Holly St. proposal gets icy reception
[attach]7849[/attach]A controversial midtown development that would see two five-storey condominium floors added to existing 14-storey apartment buildings — both with amenity spaces off-limits to existing tenants — will not be authorized by the city unless it’s changed, the city planner and local councillor Josh Matlow have vowed.
In addition to the five-storey additions to 33 Holly St. and 44 Dunfield Ave., the proposal by developer Compten Management Inc. includes two 24-and 32-storey condominium towers and a six-storey rental apartment building at 86 and 88 Soudan Ave. Community groups, including the South Eglinton Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association, opposed the plan at a public meeting on April 29.
SERRA president Greg Russell said the project would increase the area’s intensification “beyond reasonable limits,” benefitting neither current nor future residents, given the neighbourhood’s high traffic and overcrowded transit.
“It’s one of the most egregious in-fill development proposals I’ve ever seen,” Ward 22 councillor Josh Matlow asserted.
He called the plan to keep access to the new amenities off-limits to tenants “especially insulting,” and said without “significant
revisions” he will do “everything within my power to kill it when it gets to council.”
Compten Management president Jack Greenberg said the reactions didn’t surprise him, but he promised to consider what was said.
