When getting a D in school is actually a good thing

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1:40 pm

Canadian sitcoms are a rare and endangered species. Expensive to make and often a win-or-lose proposition, the very existence of a new one is a small victory for comedy fans.

CBC’s new entry in the field is Mr. D, starring Toronto’s Gerry Dee. He’s a pretty good gamble as these things go: he’s good-looking, respectable, mainstream, with a background in teaching and sports. You can see how executives could drool at the package.

Dee comes with over a decade of stand-up experience and his own fan base — an actual fan base, not the Facebook kind. He’s one of the few Canadian acts that can sell out mid-sized theatres across the country.

Dee has come close to making it in the United States a couple of times. First, as a Star Search winner and then as a finalist on NBC’s Last Comic Standing. He did humorous sports commentary on The Score, and paid his acting dues in films such as The Trailer Park Boys Movie.

The show Mr. D gets its inspiration from Dee’s former life as a teacher and sports coach at Toronto’s De La Salle College. When I heard the show was in development, I heaved a small groan, thinking that kind of show had been done to death. But the show is a departure from its predecessors such as Welcome Back, Kotter. It’s more interested in the relationships among the teachers and their internal politics than the interplay between teachers and students. The obvious warm and fuzzy lessons are (thankfully) absent. The show is shot in that single camera set-up pioneered by The Office. And although I wouldn’t call it edgy, it has an absurd quality to it that makes it a little different than most other Canadian sitcoms.

After watching the first four episodes, I’m impressed with what the show wants to be. Like The Office, it’s a study in institutional incompetence, only this time it’s a high school. However, I did find it a bit ridiculous that just about every teacher and administrator, including Dee himself, is a lazy buffoon.

Dee surrounds himself with a big cast that may get whittled down as certain characters catch on and others don’t. His romantic interest, a fellow teacher, is ably played by Lauren Hammersley, with a dreamy quality reminiscent of a Gwyneth Paltrow. Of course, Dee is clueless about any potential romance. I also like Darrin Rose as Dee’s best buddy outside the school. His line readings are effortless, and he brings a lanky physical grace to the role. And any television show that has the good sense to cast improv greats Bette MacDonald and Naomi Snieckus gets automatic kudos in my book.

A more conventional way to play the story would be to have Dee as the sane one amidst all the chaos. This tends to be the way his stand-up acts work — “nice guy” Dee in a world that often baffles him with its incongruities. But Dee took a big risk in presenting himself as a slacker doofus, and you have to respect that.

But the show still needs work. Dee sometimes veers from meaningfully absurd to downright silly. The dialogue should be a lot crisper. And there are just too many characters right now.

All of this may change as the show finds its legs. Even the first episodes of Seinfeld had problems.

Mr. D is meant to be a family show, but it has an anarchic side that no one will let out. And maybe that’s why I’m not laughing. But I am watching.

Post City Magazines’ humour columnist, Mark Breslin, is the founder of Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs and the author of several books, including Control Freaked.

Toronto’s Best Cannoli

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Alana Alvarez

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1:40 pm

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Not all cannoli are created equal: from the disappointingly soggy to the delectably crispy and creamy, Italo-Canadian Rob Gentile sorts the best from the rest and declares a winner.

WINNER: Pastry Perfection!

NORTH POLE BAKERY, 1210 Danforth Avenue

“This one looks most authentic,” the enthusiastic chef says before even tasting any cannoli. When he takes a bite, he can’t help but smile. “Number one, hands down,” he says. “It’s fresh, you can taste the ricotta, the shell is properly cooked.”
Price: $2
https://g.co/maps/uzkfe

A fresh take

TRE MARI BAKERY, 1311 St. Clair Avenue West

Tre Mari’s cream cannoli garners the runner-up title even though, as Gentile explains, it is not in the traditional Sicilian style, which he prefers. “The pastry cream is fresh, shell is fresh. It’s properly piped and crunchy and tasty.”
Price: $1.95
https://tremaribakery.ca/

Oil spoil

RIVIERA BAKERY, 576 College Street

Our judge studies this cannoli for a while, taking a few bites before saying anything. He likes the filling, which he speculates has citrus zest in it, but “can taste the fryer oil in the shell.” He’s disappointed, claiming it would have won otherwise.
Price: $2.75
https://g.co/maps/hqxpu

