Lack of parking a major concern raised by residents at consultation meeting on development plans for Queen and Lee
By AMARACHI AMADIKE
The City of Toronto hosted a virtual Community Consultation Meeting for a development proposal at 2026-2040 Queen St. E. (northwest corner of Queen Street East and Lee Avenue) on the evening of Monday, Sept. 16.
In attendance at the meeting were Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford, City of Toronto planning staff, as well as representatives of developers Crombie Limited Partnerhip and Sobeys Capital Incorporated.
Together, they presented residents who attended online with more information about plans to demolish the two-storey mixed-use building which currently hosts the Foodland grocery store (and two other buildings to the west) and build a six-storey residential condominium building which will also include a new and much larger grocery store at street level.
“What’s interesting about this application is it’s almost an as-of-right application which means it is in keeping with the 2012 urban design guidelines and zoning for this stretch of Queen Street East Coxwell over to Nursewood,” said Bradford in his opening remarks.
The Queen Street East Urban Design Guidelines set standards for the area including a maximum building height of six storeys and angled plane design so as not to create a “street wall” on the sidewalk.
The proposed 5,728-square-metre building will provide the neighbourhood with 60 additional residential units that include 40 one-bedroom units, 14 two-bedroom units, and six three-bedroom units.
Hailey McWilliam, Senior Planner at Bousfields, told the meeting that the range of units is intended to “contribute to the mix of housing in the neighbourhood.”
“We know that a lot of the housing in the immediate vicinity is detached and semi-detached dwellings, so we think it’s an asset that we can contribute to the range of the housing options in the area,” said McWilliam.
However, East Toronto resident Mark Richardson (who is the HousingNowTO Technical-Lead) said he was disappointed that the development was for condos only and not purpose-built rentals. HousingNowTO is a volunteer advocacy group calling for the creation of more new and affordable rental housing in the city.
Richardson said that the 40 one-bedrooms (728 square feet each) will individually be priced at about $900,000 in today’s market. The 1,300 square-foot three bedroom condos are expected to be about $2 million each “at construction cost”.
“I would highly suggest – given the fact that we have empty lots down at Murphy’s (Queen Street East and Kingston Road)… and we have some other places where condo proposals that try to conform to these guidelines are struggling – that both the city and the developer create a more sensible built form here,” said Richardson.
Although highly unlikely, Richardson suggested that the developers explore the idea of making their project 100 per cent purpose-built rental comprising smaller units that are more “cost efficient” in order to get more people into housing.
“Generally, this is good. But it’s a good idea for 12 years ago,” said Richardson. “It makes no sense, particularly if you’re not looking to move ahead very quickly on this site. You should be building a building for 2030, not 2012.”
Representatives for the developer said they would take the suggestions into consideration.
The application reserves 1,140 square metres of the property for a retail space that will front Queen Street East. The applicants believe that replacing the existing Foodland grocery with a larger grocery store will also create a number of new jobs on site.
“Our vision is to provide a development that will include a new, modern food store to better serve the residents,” said McWilliam.
Although this comes as a positive for the neighbourhood, some community members criticized the development’s lack of parking to satisfy the increased traffic in the surrounding area as a result of the grocery store’s larger footprint.
“The reality is that a much larger grocery store will mean much more pressure on parking,” said resident Michael Blecher. “When people (visit) big shops, I appreciate some people would take the TTC…., but I think the reality is most people wouldn’t. They would drive. When they’re carrying six to eight bags of groceries, they would drive. So, where are they going to park?”
The development plan provides 33 parking spaces for residents of the condo. That number of parking spaces conforms to the existing rules regarding parking for new residential building proposals.
In response to concerns expressed at the meeting about residents of the new condo who are unable to secure one of those 33 spots trying to get street parking permits in the neighbourhood, Councillor Bradford confirmed that future condo residents would be ineligible for street permit parking due to its location in what is known as parking zone 9C in the City of Toronto. He said that condition would need to be written into the purchase agreements of those buying units in the building.
“Everyone who’s familiar with zone 9C understands the challenges there,” said Bradford of the high demand for street parking permits in the area. “Basically, what we do is that it’s part of the site plan agreement. So, ultimately, that will be noted in your condo documents.”
Bradford said adding this information in the site plan is to create a “full line of transparency” for incoming unit owners in the proposed building that in zone 9C they cannot get on-street parking permits.
“That’s how it works,” said Bradford. “We’ve done it at all the developments in Beaches-East York since 2018 and it hasn’t been a problem.”
As for customers who would be driving to the grocery store, it was suggested that the community would have to absorb the need for those shoppers’ parking places since there does appear at this time to be a provision for customer parking.
LEA Consulting Ltd’s Joseph Doran told the meeting the development site’s size led to the decision to utilize a car lift instead of a ramp in order to maximize retail space for the grocery store, an enclosed loading area for deliveries and collections, and underground parking availability for residents.
Due to the car lift, there is no provision for visitor or customer parking underground at this time.
“The provision of a car lift makes it impossible for visitors to utilize the elevator due to safety regulations on the usage of elevators,” said Doran.
He said only trained operators are able to use a vehicle elevator and that’s given to new residents but is not available for visitors.
“As a result, we anticipate that the visitor parking would still be maintained outside of the site through street parking and other Green P facilities in the neighborhood,” he said. “While that’s not desirable for the city, we don’t think that the increase in the size of the store is going to be that much of an impact (or) change to what it currently is.”
Councillor Bradford was unsatisfied with this response and suggested that other solutions should be explored.
“That doesn’t work for me,” said Bradford. “So you guys have to think about that. That’s the feedback you’re hearing. You’ve heard it several times in several different ways, not the right answer. So, I’ll be looking for you guys to address that as the application evolves.”
Concerns about unloading and loading of delivery vehicles at the new grocery store were also mentioned at the meeting given the tight constraints of Lee Avenue, which is a residential street and already sees traffic congestion when trucks stop at the Foodland according to residents.
Loading and off-loading of vehicles is proposed to take place from a laneway off Lee Avenue at the northern boundary of the proposed building and it will be done within an enclosed area of the building to limit noise and disruptions, said the applicant. There will not be trucks loading on Queen Street East in front of the new store, they said.
City staff will continue to discuss the community concerns with the developers before a final application proposal is submitted to Toronto and East York Community Council for further recommendations.
Given the compressed timelines introduced by the Province of Ontario to decrease the amount of time it takes for residential building proposals to be approved or rejected by municipalities (in an effort to get more housing units built faster), it is expected the final plan will be discussed by Toronto and East York Community Council in late October and then moved on to full Toronto Council for a final decision.
The meeting of Toronto and East York Community Council that considers the application will include a statutory Public Meeting on the proposal, and Beach Metro Community News will keep readers informed on when that will take place.
For more information on the 2026-2040 Queen St. E. development proposal, contact City Planner Raymond Tung at raymond.tung@toronto.ca
