A staff report detailing the heritage value of the destroyed post office at 1117 Queen St. W. heads to the Toronto Conservation Board on Monday. If the city council greenlights their proposal, it would give the city a greater say over maintenance, conversions or demolitions done on the property being developed. “Heritage preservation schemes are changing, but that’s not stopping it,” says an email from the City of Toronto. The report comes more than a year since the city council asked the federal government to stop the property sale and turn the building into a community hub. It may be the city’s last chance to guide the site’s future — staff say the new owner hasn’t applied to redevelop it yet. Proponents say that while heritage designation can mitigate unwanted change, the real solution is changing the way the Canadian government manages its real estate to give communities more of a say in what happens in their neighbourhoods. “Coming out of the pandemic, we’ve seen a change in the streetscapes and the way our city looks,” said Devin Glowinski, a member of the West Queen West Community Post Hub citizen volunteer group, which gathered more than 2,500 signatures on an online petition to stop the sale of the office. The property was listed on the city’s heritage register nearly fifty years ago, but only recently became eligible for heritage status under the Ontario Heritage Act. Glowinski says that short of achieving heritage status, there’s always a chance the owner will try to sell it back to the public domain or get away from the vision many locals have for the building. “We see this as a potential focal point for providing space for small and medium-sized arts and cultural organizations to regain their footing after the pandemic and really add to the vibrancy of our neighborhood,” Glowinski said.
Review of State Land Uses
Canada Post reports that the office was sold to a private buyer who chose not to publicly disclose details of the sale. “When properties are sold, we go through a fair and open process to obtain fair market value as part of our longstanding mandate to remain financially viable,” Canada Post spokeswoman Valérie Chartrand said in an email to CBC Toronto. MPP Marit Stiles says it’s “heartbreaking” to lose public space in situations like this. He says he will continue to pressure Ottawa to change the way it manages its real estate. “Public land, once it’s sold, we’re never going to get it back. We have very, very few opportunities like this in the city of Toronto and other places across the province,” Stiles told CBC Toronto. Davenport MP Julie Dzerowicz says while there is a formal process to review alternative uses of federal properties before they are sold, such as affordable housing projects, Canada Post is exempt from that process. “They’re selling their land under the Canada Post Act — there’s nothing illegal about it,” Davenport MP Julie Jerovitch told CBC Toronto. Dzerowicz says that once parliament resumes in September, she hopes to see the debate on changing the sale criteria for all Crown companies “be part of the conversation as we move forward”. “The rules that we might have put in place years ago, I don’t think should be in place. They should be under review as we’re in a new era with new challenges and an ongoing affordability crisis.”
