Nearly 700 new publicly owned rental homes in a pair of towers rising to 20 and 35 storeys could be coming to Toronto’s High Park area, according to newly unveiled plans to rebuild the condemned Swansea Mews complex.
In a virtual community meeting on Monday night for area residents and the hundreds of tenants ejected from the 1970s-era townhomes after a concrete ceiling collapsed onto a resident in 2022, officials from Bousfields Inc., KPMB Architects, PFS Studio and Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) offered a preview of plans they intend to submit to city hall.
The proposal would replace the 154 rent-geared-to-income units that have sat idle since residents were evacuated from the site due to ceiling faults, with the former tenants retaining a right to return after the rebuild.
All 673 new units will be owned by TCHC, area councillor Gord Perks said on Monday night, later telling the Star that keeping the Swansea Mews land in public hands instead of selling it to a private builder was illustrative of city hall’s newer approach to housing development.
The proposal will include a mix of affordable and market-priced units, ranging from one to five bedrooms apiece.
“We had our first kick at it a year ago. This is our second idea,” Perks said of the proposal, which follows a 2024 vision that had split the site into three blocks. Perks said the 2024 design was only a starting point, and was refined once architects and other officials were brought on board.
He and other officials on Monday stressed they were outlining the pitch to elicit feedback. “I want us to co-create a place where people can live and live well in Swansea.”
Conceptual drawings show a 35-storey tower on a podium at the corner of Windermere Avenue and The Queensway, and a second building to the north with portions at five, eight and 20 storeys. The five-storey side backs onto existing homes along Coe Hill Drive.
The north building is shown with a courtyard in the centre, which Vinh Van, with landscape architecture firm PFS Studio, told participants was meant to be highly visible “with many eyes looking into the space to provide a sense of safety.”
While officials propose the courtyard to be private space for Swansea Mews residents, they’re eying other portions for public space.
Facing questions, officials said details of the community spaces, such as the inclusion of play equipment, would come later in the process. But the designs show some details, such as new commercial spaces facing the Queensway.
The proposal also includes a parking structure for roughly 140 private vehicles, with Perks saying residents will not be eligible for street parking.
Participants in the online forum raised concerns including worsened vehicle congestion from the new density, rats scattering during construction, and the availability of spots in local public schools.
At one point, a participant noted the proposed density seemed to break with the city’s secondary plan for the surrounding area; officials agreed, but suggested city hall already backed increasing Swansea Mews’ density when council approved the initial development proposal floated in 2024.
TCHC says it hopes to formally submit an application by November of this year to make the zoning changes it needs for the additional homes.
While officials see the application as an exciting milestone, Ayan Kailie, whose family was among those displaced in 2022, said she was surprised and disappointed by the pitch to rebuild as highrises.
With the existing townhouse model, Kailie said, families didn’t have to deal with elevators that have caused frustration for tenants of other public housing towers when they break down.
“They want to pack us like sardines and (say) ‘hey, now you have a home,’ but now there’s no quality of life,” Kailie said, while acknowledging Toronto was facing heavy demand for housing, especially affordable units.
Throughout the meeting, Kailie said she kept a virtual hand up to ask a question, but wasn’t picked as the call was flooded with other questions.
“It felt like I was just a bystander watching people make decisions on my home.”
