Parkdale residents filled a meeting of Toronto & East York Community Council on Tuesday, November 14 in an attempt to stop approval of a two-tower condo development at the corner of King and Dufferin.
Protestors disrupted the vote with banners, chants and extended deputations, and refused to cooperate with the requests of the council members and private security. After numerous delays, the proposal was approved anyway, highlighting the troubling limits of the city’s zoning and planning processes and the emphasis by all levels of government on private investment as the main driver of housing development, among other impediments.
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“Hold your nose,” was the advice on dealing with condo developers from Ward 14 councillor Gord Perks at a recent public meeting of Parkdale residents to discuss the mega project.
On November 1, Lifetime Developments shared its latest revision with 40 or so members of the community of a plan to plunk 703 condo units in two towers (of 14 and 17 storeys respectively) at the northeast and southwest corners of the intersection.
While the meeting was billed as a public consultation, very few of the fundamental concerns raised at previous meetings around density, transit use, affordability and building height (the developer agreed to drop a few floors) had been addressed by Lifetime in their amended plans. The project was presented as a fait accompli.
Perks emphasized that he had managed to cut a deal since the last consultation in April, with Lifetime now pledging to contribute $1.9 million to a local affordable housing pot.
Perks has done his best to take on the rapid gentrification of the Parkdale neighbourhood I grew up in. He has challenged planning applications, supported long-standing community groups and helped pass bylaws to curb the number of bars and nightclubs along Queen West whose intrusion further east on the strip has invariably led to more upscale development.
But even according to Perks, gentrification can’t be stopped, at least not through the channels available. The best we can hope for, Perks says, is to chip away at reining in development and negotiate a bit of cash to fund other community improvements.
For a community like Parkdale the cumulative effect in 2017 has meant the social, economic and cultural displacement of the people and small businesses who made this neighbourhood a community – and an attractive real estate investment – in the first place. If left unaddressed, Parkdale will continue to get wealthier and whiter, and those of us who can’t afford the new regime will simply have to leave, regardless of the impacts that losing community and local services mean for us.
In this regard, the Lifetime condos raise a series of questions that the city has thus far failed to answer.
For example, what will the development do to local real estate prices and corresponding rental costs when 90 per cent of Parkdale residents rent and many are on low incomes?
What will existing landlords farther west along King start to demand with an influx of people who can pay several times what many current renters can afford? Will an old neighbourhood bar or corner store be able to give commercial landlords the returns that renting storefronts to boutique jewellers or trendy cafés can? How many similar condo developments would have an easier time getting approved if this one goes ahead? And what will be bulldozed to make space for them?
The consequences are already being felt in the neighbourhood with dozens of buildings having been renovated, rents jacked and former tenants evicted and forced to move further afield. But Parkdale has yet to experience gentrification on the scale that a development like the King-Dufferin mega project will bring.
It was clear at the November 1 meeting that the benefits Perks managed to negotiate were the best he could imagine for the community. But they won’t stop residents from being priced out of the neighbourhood.
So where does that leave Parkdale and other parts of the outer downtown core where communities are facing systemic displacement?
Direct action plays many important roles in protecting homes and communities.
In Madrid, Barcelona and other cities across Spain, citizens actively prevent evictions of residents from their homes through peaceful direct action. When buildings are left empty, they are collectively reoccupied and the new residents come together to negotiate with their owners for a rent they can afford.
In London, England, public housing slated for redevelopment has been collectively occupied for months on end, and active protests have led to major concessions from developers, land owners and local authorities.
Alternatively, in Los Angeles’ predominantly Chicano neighbourhood of Boyle Heights, residents have taken the fight directly to each business or open house seen as a gentrifying force that would contribute to pushing them out of their homes.
In Mexico City, poor residents have been occupying empty land and building their own neighbourhoods from scratch since the mid-1980s after the local government and the housing market failed to provide homes people could afford. Ten thousand residents now make up some of the most vibrant, well-resourced working-class communities in the city of more than 20 million, also building their own clinics, schools and sport facilities without the support of government.
Which is all a way of saying that when formal channels are exhausted, alternative means are necessary. Sometimes that can be inspiring. Sometimes that can be scary.
But to repurpose the classic John F. Kennedy quote, “Those who make legislative change impossible will make grassroots direct action inevitable.”
At a certain point, lawmakers will only have themselves to blame for whatever communities decide to do to defend themselves.
Liam Barrington-Bush
Liam Barrington-Bush is an activist and author from Parkdale who has been active in social movements in the UK, Canada and Mexico.
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