Half full

SANREMO BAKERY, 374 Royal York Road

Although Gentile enjoyed Tre Mari’s cream cannoli, he’s less impressed with this similar-looking version from SanRemo. “Traditional cannoli should be made with ricotta. This one is pastry cream. And it’s lacking on the filling.”
Price: $2.50
https://www.sanremobakery.com/

Falling apart

MAD ITALIAN GELATO BAR, 1581 Bayview Avenue

“The shell is soft and it’s not really filled properly. You can tell it was filled ahead of time, and now the shell has taken the moisture from the cheese. See how it comes apart so easily?” the chef says, pulling the soggy pastry from the ricotta.
Price: $3.75
https://maditalian.ca/

Soft touch

COMMISSO BROTHERS BAKERY, 8 Kincort Street

When the amicable chef takes a bite of a cannoli from Commisso Brothers, the shell immediately collapses. “When I push on it, it’s doughy,” he says, demonstrating. He puts it down and moves on, with high hopes for the next pastry.
Price: $1.25
https://www.commissobakery.com/

Choco-licious

NINO D’AVERSA BAKERY, 1 Toro Road

“This one looks familiar,” Gentile says with a boyish smile. But after going in for a bite, he is once again disappointed by a soft shell. He does, however, enjoy the filling in Nino D’Aversa’s cannoli, which includes morsels of chocolate.
Price: $2.25
https://g.co/maps/9kjrr

On a roll

ST. PHILLIPS BAKERY, 5100 Rutherford Road

“This is good,” Gentile says, digging a fork into the inside of the roll for a taste of the ricotta cream. But like many others, this cannoli has a soft shell, indicating it was filled ahead of time rather than made to order.
Price: $1.65
https://www.stphillipsbakery.com/

Target hits the mark with local businessman

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1:39 pm

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A settlement was recently reached in the long-standing naming rights dispute between local businessman Isaac Benitah’s group of clothing companies and American retail giant Target. It came a year before Target is expected to expand into Canada, with its first stores slated to open in spring of 2013.

Benitah is the man behind Fairweather Ltd., International Clothiers Inc. and Les Ailes De La Mode Inc. The issue dates back nearly a decade when he first acquired the trademark for “Target Apparel” in Canada. What followed was a protracted legal battle that apparently didn’t resolve the issue.

In 2011, with the American retail giant readying to come to Canada, Benitah filed for damages and an injunction to prevent it from using “Target” here. The recently announced settlement will see Benitah cease to use the name by Jan. 31, 2013, according to a press release from Target.

“This agreement will eliminate any potential confusion among Canadian consumers regarding Target Corporation’s branding elements, store experience and merchandise assortments as it opens its first stores in Canada in 2013,” the press release stated.

The latest in consulting services: baby naming

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1:38 pm

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We hire personal shoppers for clothes, decorators for furniture and trainers to keep us in shape. It seems like you can find an expert for pretty much anything — even helping to choose a baby name, as I found out.

Baby-naming consultants are on the way to Toronto, but they are already doing a whizbang business in trend-setting cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

Pregnant with my second child, I didn’t want to have the arguments over choosing a baby name. The first time around, when I wanted to name my daughter Apple, everyone laughed (this was before Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple). This time around, I’m having a boy, and I already know the name I want.

But that hasn’t slowed the daily bouts of second-guessing followed by scouring baby name websites.

“More people need a baby-name consultant than they think,” says Laura Wattenberg, author of The Baby Name Wizard, an in-depth field guide to baby names and the founder of the website Babynamewizard.com.

Based in Massachusetts, she’s created a database of thousands of names and hand-coded each to reflect cultural associations and linguistic origins, noting how often a name appears in the bible, TV shows or in birth announcements. She’s spent the past 10 years studying names to help parents and to understand what name trends tell us about our society.

Although hiring a baby-naming consultant, she says, is not the societal norm, by the time people come to her, they are in deep trouble. “Usually it’s due to a marital conflict over the name,” she explains. “Or they think they can’t come up with a name, that it’s an unsolvable problem because each parent is trying to honour someone in their family.”

Names, she says, are really complicated. “We’re all really bad at understanding why we like a name or understanding what the name we chose can mean,” she says. “If we were good at knowing why we liked something then it wouldn’t be so difficult.”

Basically, she says, people choose names based on what they like, but they have no idea why they like a name, except for that it sounds “strong.”

