After another year with the prospect of condominium towers looming over their neighbourhood of single family homes, residents around the Birch Cliff Quarry Lands aren't admitting defeat.
"We are making progress," Mark Brender told the annual meeting of Concerned Citizens of Quarry Lands Development.The group, however, says it will hold more small-scale discussions and ask people, including non-members, for new ideas that would help stop a tower development approved during the Woodstock era. The past year saw Conservatory Group, which owns land northwest of Gerrard Street East and Clonmore Drive and seeks to build 1,455 units there, convince the Ontario Municipal Board to recognize their right to the lands' zoning.The board also "essentially dismissed all environmental concerns" raised by residents, and its long-delayed decision means the developer can apply for a building permit for the first condo block any time it wishes, Brender, CCQLD president, acknowledged.But despite this, and the failure - following months of negotiations last year - of Conservatory Group and City of Toronto agency Build Toronto to complete a land swap removing the threat of highrise development, Brender stayed positive."There are many things we as a community can still do to make sure we get responsible development," he said.One improvement, Brender said, is in the attitude of Build, which owns much of the vacant former quarry and dump property and some years ago "had plans that were equally as bad, if not worse" than Conservatory Group, because the city "strived to maximize revenues (for the land) at all costs."That's no longer the case, said Brender, who said Build and the city are now working with residents to keep future development across the lands to a scale that fits the neighbourhood and is friendly to pedestrians.The community's resolve to do that hasn't changed, said Scarbourgh Southwest Councillor Gary Crawford, who recognized the Quarry Lands as a top issue in his ward during the 2010 municipal campaign.Crawford called the Quarry Lands, vacant for decades despite a 1968 decision permitting the condo towers, a "difficult property to develop" but said a swap of Build-owned land near Scarborough Town Centre for Conservatory Group's failed because the developer thought its own land was more valuable.Despite this, Crawford said he would like to try another swap or else find a way, with Conservatory Group's co-operation, to spread out the condo units.Build Toronto, the councillor added, is not a developer and needs one for its own portion of the Quarry Lands, a role he suggested Conservatory Group could play.Lorenzo Berardinetti, the local MPP, offered to "act sort of as a firewall" in case negotiations don't work out.When a developer applies for a building permit, he said, Ontario's environment ministry can drill on the site and halt construction if something toxic or dangerous is found. "No one knows for sure what's under that ground," the Scarborough Southwest MPP said, adding he hoped a negative drilling result would convince Conservatory Group it was "too expensive to build here."One member of the group, which has done its own environmental tests on the property, said she doubted the ministry would find anything able to stop the towers.Brender said CCQLD acknowledges the lands would not remain a community "park," but added "some things are not negotiable" and the group won't endorse anything like the current highrise proposal.He recalled more than 1,000 residents turned out for a rally, "a pretty strong show of force," against the plan in April 2010, and said they could do so again.A large parcel of already-developed retail on Gerrard at Victoria Park Avenue has, meanwhile, been sold in the last few months.Crawford and Brender said the buyer is Rio-Can, which owns Kennedy Commons and other retail properties in Scarborough. No one from that company would confirm the sale by press time or comment on future plans for the property, which is adjacent to Build Toronto's holdings and other parcels.