Condo project threatens to ruin Victorian charm

The only thing 81-year-old Budd Sugarman should have been worrying about was recovering his eyesight after surgery rendered him temporarily blind. But the man known as the unofficial mayor of Yorkville was incensed. "Save the Village of Yorkville," implored the newspaper ads Sugarman placed in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star on June 13.

At a passing glance it may not be readily apparent how this upscale residential and retail community could be under threat. But those who hold the neighbourhood dear lament an onslaught of proposed high-rise condominium developments threaten to obliterate the Victorian charm remaining of the village, which has roots stretching back more than 150 years.

"This is a beautiful, beautiful area and it is being vandalized," said Sugarman, who in 1948 opened a decorating business on Cumberland St. in a rundown Romanesque style house. "When I arrived in Toronto, I asked people `Where is the cultural centre of Toronto. People said: `There isn't any.'"

But after discovering the Royal Ontario Museum and the nearby Royal Conservatory of Music, Sugarman decided Toronto indeed had a cultural heart and it resided at Bloor St. W. and Avenue Rd. He looked upon the neighbouring neglected boarding houses in the Village of Yorkville and saw in them the possibility of something grand. "The city had allowed it over 25 years to deteriorate."

Sugarman joined with five other businesses and started the Village of Yorkville Association. "What we tried to do was restore the area." He eventually relocated his Budd Sugarman Interior Design Ltd. to Hazelton Ave. "After all this time, the area has been bastardized."

A row of Victorian houses, stretching along Yorkville Ave. from Hazelton Ave. to just east of Avenue Rd. is at the centre of a controversy over proposed developments. The houses at 116-134 Yorkville Ave. in the eyes of some had already been shoddily treated. Back in 1970s, five sets of Victorian semis were clad with artificial brick and renovated into a row. Many in the community are now crying foul that Yorkville Ave.'s last stretch of Victorian houses are to be demolished to make way for a combined 10-storey luxury condominium and five star boutique hotel.

If Richard Wookey had his way, the houses would have been restored long ago to mirror the traditional Victorian charm of Hazelton Ave., which the businessman can almost single-handedly be credited with preserving. "Some of the people who owned the older buildings didn't care about the older buildings. They were just waiting around to sell them at the highest price."

Wookey said for years he urged the previous owner to try and restore the houses on Yorkville to their original grandeur. "A modern building is something that's fleeting. There is always some new building that is going to be better. But old buildings with character, as long as they're maintained, can last forever." Wookey's words fell on deaf ears. "He offered the whole property to me for a million in the '70s." But Wookey said he couldn't come up with the money because he was up to his eyeballs in other investments. "I tried to get my friends to buy it." But it was to no avail.

In the 1960s, Wookey bought a house on Hazelton Ave. for about $20,000 and moved in, much to the horror of his friends, who wondered why he would want to bring his children to a neighbourhood populated by hippies and druggies. "My contemporaries thought I was absolutely nuts."

But Wookey just kept right on buying. Eventually he would own 70 houses on Hazelton Ave. "Yorkville was a bit of a mess. But there was one hell of a lot of talent that had no place to show, no place to go. I thought the Yorkville neighbourhood had a great future."

Wookey bought up a bunch of rundown houses and created York Square, a mixed use of residential and commercial properties, which was internationally noted as a fine example of urban renewal.

Wookey, who went on to develop Hazelton Lanes and various notable properties in Yorkville, set up shop when the area was filled with an eclectic assortment of hippies, artists, musicians and biker gangs. Some even say the local mafia had a hangout on the second floor of a Yorkville Ave. restaurant, where kingpins like murdered gangster Paul Volpe entertained special guests.

"I had kids lying around sleeping all over York Square. So I sent out word that I was calling a meeting. I said, `See this square? You respect it and I'll lend it to you every Sunday and you put on mime or theatre or whatever. But you don't litter and you don't loiter on doorsteps.'"

Wookey said the deal worked like a charm.

He also struck a bargain with Jesus, the nickname of the long blonde haired leader of the Vagabond motorcycle gang, which had gained a foothold in Yorkville. He allowed the gang to use 127 Hazelton Ave. as their headquarters in the late 1960s. In return, the gang agreed not to bother little old ladies and the other residents and businesses Wookey was trying to attract to street. "The Vagabonds stayed for a while until one day an angry Jesus came to see me and said: `You've domesticated us and we're leaving.'"

The flower children and bohemians could not withstand the wave of change as cheap rents disappeared and there was increasing pressure on the city to clean up what was becoming pricey and coveted commercial space. A story published in The Star in 1965 said the unthinkable was occurring in the bohemian haven. Yorkville was becoming squaresville as hip coffee houses, where folk singers such as Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot cut their teeth, were being replaced by posh nightspots for well-heeled teenagers. The Riverboat, one of the most famous of the coffee houses, was located at 134 Yorkville Ave., part of the row to be destroyed.

"Yorkville has been a place of change and now they are people who don't want that change to happen," said local councillor Kyle Rae. People like Sugarman argue passionately that Yorkville will be destroyed if the Victorian houses are lost. "This is Yorkville's last stand."

