Residents of the Huron-Sussex area, the U of T-owned cluster of houses on the northwest corner of St. George campus, are afraid the university will soon sell their neighbourhood out from under their feet.
Governing Council’s business board voted on Monday to adopt a general strategy to “leverage the value” of the huge amount of land it owns. U of T, one of the largest landowners in the GTA, has had no central real estate strategy since 1995.
Huron-Sussex residents worry the new plan will mean a radical change in their housing situation. The two-block area, bought by U of T in the 1960s but left fairly unchanged-except for a block of houses razed in 1968 to make way for Robarts-has about 100 Victorian-era houses, home to many long-term tenants and student renters.
As reported in The Varsity and the Toronto Star in September, U of T tried to have the Ontario Municipal Board, which handles land-use disputes, exempt it from rent-control policies. When this sparked public alarm that tenants might be evicted, the university abandoned the attempt.
“It just wasn’t worth the hassle,” recalled Catherine Riggall, U of T’s Vice-President of Business Affairs. Though the university rushed to allay eviction fears, Riggall and other backers of the new direction in real estate stress that the university does not want to be a landlord.
The new plan calls for the recruitment of a board of real-estate executives authorized to buy and sell land for U of T. They would take over the management functions of the existing real-estate ancillary. Riggall described the difference between the old ancillary and the new body of expert advisors.
“The old ancillary was…expected to deal with any real estate-related thing that came by.” The ancillary, burdened with too many responsibilities and currently without a director, has not been getting the best value from U of T’s land, which the new board will specialize in. “Dealing with tenants, collecting rents and getting repairs done is quite a different skillset from buying and selling land and buildings, construction refinancing and all the things that go with it,” Riggall explained. “That’s where we need the expertise.”
The university is planning to build in the upper half of the neighbourhood, a large area between Bloor West and Washington Avenue, labeled “Site 1.” Planning documents suggest a joint development between the university and UTS, the U of T-affiliated private school.
City Councillor Adam Vaughan, whose Trinity-Spadina ward includes Huron-Sussex, has a moderate stance on the new plan.
“We need a healthy U of T,” he acknowledged. “It’ll need to grow, and we’ll need to accommodate the growth reasonably.”
What concerned Councillor Vaughan was whether U of T would respect the neighbourhood’s historic buildings when it launches planning for Site 1.
“They can’t look at houses on Washington [St.] as any other land. It’s important to respect the built-form heritage of the neighborhood.” He warned that if U of T changes its land-management practices, it shouldn’t expect the city to turn a blind eye.
Riggall dismissed the idea that U of T’s relations with City Council would sour, but noted that U of T is seeking changes to city policy on its land use. “We still have to deal with the city in terms of the revisions to the master [real-estate] plan, which we’ve been discussing for some time now, and that process will continue,” she said.
Calling the present a “magic moment” for campus renewal, U of T President David Naylor told Governing Council’s business board on Monday that the university needs to consider renting out land for revenue and taking it back later for campus development.
