Loss of heritage building to condo renews call for preservation panel

Dennis Hanagan –

Dundonald landmark gives way to condos.

A developer’s plan to reduce a heritage building on Dundonald Street to just its façade is a tragedy, says Paul Farrelly of the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association (CWNA).

“The loss of a heritage building is tragic,” Farrelly, co-chair of CWNA’s development committee, told Toronto and East York community council in February.

That’s when councillors approved a 19-storey condo called Totem Condos from Worsley Urban Partners for 17 Dundonald St.

The site is where a 2-1/2-storey office building stands.

It was designated as a heritage building under the Ontario Heritage Act following a 2010 staff recommendation acting on a motion by former city councillor Kyle Rae.

“It was recommended by [Rae] as one of the finest examples of a modernism 1956 building built for the Commercial Travellers Association of Canada,” Farrelly told The Bulletin.

“This is where the commercial travellers would operate out of while in Toronto.”

Originally, a city planning report recommended refusing a zoning amendment application for the site. The report referred to the building’s heritage designation and also said the proposal didn’t conform to the city’s official plan and its Tall Buildings Guidelines.

However, in October city council told the planning department to prepare the amendment and present it to community council. The condo proposal includes the partial retention of three facades of 17 Dundonald.

Farrelly believes a community preservation panel, whose role is to recommend heritage buildings worth saving, could have fought to keep 17 Dundonald in tact.

“[The panel] is the networking agent in the ward, through the heritage infrastructure.

“It’s the link to [the city’s] heritage preservation services, to the people in the planning department, but also to Heritage Toronto … which helps raise consciousness of heritage in general,” said Farrelly.

Panels recommend properties within local communities to be considered by Toronto’s Preservation Board for inclusion in the city’s heritage inventory. “They’re supposed to monitor heritage properties, including those at risk,” Farrelly explained.

He said North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke have panels. But he’s been frustrated trying to connect with Toronto’s.

“They did eventually get one commissioned last November, but I have been trying to no avail to find out when it meets and how I would get some issues up in front of them,” he said.

Asked what’s the point of designating a building if it’s going to be demolished or facaded anyway, Farrelly said “that’s where you hear the machinations at the community council meeting and at the Preservation Board.”