Recently, Toronto and East York Community Council (TEYCC) in the City of Toronto rejected an application by Graywood Group to develop 506 to 516 Church Street which includes a property currently occupied by the iconic local business Crews and Tangos.
I applaud City Planning and members of the TEYCC for this decision. Graywood made their original application during my time as City Councillor. Through a working group I convened, community feedback from the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, Church Wellesley Village BIA and others helped create design revisions for a 14-storey building with special protections for Crews and Tangos that was approved in 2022. These protections created an improved plan that community stakeholders and residents were supportive of. My staff, alongside City Planning, Heritage and Urban Design worked hard to ensure 2SLGBTQI businesses were protected and that the community’s voice was heard. After my time at City Council, Graywood submitted a new 48-storey application that threw away all our hard work. This is a slap in the face to the community members who worked with Graywood to achieve an outcome that everyone agreed to.
Graywood’s new application is disrespectful to community concerns and 2SLGBTQI businesses in the Village. It looked as though Graywood was trying to take advantage of changes Doug Ford made to the Planning Act, which took it from bad to worse through legislation like Bill 23.
Let’s be clear about why this application is different: Crews and Tango is Toronto’s local version of a rainbow-drenched statue of liberty for the 2SLGBTQI community in the Church and Wellesley Village. Some of Canada’s and now the world’s biggest drag performers got their start on the stage of Crews and Tango. It is an economic fulcrum for businesses throughout Church Street, not to mention a culturally and emotionally important space where countless community members had their first experiences as out and proud members of the 2SLGBTQI community. We need housing now - so Graywood should just stop wasting time and honour the first application. Build what was approved and honour the agreed-upon protections that allow for 2SLGBTQI business districts to survive and thrive. This development could create economic shockwaves that threaten essential and increasingly precarious Queer and Trans cultural spaces.
And let us be clear: the rejection of this application by TEYCC does not guarantee the stability of Crews and Tango or other 2SLGBTQI+ businesses in the Church Wellesley Village on its own. I call on Graywood to not appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal out of respect for our community and its businesses. The Ontario Land Tribunal is a dysfunctional, rigged body with a track record of undermining the City of Toronto’s ability to make sound planning decisions. It needs urgent reforms, many of which I proposed in my Bill, the Fixing Ontario Tribunals Backlogs Act. An appeal would be a disrespectful act of bad faith.
By refusing to adopt ONDP legislation that supports small businesses and promotes the 2SLGBTQI communities, Ford has repeatedly turned his back on commercial rent control, lower rents, transparency in commercial leases, lower small business taxes, tax credits for victims of crime and increased funding for arts and culture.
Whether it’s pandering to big box retailers during the pandemic, selling off the Greenbelt to developers or providing preferential treatment to foreign spa owners at Ontario Place, the Ford government has continually ignored the economic challenges facing Ontario small businesses. We can’t trust Ford to stand up for Ontarians against Trump tariffs when he’s never stood up for us before.
I call upon the Ford government to work with the ONDP to create more support for small businesses. A real Team Ontario response would recognize the unique challenges facing 2SLGBTQI businesses like those in the Church and Wellesley Village. Trump’s tariff threats will affect all parts of our economy, and we need a Team Ontario approach that protects every single Ontarian whose job is on the line.