“A baby-naming consultant is not as crazy as it sounds,” she says, after I tell her that two people thought I was insane for talking to a baby-naming consultant. “What? Are people idiots?” asked one. “They can’t come up with their own name for their baby?”

“We care a lot about what we name our child. The name will represent your children for the rest of their lives. People think nothing about hiring someone to decorate a nursery that the baby will use for two years.”

One of the things soon-to-be parents are looking for in names these days are names that haven’t been common in the last 70 years, and nowadays, she says, people are “all about vowels.” When it comes to boys, she says there’s a rise in one-syllable boy names. When I tell her the name I’ve chosen for my baby (Holt — honouring family members), she says it fits perfectly with this trend and also that it has “pure, masculine punch.”

She also says that it’s not easier coming up with a second or third baby name. In fact, it can be even more difficult. “Parents want to be fair. They want to know that they are treating all their children the same and that begins with names. So if you have two girls with pretty or feminine names, they want to know if it’s OK to give their third girl a more androgynous name.”

Another trend relates to people keeping the same first initial for their children. “In the past, people used to match siblings by themes, like flower names. So you’d have a Lily and a Rose. But now they are focused on initials. It shows how much names are more a matter of fashion than a matter of tradition.”

She won’t divulge clients’ names or how much she charges, but she will say her clients usually do insist on privacy.

In recent years, she says, some celebrities have gotten it right and picked names that have “really struck a chord” with her, including Angelina Jolie’s son Maddox and Gwen Stefani’s son Kingston. She also likes the names Seraphina and Violet, the names of Jennifer Gardner and Ben Affleck’s girls.

“Someone came to me a few years ago, frantic. She had ‘Shiloh’ as a chosen name for her daughter, but then Jolie used it. This woman was like, ‘Now we can’t use it!’ and wanted my help. I came up with ‘Harlow,’ and they loved it and had never heard of it. Sure enough, then Nicole Ritchie named her daughter Harlow.”

What’s also cool about getting a baby-naming consultant is that they have statistics at their fingertips. She types in “Holt” for me and tells me that only 52 boys were named Holt in the United States last year. But do not even think about using my name!

Post City Magazines’ columnist Rebecca Eckler is the author of Knocked Up, Wiped!, and her latest books, How to Raise a Boyfriend and The Lucky Sperm Club.

To OMB or not to OMB, that is the question

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1:37 pm

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With all the confusion about political direction at city hall, one wonders whether less oversight of city council decisions makes sense.

In February city council voted overwhelmingly to ask the province to remove the city from the control of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). The OMB is a provincially appointed panel that developers and citizens appeal to when they are unhappy with city planning decisions. It reviews a lot of decisions made by council: last year it heard 121 cases that originated in Toronto. Many times the OMB overruled city council, a few times to the delight of citizens but mostly to the delight of developers.

It seems odd that a body appointed by another level of government is able to so easily overrule locally elected politicians. No body similar to the OMB exists anywhere else in Canada, and city council, administering the sixth largest annual budget in the country, wants change.

Even odder is the way the OMB makes decisions. In the judicial system, the Appeal Court never holds a new hearing but instead confines itself to whether the trial process was fair, adhering to well-established rules about evidence and the right to be heard and to the interpretation of law as it applies to the facts of the specific case. If the process wasn’t fair, the Appeal Court often orders a new trial. Trial decisions can be upset if the Appeal Court comes to a different conclusion than the trial judge about the interpretation of law.

When the OMB hears an appeal, it starts from scratch. It holds its own hearing and then makes a decision about what it thinks is good planning. There’s no agreement about what constitutes good planning and there’s precious little law to guide the OMB on anything it does. In essence, there’s no real way of holding the OMB to account to anything. Most members of the OMB are not lawyers although there’s no reason to think lawyers are capable of making better decisions on city business than anyone else.

Those are all strong arguments about the challenge the OMB poses to city council. But, argue some resident groups, if there is no OMB, how do we challenge city council when it pays no attention to its official plan (the document from Ontario’s Planning Act that council is required to enforce).

Toronto City Council treats its official plan with distain, amending it eight or 10 times every single council meeting.

Many residents think developers have undue influence on councillors, either because of campaign contributions or because of a penchant to favour growth above intelligent decisions, or the desire to snag free money from a development under Section 37 of the Planning Act, which allows city council to demand money in return for more development density.

