In the days between Christmas and New Year’s, while many relaxed with family, Sarah McVie was pumping sewage out of her bathtub.
As she scrubbed her floors, trying to remove the sticky sludge left behind by floodwater, she remembered a similar incident in July 2024, when she came home to find her partner standing waist-deep in the street. She remembered her neighbour in a wheelchair, who was rescued from his collapsing basement just before the rising waters reached the ceiling.
For residents living in Toronto’s Rockcliffe-Smythe area, near Jane Street and Alliance Avenue, nightmarish memories of floods keep homeowners up during overnight rainfalls. Neighbours wade through foul, life-threatening water after storms, hauling furniture to the curb, running generators and working on tens of thousands of dollars in insurance claims.
Now, the city is moving ahead with a $295-million flood mitigation project that will involve cutting down 847 trees, replacing multiple bridges, widening an existing concrete channel and building another in a green corridor. But residents are opposed, fearing the changes to one of Toronto’s most flood-prone neighbourhoods will leave them just as vulnerable as before, while dramatically altering the green space that runs through their community. Independent engineers have warned the city’s and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s (TRCA) calculations are inaccurate and won’t solve the problem — concerns TRCA has privately acknowledged but not publicly refuted, as the city continues with its infrastructure plans.
“We have a looming feeling that at any point in a thaw or a storm, the pipes that run through our city will invade our home and our personal space,” McVie said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”
The mitigation project is meant to reduce flood risk by increasing the capacity to convey flood waters and move stormwater away from homes and businesses, in an area where riverbanks and sewer systems are overwhelmed by the volume of water, TRCA told the Star.
In August 2024, federal and municipal governments announced more than $320 million in funding for flood protection projects in the area. The announcement came weeks after a historic summer downpour flooded parts of Toronto and southern Ontario in July 2024, causing an estimated $940 million in insured damage.
Some residents and engineers say the proposed solution — cutting nearly 850 trees to widen parts of the concrete channel and replace bridges — won’t protect most of the residents it’s meant to help, and could make flooding worse in some cases.
Independent engineer Tim Mereu, who reviewed the project’s environmental assessment, told the city and TRCA its plan faces a “fundamental technical issue.”
In a written statement, Mereu said his analysis suggests the project, as currently designed, is unlikely to deliver the flood protection it promises.
He said the model used in the environmental assessment reduced friction in parts of the creek channel, creating water speeds that are unrealistically fast. Mereu added the miscalculation makes the system appear capable of handling larger floods, but when more realistic conditions are applied, a narrow 12-metre section of the channel upstream acts as a bottleneck that would still overflow.
“It’s like widening a highway from four lanes to six lanes while leaving the two-lane section before it unchanged,” he explained.
The city and TRCA disagree that the modelling used has “fatal flaws.”
“The project is grounded in more than a decade of technical study,” said city spokesperson Kate Lear. “The modelling is being reviewed and confirmed as detailed design progresses.”
Both emphasized that tree removal is necessary for the project and is “not undertaken lightly.”
“A comprehensive tree-replanting and environmental restoration plan will be implemented following construction,” noted Lear.
In meetings with residents, TRCA staff acknowledged there were “questions” about the model and that some algorithms needed to be better understood during the detailed design stage.
Residents say the admission only deepened their concerns.
“Are you telling me after all the plans are done, that a child will be safe crossing this (bridge)?” McVie asked in a heated meeting between residents, TRCA staff and two independent engineers.
“I’m not saying that,” responded TRCA associate director of engineering services David Kellershohn, adding that though the problem won’t be eliminated, it will be improved.
“How can you allow a project to move forward when you don’t even have a confirmed solution?” McVie wondered in an interview with the Star.
The neighbourhood supports infrastructure improvements, but residents want an evidence-backed plan they can feel confident in, said Tanya Connors, who has lived near Smythe Park for two decades.
“When you don’t have trust in the plan, it makes you very suspicious,” she said.
“They’re sacrificing the quality of life, and still putting everybody at risk. So who really benefits?”
Smythe Park sits along the Black Creek corridor and has become both a refuge for wildlife and a gathering space for residents.
Anna-Louise Richardson, who has lived near the park for 23 years and is part of local advocacy group Friends of Smythe Park, said the area contains wetlands and habitat increasingly rare in the Greater Toronto Area.
“It’s a deep and emotional thing for people to lose this part of the park,” she said.
Richardson said the last time she drove through the neighbourhood after a downpour, she put her head down and sobbed. It reminded her of scenes out of disaster movies, with families wading through sewage without protection.
“They’re completely ignoring and abusing this community,” Richardson said. “There’s never been a more important time in my life. We can’t be placid right now.”
