More Parkland in the Vicinity of Fort York Approved

At Toronto city council’s meeting of April 26 to 28, members decided unanimously to accept a recommendation to rezone the heavily polluted former industrial lands at 28 Bathurst Street (see map) for park purposes after they’ve been remediated to the level provincial regulations require. The property has a long and tortured history starting around 1890 when two Consumers’ Gas structures for storing coal gas were built there. Elias Rogers operated a coal yard next door until both coal as a fuel, and gas manufactured from it, passed from general use in the 1950s. Then the land became a smelter and refinery for recovering the lead from old batteries. Their disused casings were disposed of in the basements left by the gas holders. In 1988 the City of Toronto expropriated the property, one of Toronto’s most heavily polluted sites, hoping to bury the south half under an extension to Front Street. During the 1990s the north half was dealt with properly: the toxic soil was carried away at a cost upward of $25 million so a daycare and men’s shelter could be built on the land.

In 2011 when council removed the Front Street extension from its Official Plan, 28 Bathurst was handed over to Build Toronto after all other city departments, including Parks & Recreation, had declared their lack of interest in it. Build Toronto then looked at several ways of constructing new buildings on the land, but the underlying costs of full remediation dictated greater heights and density than anyone, including those of us at Fort York, was prepared to accept.

new condos have sprung up in all directions like dandelions in a spring lawn, with more to come.

What a difference a half-dozen years make! The neighbourhoods around Fort York have since come to be among the most park-deficient areas of the city as new condos have sprung up in all directions like dandelions in a spring lawn, with more to come. In a letter dated 21 April 2017 The Friends of Fort York urged Mayor Tory and council to accept the recommendations put forward by the Toronto & East York community council to rezone 28 Bathurst for use as a park. Our councillor, Mike Layton, steered the item forward with great skill, achieving for an estimated expenditure of $5 million some 2.36 acres of new parkland that would cost $50 million were the city to go out and buy a comparable site in the area on the open market. The sum of $5 million is the estimated cost of skimming the top layers of polluted soil away, installing an impermeable membrane, and covering it with fresh earth, then improving it with walks, sports fields, and the like. In addition, council agreed to reimburse Build Toronto for its out-of-pocket costs in exploring other uses for the site before the rezoning was agreed upon, estimated to be about $1.2 million.

Now 28 Bathurst will add to the chain of connected parks surrounding Fort York and provide a link along the rail corridor to the West Toronto Railpath where it terminates in South Stanley Park.