Or, say some developers, where do we go when city council turns down a development proposal that’s good for the city but is opposed by a few local residents? The main trade group, the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) argues in favour of the OMB, saying it is an “impartial adjudicative tribunal, further removed from local political pressures.” Fairness seems to be in the eye of the beholder, or rather the victor at the OMB, which is often the developer.

The city’s case for being extracted from OMB oversight would be strengthened if the city engaged in strong land use planning, if it adopted a realistic official plan providing guidance to developers and residents, so everyone knew what to expect.

Appropriate development is something that’s good for the city, but we need a plan that says what’s appropriate where, and that’s something the city does not have and apparently has no desire to create.

We need a plan that won’t be amended more than once or twice a year. Once we have that, oversight by the OMB will not be needed. Until then, it’s unlikely the province will agree to let city council’s land use decisions stand without a review process.

Post City Magazines’ columnist John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto and the author of a number of urban planning books, including The Shape of Suburbs.

Historic church site to see 27-storey tower

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1:32 pm

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In a departure from the typical development story, plans for a 27-storey tower, six townhouses and the adaptive reuse of a heritage-designated landmark recently sailed through Toronto and East York Community Council with support from planning staff. The front part of the historic Deer Park United Church will be preserved and likely put to retail use, the middle section will see the roof removed and the space transformed into a publicly accessible courtyard and the Sunday school wing at the south end will be demolished to make way for the tower.

The community-endorsed plan came after months of discussions between the developer, local councillor and residents. Concessions included shifting the condo building closer to St. Clair Avenue and reducing its height by seven storeys. A key feature of the successful application is the provision of the public courtyard.

Deer Park United Church’s presence in the Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue area can be traced back to the late 1800s, making it the oldest church still standing in the neighbourhood. The current neo-gothic structure was completed in 1912.

Coun. Josh Matlow said that, although he would have preferred to see the local landmark remain undeveloped, he supports the revised plans.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a policy that has, in my view, the teeth that we need to actually protect heritage-designated buildings in their entirety and have public resources available to keep them in good repair,” Matlow said.

Paul Le Vay, president of the Foxbar Neighbourhood Association, said that, at first, it was difficult for residents to accept that a heritage designation didn’t afford the church full protection from redevelopment.

But, he said, “From our perspective, this best maintains the original spirit of the building as a community gathering place.”

Provided the plans are approved at the March 5 Toronto City Council meeting, construction is expected to begin in spring of 2013.

Councillor drafts plan to purchase DDO lands

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1:32 pm

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In the midst of the ongoing battle between developers and defenders of the David Dunlap Observatory (DDO), one Richmond Hill councillor has drafted a plan that would save the land from development.

“I have always stated that, if this council wants to provide a level of protection that keeps all development off observatory lands, the town must own them,” Coun. Carmine Perrelli said. “We should not leave the decision to the Ontario Municipal Board [OMB],” he added.

In a post on the councillor’s website, Perrelli explains the lands would cost the town about $70 million, which could be purchased with the town’s “parkland cash-in-lieu” funds.These funds are paid to the town from developers, who provide cash instead of the land for a park.

While Perrelli would like to see a central park instead of a development on the lands, Mayor Dave Barrow is skeptical.

“Council has never ever dealt with purchasing the lands,” Barrow said. “There has to be a willing seller, and as far as I know, there’s not.”

The DDO lands, purchased by Corsica Development Inc., have been at the centre of a fight at the OMB. The fourth round of mediation is slated for March 9.

Buttonville airport’s secondary plans revealed

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1:32 pm

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Secondary plans for the Buttonville airport lands were put forward recently, revealing details of the master plan for the soon-to-be-built employment district.

In a report presented to Markham councillors late last year, planner Don Given outlined details of the proposal, which include a mixed development with office, retail and residential buildings.

Formerly the largest privately owned airport in Canada, Buttonville is now jointly owned by Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd. and Toronto Airways Ltd., headed up by the original owners, the Sifton family.

“The secondary plan application changes the permitted use,” said Finley McEwan, vice-president of development at Cadillac Fairview. “So we will be asking height limits to be lifted. Our current thinking is that there should be no height limit, but if there was a height limit, it should be very high.”

McEwan added the proposal includes a signature landmark tower, reaching 50 to 60 storeys. The proposal also states the next tallest building would be between six and eight storeys. Derek Sifton, president of Toronto Airways, added that the airport is expected to close in 2013, with construction of buildings slated for 2015.

