Toronto West Don Lands: Blocks 17 & 26 | 141m | 43s | Aspen Ridge | Core Architects

lomeri said:
I don’t think anything would give me more glee than Doug Ford /province having to rebuild demolished buildings on site brick by brick.
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I don't see that as a possible outcome of any court case.

The purpose of getting an injunction is really just a delay and increased media coverage. The delay itself is also just to allow enough time for more exposure and political pressure.

In the best case scenario, where the Court agrees that the Province ought to have performed various heritage assessments before the demolition, the Province simply needs to check that box and can be back at the demolition. Really, their best counter-strategy would be to kill the injunction with kindness - take a mea culpa position that they ought to have performed the assessments and did not, perform them in the quickest and most perfunctory way possible, and then resume the demolition.

Fortunately, I don't think the Province will take that strategy as they are backing themselves into a corner by pretending assessments were done when it really appears they weren't. They will have a hard time backtracking, and for political reasons, may prefer to fight the injunction in the courts. This is actually a good thing for those wishing to preserve the buildings. While the urgent motion on the interim injunction may be heard quickly and I believe has a good chance of success, this is only preliminary and a final motion (where the Province has a better set of cards) would probably take much longer to be heard, possibly months. An appeal after that could take an additional several months.

In the true best case scenario (assuming public pressure doesn't cause the province to rethink), the urgent interim injunction is turned into a permanent one six months from now. That is appealed taking another six months. The Court of Appeal upholds that on the basis that the heritage assessment needs to be done, and the Province takes some time conducting that assessment, and all of this together brings us to the next Provincial election in June 2022. Who wins that is anyone's guess at this point and I will not delve into that quagmire.

There is so much that has to go right for these legal actions to take the path I outline above and to actually result in the heritage being saved. If I were to bet money, I would bet against any of these buildings surviving. However, there is a chance of success, and regardless, it is a fight worth fighting.
 
concrete_and_light said:
I am not a lawyer, but couldn't this kind of action (continuing and accelerating demolition) be seen disfavourably by the judge?
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I am a lawyer and yes it certainly could. Judges don't take kindly to the government circumventing their jurisdiction. But if it makes the issue moot, I doubt there's any basis for punishment or damages other than a dressing down. It's just a morally bankrupt move.
 
mcornett said:
I am a lawyer and yes it certainly could. Judges don't take kindly to the government circumventing their jurisdiction. But if it makes the issue moot, I doubt there's any basis for punishment or damages other than a dressing down. It's just a morally bankrupt move.
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Thanks for the info and that's good to know — I hope it comes back to bite them. It seems like a stupid move (unsurprisingly) on the part of the province — only likely to anger the judge, unless they are able to demolish the entire complex by tomorrow, which seems unlikely.
 
Ottawan said:
I've never been a resident of her ward so have had limited exposure to her, but I have to say that I have been very impressed by her response to this.
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She's been moving at a very rapid clip on this file, and it's impressive for any city counsillor to have the city move this quickly on a matter such as this. You would definitely not be seeing the same if it were a councillor such as Denzil Minnan-Wong, Doug Holyday, and a few of the other useless ones.
 
Ottawan said:
In the best case scenario, where the Court agrees that the Province ought to have performed various heritage assessments before the demolition, the Province simply needs to check that box and can be back at the demolition. Really, their best counter-strategy would be to kill the injunction with kindness - take a mea culpa position that they ought to have performed the assessments and did not, perform them in the quickest and most perfunctory way possible, and then resume the demolition.

Fortunately, I don't think the Province will take that strategy as they are backing themselves into a corner by pretending assessments were done when it really appears they weren't. They will have a hard time backtracking, and for political reasons, may prefer to fight the injunction in the courts. This is actually a good thing for those wishing to preserve the buildings. While the urgent motion on the interim injunction may be heard quickly and I believe has a good chance of success, this is only preliminary and a final motion (where the Province has a better set of cards) would probably take much longer to be heard, possibly months. An appeal after that could take an additional several months.
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Yeah, the real question here re the heritage assessment is: "show us the money". That is, show us the assessment in question.

And even if the assessment in question were airtight, I also can't help thinking that "not of provincial significance" might be a, er, creative and "convenient" interpretation of whatever conclusions said assessment came up with.
 
Amare said:
She's been moving at a very rapid clip on this file, and it's impressive for any city counsillor to have the city move this quickly on a matter such as this. You would definitely not be seeing the same if it were a councillor such as Denzil Minnan-Wong, Doug Holyday, and a few of the other useless ones.
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Yes, some councillors would likely be doing the opposite and complimenting the boots of the people coming in to kick us.

But yeah I'm also impressed with her moving this forward in a logistical way to stop this — not just speaking out against it, which is of course good too — but effectively using the capacity and power of her role as a councillor to take action.
 
concrete_and_light said:
Yes, some councillors would likely be doing the opposite and complimenting the boots of the people coming in to kick us.

But yeah I'm also impressed with her moving this forward in a logistical way to stop this — not just speaking out against it, which is of course good too — but effectively using the capacity and power of her role as a councillor to take action.
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Though I am sure that not all neighbourhood associations approve of everything she does, KWT is very attentive to them and her staff (and those of other downtown councillors) usually attend NA meetings. She (and Joe Cressy) are well aware of local issues and can thus act fast.
 
adma said:
Yeah, the real question here re the heritage assessment is: "show us the money". That is, show us the assessment in question.

And even if the assessment in question were airtight, I also can't help thinking that "not of provincial significance" might be a, er, creative and "convenient" interpretation of whatever conclusions said assessment came up with.
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Giving away an opportunity to sell market condo to a private developer, destroying a heritage asset in the process, with no communication or justification given and no transparency seems like plain as day corruption to me. I'm not sure if there's anything actually illegal about it, but it's galling.
 
concrete_and_light said:
What a pathetic display by our province. In the middle of a state of emergency lockdown, they arrogantly come in without consulting with the community at all and start punching holes in a heritage resource that means something to the community and the city. Let's hope the injunction is granted and eventually this disgrace of a government is forced to rebuild what they destroyed.
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syn said:

Doug Ford’s government ignored a local community by destroying the Dominion Foundry site. Here’s why all Toronto should care​


It's really tiresome to see Ford try and be the Mayor of Toronto.

Hard to see Ford as any better than the Harris government when it comes to disdain for Toronto.
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Is it really disdain, or is it just gross ignorance ? Let's call a spade a spade - it shows ignorance, perhaps even disdain, of the critical and fundamental importance and say of local participation in local planning discussions, and further, a gross disregard for cultural and natural heritage as seen through the extraordinary uptick in MZOs. It seems, that local democracy will not stand in the way of reducing red tape and creating economic opportunity in Ontario. I look forward to seeing Doug Ford at the groundbreaking ceremony for this site, providing they find a hard hat to fit the fat head. ( I would have used the word " gross' instead of "fat ", but I used it twice already ).
 
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