Shannon Holness’s mom still talks about going home.
Not the home they live in now — but the one they were forced to leave. The northwest Toronto public housing community where Holness grew up was a place where she felt comfortable running to neighbours’ doors with a skinned knee for a Band-Aid, but seven years ago her family was forced out when the townhouse complex was ruled structurally unsound.
No one knew back then what would happen next. Officials talked about rebuilding one day and mapped out a master plan to turn the site into a new mixed-income community surrounding a park. But as the years stretched on and the original townhomes were demolished, the future of Firgrove-Grassways remained up in the air.
At long last, the city’s public housing agency put out an open call to builders last year: would any be interested in partnering to redevelop the now-idle patch of fenced-in grass at Firgrove, near Jane Street and Finch Avenue?
Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) has for years relied on partnerships with private builders to replace broken-down or aging public housing, such as the multidecade revitalization in Regent Park, where profits from new condos helped pay to replace demolished affordable homes.
But amid a hostile development climate, where plunging condo sales and prices have slowed homebuilding to a crawl, the housing agency got sparse interest on the Firgrove project — with just five expressions of interest, all with funding shortfalls and none meeting all the criteria of housing staff and city hall.
Officials say they are now pivoting to a new model to push the long-promised revitalization ahead — one they hope will help it weather the storm of a tumultuous market.
But as decision-makers attempt to turn the ship, former community members like Holness remain in limbo as the wide expanse of public land sits unused.
“I know it’s a priority,” said Holness, whose family will be given the option of returning to Firgrove once the demolished affordable units are rebuilt. “But it does feel like we’re waiting in the wings.”
Broken units and master plans
The 1970s homes of the old Firgrove were the backdrop to full lives, where tenants grew tomatoes and flowers and pleaded with city decision-makers to keep their homes open, even when the complex was crumbling beyond repair.
The repair problems reached untenable heights in the 2010s, but TCHC was cash-strapped and facing projected repair needs in the billions across its real estate portfolio. So when the townhouses started to be condemned and Holness’ family was sent to a different public housing site nearby, “there was no guarantee there would be anything to return to,” Holness said.
By 2021, 236 two- and three-storey townhomes were emptied. Just 15 townhomes were spared from bulldozers and retrofitted, as well as one highrise.
After her family’s move, Holness stayed active in discussions about her community. She sat on an advisory committee for the master plan — backing the idea of more density, advocating for new units that replicated the former units’ spaciousness and calling for a mural to local youth lost to gun violence and the community centre that felt like a neighbourhood “anchor” to be replaced.
The finished master plan included 236 replacement public housing units along with hundreds of lower-cost rentals and market-priced units, a central park, expanded spaces for child care and an outdoor pool. City council, in 2022, approved the zoning changes to make that kind of density boost possible, outlining plans for buildings ranging from two storeys to 25 storeys.
But as Toronto’s development market shifted — going from red-hot during the pandemic to limping through interest rate hikes and other escalating costs — TCHC staff became wary about their usual approach’s chances of success.
A call-out to builders
The official Request for Expressions of Interest was issued last July, as the condo market was in free fall and the building sphere all but squealed to a halt.
The results in August were meagre.
Five bids were received, from private developers as well as community and non-profit players. None were offering what officials hoped to see. The proposals would all have funding shortfalls, a recent TCHC report said, only feasible with “significant” boosts from multiple levels of government. Not one proposal met all the city’s priorities, from both a social and financial perspective. Officials surmised the paltry interest was related to poor market conditions citywide, as well as the land itself being considered of “low value.”
(Area Coun. Anthony Perruzza noted the northwest Toronto neighbourhood hasn’t seen many new developments, which builders look at to establish potential price points.)
Senior TCHC development director Cristina Raviele was bracing for this kind of response. “We had a pulse on the market and what the climate was,” she said.
Officials weren’t expecting fierce competition; the kind seen in Regent Park, where major builders Daniels, which steered the first phases of the revitalization, and Tridel vied for control of the final two phases. Tridel, in late 2020, was ultimately victorious with a proposal that included $390 million of social housing and $26.8 million in further community benefits.
While TCHC proceeded with a builder call-out for Firgrove, it only verified what they suspected — for this site, they needed a new approach.
Raviele knows the same conversations are happening across the country. City hall and the federal government have each vowed to take on more of a developer role in the face of the housing crisis, she noted, including more of an effort to retain control of public land through leases versus selling it off.
City hall identified Firgrove as a priority site for its new approach in 2023, labelling it “housing ready” given it was already zoned for more density. To make that happen, the report suggested looking not to the private market, but at the kind of funding and fast-tracks governments could make happen.
A new plan, a better deal?
Rather than hand the reins to one builder and commit to a single, sweeping approach, the new plan for Firgrove aims to rebuild the neighbourhood block by block.
Officials will put out Requests For Proposals one chunk at a time, hoping smaller pieces will be more attractive to builders — private or non-profit — with a more moderate cost and commitment level.
The approach is also an effort to buy time, Raviele said, noting by the time later parcels of the land open up for proposals, the market may have turned, making it easier for a project to be economically viable.
Nothing is set in stone, Raviele said, but she believes the new model could include land leases as well as sales — with a series of deals still aiming for the same overall mixed-income community as the master plan.
David Amborski, a housing expert at Toronto Metropolitan University, believes the approach is worth a try in the face of a market that has radically changed.
“Trying it piecemeal like this does make sense,” he said, noting that, while there is some urgency given displaced tenants are waiting to return, it could allow housing officials to get the best deals, versus settling for a big-picture proposal that doesn’t match their expectations and priorities. “If the numbers don’t work, rather than giving it away, you’re probably better to wait until you get a better deal.”
The city doesn’t incur the same costs to hang onto idle land as a developer, he noted, such as property taxes or mortgage costs. If blocks of Firgrove are leased, non-profits without substantial upfront capital could be part of the rebuild, and keeping public land in public hands would mean control for generations to come, he said.
For now, TCHC is forging ahead on Firgrove without a developer — laying out plans to find civil engineers and architects to design the subdivision and first replacement public housing building, while finalizing the costs for new roads and infrastructure. While the public homes would require funding and financing to proceed, Raviele is confident about their odds given the talk among elected officials about public builder models.
If all goes smoothly, Raviele hopes they could be in a position to break ground in 12 to 16 months.
Perruzza, the longtime councillor, still hears from former residents of the demolished Firgrove townhomes. “Some of them are eager to get back to the area,” he said. “It’s obviously a little slower than we’d initially anticipated.”
The transformation of Firgrove, and making better use of that public land, is in line with the massive public investment into the Finch West LRT, Perruzza said.
Holness meanwhile hopes the new model will deliver a more robust array of builders across her community, from land trusts to condo developers. As each block moves ahead, she suggested remaining idle public land be put to use in the interim — for the arts, maybe, or local economic or cultural events.
“It’s time to get creative,” Holness urged. “It’s just a big vacant grassy area now. I would love to see something happen.”