Canada not Short on talent

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1:31 pm

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Martin Short’s got talent. Over a career spanning four decades in show business, the iconic Canadian comedic actor is now taking his experience and legendary charisma to the judges’ table on the first season of Canada’s Got Talent, premiering on Citytv March 4.

He says the show’s judges — including opera singer Measha Brueggergosman and musician Stephan Moccio — have been constructive rather than cruel, which is a departure from the norm established by other famous reality star judges in the United States.

“It’s a celebration of talent,” Short says about the show. “No one has been caustic or mean — that doesn’t play in Canada.”

Short, who has already been on a cross-Canada tour auditioning performers, says that much of the talent has actually been deserving of accolades.

“They’ve been very, very impressive,” Short says.

The production itself is in the format of a talent show with performers competing for a grand prize of $100,000 and a booked gig at a Las Vegas venue. (The show’s U.S. counterpart, America’s Got Talent, is currently in its seventh season.)

Short, his co-judges and the show’s producers have hand-picked the talent up until now. Once the show debuts, the winner will be determined in Toronto by audience votes.

As a performer with a long and varied career that includes stints on Broadway, his own TV comedy specials, a turn as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and, of course, the legendary Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television (SCTV), Short is the perfect mentor for young Canadian hopefuls starting out.

He has created some unforgettable comic characters including the hyperactive, cowlick-sporting nerd Ed Grimley and the forgetful TV interviewer Jiminy Glick.

He has also appeared in classic Hollywood hits like Three Amigos, Mars Attacks! and Father of the Bride as the world’s most fabulous wedding planner, Franck.

Of his own career, Short says that being able to mix it up by tackling theatre roles, TV and film has helped him to achieve longevity.

“If you’re versatile, then you can have a more eclectic career,” he says. Plus, Short says, taking on roles through different media has meant that he stays stimulated and motivated within the business.

“It’s always better at the end of the year to be able to say, ‘I’ve done TV, a movie and concerts.…’ It makes it more interesting for you as an actor.”

He says he also has never gotten caught up in any ideals about what he wanted to achieve in the industry. Certainly when he was starting out, becoming a celebrity was the furthest thing from his mind.

“If you win a Tony Award, you know it wasn’t for anyone editing your performance.”

While majoring in pre-med and social work at McMaster University, Short acted in plays but didn’t harbour any dreams of a career in show business.

“None of it seemed realistic to me,” Short says. It was fellow comedian and SCTV alum Eugene Levy, also a student at McMaster, who encouraged Short to give acting a shot.

“He said, ‘You have so much talent you should try it,’ and then I had this idea if I looked in the mirror at 50, I didn’t want to say, ‘You should have taken a chance on becoming an actor,’ ” Short says.

At 21, he auditioned for a role in the musical Godspell and ended up performing with surely one of the most talented young casts ever seen in a local production, including Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin and Paul Shaffer.

“It was a tremendous first step in show business,” Short says. “It was the hip thing at the time, and everyone wanted it.”

Asked what he did to stand out in his audition among the other hopefuls, Short remains perplexed to this day but says he sang “My Funny Valentine” “Sinatra-esque” and had long hair.

While his rendition of the Chet Baker classic may have helped, it could have also been his trademark bright energy that, to this day, commands an audience.

Despite having had a big break, Short says he kept himself in check. Throughout his early days as a performer, he made a contract with himself that he would reassess his situation annually to decide if he should continue trying for another year.

“I didn’t want to be a 29-year-old guy who was broke,” he explains.

Living year-to-year on personal “contracts,” Short never could have predicted the success he would find as his career grew.

Short was the youngest of five children in an Irish Catholic family, which he says has influenced his identity as a performer.

“Being the youngest, you’re certainly picked up and nurtured,” he says. “The youngest gets spoiled — they’re the best — and that kind of confidence helps when you’re out there performing.

“I also come from a very, very funny family,” he adds.

Short’s introduction to any kind of performance came through his mother, the first female concert master of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, whom he would watch rehearse.

After graduating from McMaster, the actor remained based in Toronto until work demands took him to the States.

“I love Toronto,” says the actor. “I lived there from age 21 until 36 .… I’ve made movies there and TV shows, and I have a lot of friends there. It’s been a huge part of my life.”

