Residents of the Bathurst Manor area have been working with the City of Toronto and a developer since 2006 to come to a consensus on a proposed six-storey, mixed-use development on Wilmington Avenue. After the most recent community meeting last month, residents are still feeling dissatisfied.
“It’s been very frustrating,” said Michael Anthony, a resident who has been involved in the talks since they began. He said that the developers, who have been represented by their attorney at meetings, have made small changes to the proposal over time, but the key issues of density and traffic remain the same.
“We feel that the number of units, of people and cars that would come into the neighbourhood are just too large,” Anthony said.
The most recent community meeting at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue had over 400 attendees present. The newest update to the proposal requested a bylaw amendment to permit a six-storey, mixed-use building on the northeast corner of Wilmington Avenue and Overbrook Place, with 179 units and ground floor retail; a three- to six-storey, mixed-used building on the northwest corner, with 171 residential units; and a total of 43 townhouse units on the site.
“The plan had not really changed that much in the three years since the previous presentation,” said Coun. James Pasternak. “It has a totally inadequate amount of retail. While we do want the [Bathurst Manor Plaza] site cleaned up, we don’t want it cleaned up at any price.”
Anthony agreed that the retail in the plaza does not make up for the services the community has lost. “We’ve seen the bank, Shoppers Drug Mart and the hardware store go away. Those were really important to a community that is an older community, age-wise. [The] retail space, we feel, is minimal and doesn’t replace what we’ve had in the past.”
Pasternak said he is now forming a working group for community members to come together to build a consensus on what is acceptable: “Next steps will be for this group to meet throughout the fall and work out a design for a plan that is acceptable in the community.”