Scott, who works with a law firm Carranza LLP and No One Is Illegal, meets with non-status poor people at the Regent Park Community Health Centre. He said,  “These people will not be served by this condominium.”

• People from Seaton House will certainly not be getting a unit in that condo. 
• In Regent Park, the promises that all residents will not be displaced were not kept. The units went up to market rates. 
• He urged the city council to make this location into NO income housing. Complete low-income housing. 
• Kingsett has already said that this will not be a mixed income development.
• They will continue to fight the 10-years already fought for affordable housing at this location.

Megan Kee, a supporter of 230 Fightback, said this "highlights a serious problem with housing in this city. What should be driving housing in this city is a focus on affordability, density, adequate living spaces, green spaces, [which] improve the quality of life for everyone. But what is actually driving housing development is profit.” 

• Kee said this kind of development maximizes profits without depending on who is actually going to be living there. People are then forced to rely on food banks to survive, especially those with children, she added.
• “Developers like Kingsett are not going to solve the housing crisis with developments like this one because in many ways, companies like this are the housing crisis," Kee said. 
• Kee emphasized that it’s not just about building any housing in order to increase the supply, but the kind of housing that is built is very important. “Affordable, social and non-market housing is the only solution in a site like this and across the city," she said.
• Kee argued that the city should be the one that is able to purchase these lands before developers are able to bid on it. 
• Coun. Fletcher responded to Kee’s remarks, saying properties like this experience a “buy, rezone, upzone and flip” quite frequently because of the changes to The Planning Act.
  
  

Megan Carver, who works on the frontlines of the housing and opioid crisis in the downtown East, is a community health worker at Regent Park Community Health Centre.

• Carver said the relationship between health and homelessness is complex, and affordable housing is a necessary component for addressing this problem. 
• She said there are no shelter beds for homeless people to go, leading to people sleeping in encampments, on the TTC, finding a reason to show up to the ER, and in ravines and parks. All of these have serious safety risks. “Handing out a pair of mittens and a Presto pass is no comparison to finding safe and warm cots to sleep on for the night," she explained.
• Carver added that a lack of affordable housing alongside the closing of safe-consumption sites will lead to more visible homelessness and addiction. 
• She said the waitlist for city housing is so long that a mother could see her child through high school before securing a spot. 
• Carver said this proposal should really be for the most vulnerable people of Toronto, not for those who can afford luxury condos. She argued that Toronto needs more rent-geared-to-income and supportive housing. 
• She offered insight into a novel approach in Montreal that gave the city “first refusal” for strategic sites for social housing, before opening contracts to for-profit developers. She advocated for the city of Toronto to commit to working with community advocacy groups and to respect rental-replacement bylaws.

Gaetan Heroux is a community member who spent 16 years in the fight for affordable housing at this location. He asked councillors why KingSett was bidding against the city when it's already been given other locations across Toronto. 

• Heroux said he was frustrated with the KingSett, and asked for the city to stop doing business with them. 
• He told a story about the closure of a seniors' home in 2019 after it was acquired by a numbered company with connections to KingSett.
• “Whatever you decide today, what you have to know, any developer — whether its KingSett [or someone else] — if you intend to come on that territory at Dundas and Sherbourne and build a condo, you're gonna run into a mine. There’s going to be a fight. We’re going to fight you, and we’re going to fight you hard. And today, you have to choose which side you’re on,” Heroux said. 

Cynthia MacDougall is a representative of KingSett.

• MacDougall said, “The site is vacant; there are no tenants that are going to be displaced.” 
• She pointed to a strong and enthusiastic endorsement from the Cabbagetown Residents Association for the development of these condos, which she said indicates different views in the community. 

Alison Falby is a community director at All Saints Church-Community Centre, which is at the southeast corner of Sherbourne and Dundas (across the street from the location).

• Falby said this has been an “intersection of need” since the 1960s and even the First World War. While they’ve been working there for decades, it's gotten worse and not better, she added. With gentrification coming from all directions, it is now the “intersection of last resort," she said.
• “An increasing number of people without housing now call the corner of Dundas and Sherbourne home. And they will not be able to afford the condominiums proposed for Sherbourne Street, whether they are built by KingSett Capital” or any other for-profit developer, Falby said. 
• She said developers, if they are interested, can build housing for unhoused people, which will be what solves the problem.
  

Wasim Ghani is a long-time resident of the Church-Wellesley neighborhood. Ghani said the interests of the people and the community are being trumped by the developer. He asked what is in it for the city councillors to side with KingSett. 

• “When you don’t listen to people, it is not good for their political careers," Ghani said. 
• He said developers have created an enclave of poverty in this area, and asked where those who suffer the most will go when they are pushed out of everywhere. 
• Instead of spending money hiring private security to guard encampments, the city should spend that money on housing people, Ghani said.

Miguel Avila-Velarde is a community organizer and resident who aid people cannot afford to live in the city.

• Avila-Velarde pointed out that across wards in Toronto, there are encampments. Constituents are asking their councillors what they're going to do about the problem, and that “today is an important decision that will turn around.”
• He also pointed out that corporations that are building condos are seeing them vacant without any buyers. 

It’s worth noting that there were several similar permit applications for developments in Moss Park and other areas of the city on the agenda for that day. One of our Documenters connected these proposals and arguments against them to their own experience living at 224 Spadina Ave., a supportive housing complex that was previously the Super 8 Motel. The city bought the building to turn it into 70 social housing units managed by Homes First, and offer social housing and harm reduction support to residents. Many of this site’s residents were previously precariously housed or homeless. This raises the question: Could this be a model for other sites?