Toronto's oldest apartment set to get 10-storey addition — tenants still inside

The city's oldest apartment building appears set to get a brand new life.

A Dutch developer, ProWinko, is planning on adding 10 storeys to an existing low-rise heritage building in the Annex — while the current tenants continue to live inside.

But tenants at 41-45 Spadina Rd. say they're worried.

"If something catastrophic happens, we end up with the Red Cross for two weeks," said Charlotte Mickie, a 32-year resident of the building. "What's plan B?"

Mickie said tenants want assurances that they'll be safe and free from excess noise and vibration while the "unprecedented" addition proceeds.

But at Wednesday's meeting of the Toronto and East York Community Council they got no such assurance. 

The community council passed the zoning amendment, which WND Associates filed on behalf of ProWinko back in May  — with a few conditions.

Councillors added provisions that ensure residents will be kept in the loop through regular consultations, as the proposal passes through the approvals process at City Hall. 

They also insisted an architect examine the designated heritage building, built in 1906, to ensure the structure can bear the load of 10 additional storeys. ProWinko's current design would see the addition supported by a single pedestal erected within the building's existing courtyard.

"We're disappointed so many of our questions had to go unanswered," Mickie said. "But we made some small gains."

She said residents are happy that ProWinko must agree to keep the residents informed through each step of the approval and construction process.

CBC Toronto has reached out to ProWinko by both phone and email. The company, based in the Netherlands, has not yet responded.

Coun. Dianne Saxe, who represents the neighbourhood, said the city has little choice but to approve the zoning amendment without agreeing to the residents' demands. 

Saxe says the provincial Planning Act dictates that municipalities cannot hold up new developments while awaiting details of the finished product.

During her deputation at Wednesday's meeting, Mickie said residents want an independent engineer's report that shows the design is structurally viable.

The idea to build an addition atop an existing heritage building while tenants continue to live below is unprecedented, Saxe said at that meeting. 

She told the committee she'd asked the developer's planning consultants — WND Associates — for examples of other projects in which a multi-story addition is built atop an existing heritage building. 

"You haven't produced any examples," Saxe said.

"We can't give you a project that looks exactly like this," said WND representative Andrew Ferancik. 

"There is no exact apples-to-apples comparison."

Residents, as well as Annex Residents' Association (ARA) executives, told CBC Toronto earlier this week they're not opposed to the idea of combining old and new structures, nor are they opposed to this particular project. They said they just want assurances that it's doable — with minimal impact on residents — and they want those assurances before the approval process moves forward.

"The cart is going before the horse," ARA chairperson Rita Bilerman said Tuesday. "This is a zoning application, but we don't even know if this can be constructed."

Bilerman said she has questions about the wisdom of supporting a 10-storey addition on top of a single pedestal.

She said the ARA wants an independent engineer's report before any substantial work on the  project happens — a demand the community council didn't include in its approval of the zoning amendment Wednesday.

"We question how the residents will live through this, with the noise, the vibration, all of that sort of thing," she said. "Are they going to have ceilings collapsing on them?"

Sandra Shaul, a heritage specialist with the ARA's planning and development committee, said she's worried about the integrity of the 118-year-old building, which she says is Toronto's oldest operating apartment building.

"I would really rather they didn't experiment on such a rare building," Shaul told CBC Toronto. "An office building made of steel downtown might be better."

The zoning amendment still needs to go before city council next month for final approval.