Disrupting 60 Years of History
Over the past 60 years, as Toronto expanded and the TTC extended the Bloor–Danforth line, one 825-meter stretch north of High Park remained unchanged. Thirteen houses from the 1910s still stand on a 1.5-acre (6,070 sq m) lot spared during subway construction, even as nearby land was expropriated for apartment buildings. Why?
Aerial photos have been taken of Toronto since 1947. The pictures above travel time from 1964 to 2025 and show the area bordered by Bloor Road to the south (High Park is just south of the road); Keele Street on the east; Clendenan Avenue to the west; and Glenlake Avenue to the north. The red rectangle is that small pocket of unchanged neighbourhood, as apartments were built all around it. The Keele Subway station can be seen from original construction to completion to the right of the rectangle.
A Neighbourhood by Design
LEFT OUT OF THE APARTMENT DESIGNS IN 2018
The High Park Apartment Neighborhood Area Urban Design Guidelines, by Toronto City Council in July 2018, aims to ensure new developments are sensitive to the area’s character, which features a ‘park-like’ setting with mature trees and generous open space. Key guidelines include respecting the balance between built form and landscape, maintaining setbacks and open space, and transitioning building scale down to adjacent, lower-scale neighbourhoods. Developments must also minimize negative impacts like shadows and wind and be compatible with the existing ‘’tower in the park’ character while respecting adjacent ‘neighborhoods’. The Mountview/Oakmount channel (the dark red rectangle) is classified as ‘neighborhoods’ and remains intact since 1966. Why?
TORONTO OFFICIAL PLAN
In the Official City 2025 Plan, the City of Toronto sets out its goals, objectives and policies to manage and direct physical change and its effects on the social, economic, built and natural environment. This map is from the June 2025 plan. The inset neighbourhood zone right next to the apartments (black rectangle) remains. In the city plan the High Park Apartment Neighbourhood is referred to as Site 551. The long list of guidelines for this area starts on Page 41 - Chapter 7.
