At city council yesterday it took less than 60 seconds for Chris Moise, Olivia Chow and the rest of council to approve staff recommendations which will pave the way for Jon Love and KingSett Capital to build a luxury condo at 214-230 Sherbourne – located in one of the city’s most impoverished communities. Neither Olivia Chow, nor any of the progressive councillors, made any attempts to intervene or oppose staff’s recommendations. No discussion. No recorded vote. When the chair called for a vote on staff’s recommendation only a small number of councillors even bothered to raise their hand. Distracted councillors paid little attention on the floor of council as the chair declared that the motion had passed and council quickly moved on to other business. Jon Love and his multibillion-dollar private equity company will now likely try to quickly flip the properties for a healthy profit. 

City politicians and bureaucrats could have intervened for more than 15 years to ensure that social housing was built on the properties. By the summer of 2008 all three rooming houses at 214-230 Sherbourne had been boarded up by the Taneja family who had bought the properties in the mid 1980’s and 1990’s for $865,000. The vacant lots and the shuttered historic rooming house sat empty for more than 14 years before the Tenaja family’s speculation finally paid off in March of 2022 when they cashed in and sold the properties.  

Despite several half-hearted attempts by the city to try and purchase the properties over the years, the purchase never materialized. And despite the call by housing activists and the community for the city to expropriate 214-230 Sherbourne city officials refused.  

By 2019 the city staff had identified 214-230 Sherbourne as being an important and strategic part of the city’s five-year plan for the revitalization of the Dundas and Sherbourne neighbourhood and the redevelopment of the Dan Harrison complex:

“‘The development of the site also presents the unique opportunity to unlock the new housing and community revitalization solutions that are to address the social, economic, and physical challenges facing the Dan Harrison complex and local neighbourhood.”

When the Taneja family put the properties up for sale in March 2022 the city put in an offer only to be outbid by KingSett who paid more than $53 million for the vacant lots. KingSett had an ongoing business relationship with the city prior to purchasing 214-230 Sherbourne, which raised questions as to why KingSett would bid against the city knowing full well that the city wanted to purchase the properties to build social housing on the site. By the summer of 2022 the 214-230 Sherbourne site mysteriously disappeared from the 5-year plan. 

In the fall of 2022 KingSett applied to the city for permission to build a luxury condo tower on the site. Six months later KingSett offered to sell the properties to the city, but after more than a year of negotiations the city and KingSett failed to agree on a price and in February 2024 Kingsett resubmitted their application. City council’s approval of KingSett’s application has essentially killed any possibility of the city purchasing the properties. The vote to approve an amendment to the zoning has increased the value of the land and the city will be unable to compete should KingSett decide to flip the properties. KingSett has no plans to build social housing on the site. When KingSett purchased 214-230  Sherbourne they essentially hijacked the city’s 5-year plan to build much needed social housing on the site.

KingSett’s condo proposal is one of 11 condo developments along the Dundas Street E. corridor. Four to five billion dollars will have been invested by developers along this corridor once the 11 projects are finished.  When completed, more than 6,300 condo units will dominate the corridor from Church to Sherbourne Street. In allowing KingSett to move forward with their plans, city officials and politicians are participating and enabling developers to complete the gentrification and increase unaffordability of the neighbourhood  which has historically been home to low-income people.

Neither the mayor, nor the progressive councillor, were willing or interested in stopping Kingsett’s harmful plans to build unaffordable housing at Dundas and Sherbourne. Nor did they have the political will to do so.  Olivia Chow has refused to meet with members of the community or to publicly oppose KingSett’s plans to build a luxury tower at 214-230 Sherbourne. 

Last fall Olivia Chow invited John Baird to a fireside chat at the Canadian Empire Club to discuss the future of the city. In the 1990’s Baird, along with other Harris Conservative ministers, was responsible for gutting social housing and introducing draconian cuts to welfare. This summer Baird was hired by KingSett to lobby the mayor’s office. Earlier in the year KingSett had already received $9.8 million in tax cuts from the city for the West Mall development. 

It took less than sixty seconds for city council to abandon low-income residents and the underhoused who make Dundas and Sherbourne their home and to ignore the harm being caused to our communities by for profit developers like KingSett. None of the so-called progressive politicians, including Olivia Chow, had the courage to stop KingSett. 

The mayor and the ‘progressive’ councillors have chosen to ignore the voices of people that are rising across the city to fight back against large corporations that are destroying our communities by speculating and buying up properties to build unaffordable and for profit market housing.  The fight for 214-230 Sherbourne is not over. Opposition to KingSett’s harmful plans will only continue to grow. Whether KingSett chooses to develop the properties or sell the vacant lots to another developer, we must make it clear to them that by entering Dundas and Sherbourne they are entering a minefield and there will be a fight.