This past summer, building owner RioCan submitted an application to demolish 25 residential units in order to make room for a 39-storey tower on top of the Sheppard Centre and to add additional retail  uses. At a Nov. 26 meeting of North York Community Council, the city staff presented their preliminary report on the proposal, and Coun. John Filion agreed to schedule a community consultation. Filion is unhappy with the proposal and wishes that the developer had reconsidered the height.

“I’ve been waiting to see if the applicant would come up with something more acceptable [since the summer], but they haven’t,” said Filion. “[They] have stubbornly refused to comply with the city’s official plan, so I’m going to oppose the development.”

With a proposed 368 residential dwelling units, Filion said that this is way too dense for an area already suffering from congestion issues.

“It’s questionable whether or not we need another condo tower at Yonge and Sheppard,” said Filion. “It’s bad enough that we have a  proposed new development in an area that can’t really handle any more. But for somebody to, in addition to that, be ignoring our rules, that’s just unacceptable.”

Filion said that there has not been much opportunity for participation among area residents, but he’s looking forward to the discussions in the months to come.

Robert Gibson, the City of Toronto planner assigned to the file, hopes that a consultation can be scheduled soon but is doubtful. “We’ll try and book something. It’s just really questionable whether we can get it in before Christmas.”

In the planning report, density was identified as a main concern.

“Based on the proposed site size, the total proposed gross floor area and resulting density is at the maximum limit of the North York Centre Secondary Plan,” states the report.

But the proposal may not be so black and white. Filion said that the additional street-level retail would help to give the struggling shopping centre a boost.

“The portion of the plan to redo their retail and make it more street related — I think everybody would like to see that,” said Filion. “That was a poorly planned development from day one. Retail from there has [never] done well because of the way it was designed.”

However, Filion would rather that retail not come at the cost of increased density at Yonge and Sheppard.

The sunken, below-grade retail, often referred to as a “moat,” has made the shopping centre inconvenient to enter and has caused businesses to go unseen.

RioCan did not respond to requests for comment at press time.