The province has intervened to place a height restriction on buildings near a North York Sanofi pharmaceutical plant, disrupting plans for a neighbouring rental housing development.
The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack signed a Minister’s Zoning Order — a controversial tool that is usually used to fast-track development — to restrict the height of all buildings and structures on a 1.28-hectare parcel at 1875 Steeles Ave. W., near Dufferin Street, to about 10 storeys.
Developer Tenblock has planned a highrise project with almost 1,000 new rental units for the site, which is currently home to a four-storey rental apartment building.
But Stephen Job, vice-president of Tenblock, said the project will not go ahead unless the MZO, which was posted Friday, is amended.
“As currently issued the MZO does not allow for an economically viable housing project at 1875 Steeles Avenue West,” he said in an email.
“We are grateful for the efforts the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has made to bring the parties together. We look forward to continuing our conversations with the provincial government on a solution that enables critical housing supply while safeguarding industry.”
A Sanofi spokesperson said in an email that the company “supports the Province of Ontario’s decision to implement the (MZO) to limit the scale of proposed development immediately adjacent to our industrial facility.”
The Sanofi site is Canada’s largest biomanufacturing and Research and Development (R&D) facility, “supplying Canadian and global demand for lifesaving vaccines and medicines.” They are investing over $2 billion in the site by 2028.
New highrise buildings nearby “could impede our ability to sustain current, and attract future R&D and biomanufacturing mandates, jobs and investments in the region,” the spokesperson added.
The MZO was requested by Vic Fedeli, minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, and the proposal was open for comment last fall.
Fedeli spokesperson Jennifer Cunliffe said in an email that Sanofi is a “critical player in Ontario’s growing life sciences sector,” as an employer of more than 2,000 people. The MZO ”will ensure their expansions move forward without unnecessary delays, creating more good-paying jobs in the process,” she added.
The zoning order outlined that during the consultation period Sanofi Pasteur raised objections about noise and security. Members of the public submitted comments that much needed housing would be sidelined by the concerns of a private company.
In an interview with the Star last fall, Tenblock’s Job said his company had hired “best in class consultants” to look at security, who noted that the higher you go the less clear a view there is into buildings.
He added there is already a lot of dense housing in the area and that 15 per cent of the planned new rental units were to be affordable.
The City of Toronto supported the MZO.
Under the Planning Act there is a process for requests to amend a zoning order, the MZO notes, and any request to do this would be considered balancing provincial interests such as increasing housing with protecting jobs and economic development.
Minister Flack’s office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
Colleen Bailey, a volunteer at housing advocacy organization More Neighbours Toronto, called the MZO “quite disappointing.”
The developer “went through the whole process with the plan that they had from city staff, and then at the last minute, both the province and the city, who say that they want housing, stepped in to oppose it,” she said.
Past governments did not use MZOs often, but the Star reported in 2023 that the Ford government had granted more than 100 since 2019.
