Rally calling for protection of Glen Stewart Ravine planned for morning of Monday, Aug. 11
A rally to show support for the protection of the Glen Stewart Ravine will be held on the morning of Monday, Aug. 11.
The Protect our Ravine rally, organized by the Friends of the Glen Stewart Ravine, will take place at the Beech Avenue entrance to the ravine, just south of Kingston Road, starting at 11 a.m.
The call to protect the ravine comes as the result of a proposal for an 11-storey residential building at 847-855 Kingston Rd.
The proposed building is on the ravine’s northern edge and has generated concern among a number of community members over the environmental impact it will have.
The rally is being held to coincide with a scheduled mediation session between the City of Toronto, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and the developer making the building application. The mediation meetings, slated to take place from Aug. 11 to 13, are not open to the public.
“If the parties reach an agreement during mediation, the outcome will define the extent to which current ravine protections are being upheld,” said the Friends of Glen Stewart Ravine in a release.
At the moment, an Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) hearing on the development application is slated for April of 2026.
If the mediation talks prove successful, an agreement on the proposal could possibly be reached before next year’s scheduled OLT hearing.
At issue is the building’s proposed height and how close it is to the edge of the ravine.
In a Beach Metro Community News story from April, Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford said the city is opposed to the proposal for the 11-storey building.
The proposal calls for a “zero-metre setback from the long term stable top of the slope, where our Official Plan and Conservation Authority policy requires a minimum 10-metre setback,” said Bradford in the April news story.
Bradford also criticized the decision by developer Gabriele Homes Ltd. to bring the proposal to the OLT, citing the city’s failure to make a decision on the plan. “Instead of working with city staff to address these serious issues, they chose to appeal straight to the Ontario Land Tribunal,” he said in the April news story.
At a May 14 OLT Case Management Conference on the proposal, the Tribunal heard from representatives from the developer, the City of Toronto and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority.
That meeting was to organize and establish party and participant status in next year’s full hearing. More than 55 requests for participant status were made from community members in regards to the hearing.
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