The Dundas East strip has been known by many unkind names. But no more. Already the effects of the condo-backed revamp of Regent Park are being felt. Rooming houses for the poor are being closed, “for sale” signs are going up on townhouse blocks primed for developers. And the much-rumoured sell off of All Saints Church, the backbone of social services in the neighbourhood, looms large.
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Ripple in Regent Park
Regent Park Revitalization, Phase One, Dundas and Parliament
Photo By Enzo DiMatteo
The sign on the condos going up on this corner, aka One Cole, says One Changes Everything. Indeed, it already has, confirming the fears of anti-poverty activists worried about the poor being pushed out by the forces of gentrification (there’s that word again). The stated goal of the Regent Park remake is laudable: to create a mixed neighbourhood. But many of the low-income residents who moved out during construction won’t be moving back. They’ll be housed instead in other Toronto Community Housing buildings in the east downtown area. Of the 5,100 units that will be built in the six-phase plan, fewer than half, some 1,900 units, will be for social housing. The rest will be sold at market value.
Not-so-divine intervention
All Saints Church
Photo By Enzo DiMatteo
All Saints has been a rock of support for transient people in the area almost since its inception in 1872, providing a raft of drop-in, food and referral services. The Anglican Diocese is loath to confess, but it’s no secret that the parish fathers are interested in selling – part of “rationalizing,” as one insider puts it – its properties in the area, including St. Bartholomew’s (at Dundas and Regent), whose location smack dab in the middle of the Regent Park redo makes it prime real estate.
Done like Dennison?
William Dennison Apartment
Photo By Enzo DiMatteo
It’s not on Toronto Community Housing’s list of buildings to be sold off, yet. But it’s hard to imagine its Facilities Condition Index, the benchmark TCH uses to determine whether a building is worth keeping, making the grade. Poverty activists aren’t the only ones who think it’s only a matter of time before this trouble spot (remember the plan to bring in Guardian Angels patrols?) long suffering from disrepair (the list of infractions is endless) is put up for sale. TCH is running out of financial options with Dennison.
Blockbusting
214-240 Sherbourne
357, 360-368 and 396-400 Dundas East
Photo By Enzo DiMatteo
Colourful turn-of-the-19th-century Victorians, many of them converted into rooming houses in the 1960s, are closing all along Dundas and Sherbourne, shutting the door on cheap rents. The potential for all-out real estate speculation is going through the roof at Dundas and Sherbourne. Large stretches of both streets are owned by a handful of Ontario numbered companies and individuals. Local councillor Pam McConnell says she’s not expecting townhouses on Dundas to give way to towers, but the precedent may have been set already. The seniors building going up as part of the Regent Park redo is 22 storeys tall.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
