Tenants of 25 St. Mary Street, a rent-controlled apartment in downtown Toronto, protested and gathered Wednesday to stop the approval of a demolition application of the building.
The group of around 10 protestors marched nearly two kilometres from 25 St Mary Street to Nathan Phillips Square outside City Hall where a vote to approve the application submitted on June 7, 2021.
The application, submitted by Tenblock development, seeks to redevelop 25 St Mary into two mixed-use towers with a total of 1,143 units, replacing 259 unit apartment.
Toronto and East York community council recently voted to approve the application on April 12, 2023.
Jenn Sladek, a tenant of 25 St. Mary Street said lack of affordable housing options remain a big concern for tenants as they face eviction.
“We are being dumped out in the middle of a housing crisis right now,” she said. “Where are all these people going to go? That question is not a question that people really care to answer.”
Ann McGaw, a senior resident of 25 St. Mary, said many senior tenants have been the potential eviction due to their circumstances.
“A lot of us don’t have families, you know we’re on our own, they said we might get some help finding a place but that’s not guaranteed either,” she said. “So there’s a lot of stress, a lot of worry, and a lot of people aren’t sleeping very
Evan Perlman, senior development manager of
“They have the right to return to the new development in a similar sized unit, the same bedroom types, and a similar rent,” Perlman said.
Perlman said, similar rents means the rent will increase by provincial guidelines for the years they are away and will not “increase exponentially.”
In addition to this is offering cash compensation for three months rent for eligible tenants, however, Federation of Metro Tenants Association organizer Geoff Hayworth said this is not enough.
“Some of these tenants, even if things go exactly to plan, can still be out two, three, four hundred dollars a month by the time they’re ready to move back in, if they even get a chance to” Hayworth said. “The packages are inadequate the way they are.”
Hayworth said moving forward all levels of governments need to re-evaluate how they deal with housing priorities.
“We need cheaper housing,” he said. “The answer is not to build more condos and hope that housing trickles down to the rest of us.”