But Rae argues almost as forcefully that the community may wither away if change does not come. "I think Yorkville could well be in its death throes," Rae said. "Yorkville has lost a significant percentage of business to Queen St. W. There was a youth piece to Yorkville and it's walked." Rae said he thinks efforts are wasted trying to save 116-134 Yorkville Ave., which the Ontario Municipal Board in mid-1990s decided were not of historic significance. The councillor said instead he wants to focus on ensuring new development captures the flavour of Yorkville.

Rae said he is most struck when he receives calls and letters from residents protesting further condominium developments, who moved into the area as a result of earlier high-rise projects. "The people live on the 25th floor of the Renaissance Plaza (on Bloor St. W.) and they're saying they don't want any high rise in Yorkville. The hypocrisy is just lost on them."

The councillor said he would be coming out with guns blazing if there were proposals on the table that threatened to alter such Yorkville Ave. historic sites like the community's classic style public library, built in 1906 or the Romanesque fire hall erected in 1876, which bears the coat of arms from the village's town hall destroyed by fire 60 years ago. Both are situated on Yorkville Ave., just west of Yonge St. "But there is very little to save on Yorkville between Bloor and Avenue Rd.," Rae argued.

Gee Chung, president of the Greater Yorkville Residents Association, which represents 1,600 residents in 13 neighbourhood condominiums, said her group accepts that the developer is intent on tearing down the row and has turned its attention to ensuring what replaces them will be in keeping with the ambience of the street. "Once this is gone it really changes the entire face of the street."

Chung said it is the overall impact of the various proposed developments — there are four major ones slated for Yorkville Ave. alone, between Yonge St. and Avenue Rd. — that worries the group.

Jennifer Sturgess, Wookey's neighbour on Hazelton Ave. said: "It may sound very elitist and self serving, but we're a community and we're afraid of it losing its character." Sturgess is a member of the ABC Residents Association, which represents single-family homeowners in Yorkville. Until recently, Sturgess counted Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband John Ralston Saul — who are now leasing their Hazelton Ave. home — as neighbours.

"The neighbourhood of Yorkville is in the collective consciousness of all of Toronto and in their hearts," argued resident Maureen Malmud. She and a friend collected 1,450 signatures — including from actor Richard Dreyfus — on a petition circulated by their two-women Save Yorkville Committee. "I had people from Barrie tell me they drive to Yorkville to get an ice cream."

In its fight to balance the impact of new development the Yorkville community, which boasts 100 beauty salons, more than 100 restaurants and high-priced real estate, proved to be more cohesive than most. The two residential associations and the Community History Project — heritage conservationists — joined forces with the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area and the Yonge-Bloor-Bay Association Inc.

The BIA brought the various players together more than a year ago and commissioned a study to draft a quasi "official plan" for the community, the first one of its kind in Canada. The result is the Yorkville Urban Design Guidelines, which meticulously details the nature of development welcome in the area.

The document is already being distributed to developers eyeing Yorkville. "This isn't a single voice. This is the voice of the community," said BIA president Robert Saunderson.

The community, he said, was able to produce the document because of the resources it has at its disposal. BIA's are funded by a small percentage of the taxes paid by area businesses. Some have annual budgets as little as $10,000. The Bloor-Yorkville BIA has a yearly budget of $1.2 million.

Wookey chairs the committee formed to present a united front to developers. And developers are taking notice. When York Row Ltd. unveiled its latest design plan for 116-134 Yorkville Ave. at a public meeting on Sept. 3, the community vocally informed company principal Peter Cohen it just wouldn't do. "It has a sort of institutional look ... the scale of the façade is wrong," Wookey said.

Cohen, for the second time, agreed to go back to the drawing board and make alterations to the design. He felt his firm had already tried to respect the scale of Yorkville by setting the building back 7.3 metres from the curb and incorporating lively retail, restaurants and bars at street level. Still, Cohen was willing to make more changes in an effort to appease the community. "We're hopeful that we'll obtain their support."

Cohen, 50, said he understands the emotional attachment some feel toward the Victorian row, especially those who came of age in the 1960s. "In my mid to late teens I saw Joan Baez at the Riverboat." But Cohen insists that the die was cast on the fate of the houses years ago because they weren't well maintained and are poor candidates for restoration. "If there was something to salvage, wouldn't I be salvaging it? I'm not this mad man who just says: `Tear it down.' "

But Sugarman is stubborn. After half a century protecting his beloved Yorkville, he remains intent on saving the Victorian row. He even found a brick manufacturer that can reproduce a close match to the houses' old Yorkville "white brick."

And Sugarman plans to ensure his building at 19 Hazelton Ave. will never be replaced by a high rise. Hazelton Ave., from Davenport Rd. to just north of Yorkville Ave., was recently designated as a heritage conservation district. But Sugarman wants more insurance. He plans to sell his air rights above his property. The transfer of air rights would allow someone to build higher at another location in the vicinity, but any future owner would forfeit the ability to add height on the site of Sugarman's property. "That would be my contribution to the city before I die."