The Ford government’s quick destruction of more than 800 trees on the West Island of Ontario Place is “shameful”, says a prominent landscape architect who quit the controversial spa-focused redevelopment project.
“It is shocking to me that we are destroying our own unique, sensitive habitat that was home to coyotes, fox, raccoons and birds,” Walter Kehm, known for designing the Trillium and Tommy Thompson parks, told the Star in an interview Friday.
“We’ve lost our cathedral grove that was overlooking the lake, where you could see the sunset through the trees — it was magical.”
Crews with chainsaws and backhoes apparently started the removal operation, with no public notice, on Wednesday evening, shocking many people who woke up Thursday to see much of the mini-forest reduced to stumps and brush. By Friday afternoon it was a waste removal operation.
A video posted on social media Thursday showed birds circling above a tangle of felled 20-metre Norway spruce trees, as well as oak, green ash and birch, while a backhoe dumped debris into a dumpster.
The thicket was cleared to make way for a towering spa resort and waterpark to be built near the water’s edge by Austrian company Therme, a centrepiece of the Premier Doug Ford government’s remake of the site that was home to a provincial theme park that closed in 2012.
On Thursday, taking reporters’ questions while making public the province’s 95-year lease deal with Therme, Infrastructure Ontario chief executive Michael Lindsay defended the deforestation, saying it was timed to avoid bird and bat nesting times. The lost trees will be replaced by many more, including by a six-to-one ratio for the mature ones, he said.
Kehm resigned in 2023 as a senior principal at Toronto-based LANDinc, one of two firms under contract to help design and construct the new Ontario Place’s “public realm”, citing opposition to the deforestation plan.
He is accusing the Ford government of making the lease public on Thursday to divert media and public attention away from the clear-cut, calling it a cynical move that is typical of the government’s approach to the waterfront revamp that will also feature an expanded, year-round Budweiser Stage and a relocated Ontario Science Centre.
Ian McConachie, an Infrastructure Ontario spokesperson, said Friday that site preparation had been underway for a year and that replacement trees will increase biodiversity.
“The province is rebuilding Ontario Place into a world-class, year-round destination with expanded parks and public spaces, increased waterfront access, a new public marina and family-friendly entertainment,” he said in an email. “The redeveloped Ontario Place will create thousands of new jobs and attract an estimated four to six million visitors each year.”
Advocacy group Ontario Place Protectors filed paperwork for an injunction to stop the tree destruction but, given that the trees are all down, the group “is currently trying to determine if that is still something that should proceed,” said lawyer Eric Gillespie.
Ontario Place Protectors has been granted leave to appeal a July court decision that upheld the province’s right to redevelop the site without doing a full environmental assessment, with a court date yet to be set, Gillespie said.
The lease details reveal that the Ford government is under pressure to create a huge number of new parking spots within 650 metres of the spa entrance by the time the spa opens or 2030, whichever comes first — or pay significant financial penalties to Therme.
The lease requires creation of spots for 1,800 vehicles but the province says it plans to build 2,500 spaces to accommodate visitors to other site attractions including the Science Centre and parkland.
Ford originally said his government would build an underground lot at Ontario Place. During negotiations with city hall on a new fiscal deal for Toronto he agreed to consider building it, below ground or above, at Exhibition Place.
The city and province will only say that negotiations continue between them but the Star has learned of one option on the table.
Some officials would like to see a three-storey underground lot built on the site of the Better Living Centre, which would be razed and replaced with a 4.5-acre “festival plaza” that could be made appealing for events and the walk to the west bridge to Ontario Place, according to a city hall source not authorized to discuss details of the discussions.
Ford, however, would have to be convinced to spend more to bury the garage rather than building a cheaper above-ground option. The Exhibition Place board has said it will not support an above-ground parkade on the city-owned site.
