Councillor still has number of concerns regarding proposal for 33-storey building at Danforth Beer Store site

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

Scarborough Southwest Councillor Parthi Kandavel continues to question a large-scale residential development proposal at 3130 and 3150 Danforth Ave., where a Beer Store currently operates.

“There are concerns about clarity around the parkland dedication, what that means for the community,” said Kandavel at the April 30 Scarborough Community Council meeting.  “It is a dense neighbourhood already with multiple towers in the Teesdale neighbourhood, Denton, Macey.”

Applicant Batory Planning & Management’s proposal at 3130 and 3150 Danforth Ave. (just east of Victoria Park Avenue) would see the existing low-rise Beer Store building and associated surface parking lot redeveloped into a 33-storey mixed use building with 445-residential units and 29,009 square metres of residential gross floor area.

Kandavel forwarded the proposal to the upcoming Toronto Council meeting on May 20 without recommendations due to concerns regarding unit affordability and shadow impacts from the building on the surrounding neighbourhood.

During last week’s meeting, Scarborough North Councillor Jamal Myers also noted that the current proposal would only provide parking for one third of the building’s tenants.

“There’s 445 units, and then there’s 137 parking spots – so roughly a third. Is there an expectation that most people in the building will be using transit?” asked Myers.

Greg Uens, a member of Batory Planning’s management team, said the proposal “greatly exceeds” the city’s parking requirements for developments within Protected Major Transit Station Areas, and that the municipal planning act “does not require any parking in buildings in major transit station areas.”

When asked how many units would be affordable on site, Uens said the developers are currently waiting on “the status of inclusionary zoning” before determining the project’s affordable housing component.

“Right now, I’m not sure what the status of inclusionary zoning will be by the time the project moves forward,” said Uens.

Earlier this year, the province changed inclusionary zoning policy in three major cities (including Toronto), putting a temporary hold on affordability requirements in residential developments near transit hubs.

Uens told council that the city’s Community Benefits Charge (CBC) could still allow for affordable units at the Danforth site, despite not being included in the current proposal.

“As of right now, the CBC benefit which would enable the affordable units hasn’t been determined yet,” said Uens. “So, in the current proposal, there aren’t any specified affordable units, but we do have a CBC requirement that is so far not spoken for in terms of the community benefit it will deliver; it could be affordable units.”

Kandavel said he and city staff have requested the developer include affordable housing as part of the development, mentioning that “nothing is preventing the applicant from providing affordable housing.”

In a previous statement from April last year, Kandavel expressed disapproval with the previous 36-storey proposal due to its height and impact on the surrounding neighbourhood. The proposal has since been lowered by three stories and removed 38 units.

Since the project was announced early last year, residents had also been left questioning whether the Beer Store would continue to operate on-site after redevelopment.

Uens said the proposal went through “great lengths” to secure the 806 square metres of commercial space at-grade, which could allow for the Beer Store to continue operation.

“We’ve gone to great lengths to try and increase the commercial space on site to create opportunities for retailers of various sizes; including the Beer Store if they wanted to come back,” said Uens.

In his closing remarks at the April 30 community council meeting, Kandavel reiterated his concern with the proposal’s impact on the surrounding community which he said currently houses many racialized, low-income families.

“Also finally is the impact this would have on a very newcomer Canadian, racialized lower-income family neighbourhood which has this limited park that will see impacts from the shadowing,” said Kandavel.

“That gives pause for me, and as part of seeing this move forward, I’ll be moving this without recommendations to help address these questions for clarity as well as improvement on parkland and shadowing.”