Short also spends time at his cottage in Muskoka. He has three adult children. His wife of 30 years, Nancy Dolman, whom he met as a fellow cast member in the production of Godspell, passed away in 2010. Now based in Los Angeles, Short continues to take on roles that offer him different and challenging experiences.

He recently had a recurring guest role on the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as a devious attorney in the FX channel’s legal thriller Damages. He has also continued to tour his one-man show, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me.

Of his many successes, Short takes special pride in winning a Tony Award for best actor in a musical in the Broadway production of Little Me (1999). “At end of day, if you win a Tony Award, you know it wasn’t for anyone editing your performance,” says Short.

So with the live portion of Canada’s Got Talent set to air, what would Short say to a young performer looking to be a star in show business?

“A star is a different idea. It’s tied to luck and endurance,” Short says. “Talent is part of it but not necessarily all of it.”

Locals pay it forward for a personal cause

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1:31 pm

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A recent gift from radio mogul Allan Slaight and his wife, Emmanuelle Gattuso, as well as Gary and Donna Slaight brought the local family’s contributions to the Gattuso Rapid Diagnostic Centre, a one-day breast cancer diagnosis program at Princess Margaret Hospital, up to $20 million and closed the remaining gap in the $25 million campaign.

Spearheaded by Dr. David McCready, head of the breast cancer program at Princess Margaret Hospital, the program was designed to eliminate the stress patients would endure, waiting anywhere from five to eight weeks to receive results. He has reduced the wait to one day, which includes a physical exam, mammogram, ultrasound and tissue biopsy, followed by results.

The centre will be open five days a week beginning in May, and it may be expanded to the diagnosis of lung and pancreatic cancers. Gattuso, a cancer survivor, said she burst into tears when she received the cheque for the final donation.

“Allan, Gary, Donna and I are so proud to have been able to help turn a brilliant idea into something that is helping change the lives of a great number of patients diagnosed with breast cancer,” she said.

City to recognize home of Canada’s first female MP

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1:30 pm

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Toronto City Council recently gave notice of its intent to designate as heritage 720 Millwood Rd., the former residence of Canada’s first elected female member of Parliament, Agnes Macphail. It’s a move that came despite the current homeowner’s opposition and a recommendation from North York Community Council to simply receive a report on the home’s historic significance.

The issue dates back to 2001, when the East York local architectural conservation advisory committee panel first recommended the designation. Then-councillor Jane Pitfield held a meeting that led to a compromise between the homeowner and those interested in seeing the property’s significance formally recognized. In place of a heritage designation, the homeowner agreed to install a plaque noting that Agnes Macphail had lived in the home.

More than a decade later, with the plaque never installed, the issue was resurrected.

Coun. John Parker said he doesn’t dispute the fact that the property meets all three criteria for being formally recognized as heritage, but he couldn’t support the move without the homeowner’s support.

“I think you proceed with the settlement,” Parker said. “And if you’re going to deviate from the settlement, I think it’s best that everyone is in agreement with the new proposal — that you don’t proceed in opposition to the person with the most at stake in the whole matter.”

Lorna Krawchuk, chair of the Agnes Macphail recognition committee, was pleased to see the heritage designation move forward. Macphail only lived in the home for a couple of years, but it may well be the only home she ever owned herself, Krawchuk explained.

According to a staff report, the modern duplex, built in 1937, is quite unique to the Leaside area. Agnes Macphail owned the home for six years, between 1948 and 1954. A designation would give the city the power to reject applications that would tarnish the home’s heritage features.

Having owned the home for 20 years, Laura Simmons is upset about the way the process went. She had asked for a postponement of the matter due to a death in the family and planned travel, which was not granted. She has further concerns about how the designation will impact her and her husband. Simmons has heard varying accounts as to whether the designation would raise or lower the value of her home.

“We’ve made it very clear that we were against this,” Simmons said. “The North York council did not support it; no one expected it to breeze through council.” The Simmons are now looking at filing an appeal.

Landlord takes tenants back to court this month

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An ongoing dispute between the tenants of 330 Spadina Rd. and landlord First Ontario Realty Corporation will be heard in court on March 19. First Ontario Realty Corporation has appealed a 2010 decision of the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board that awarded a number of tenants rent abatements for loss of enjoyment of their units during the construction of the adjacent Churchill Park condos.

In response, the tenants have filed a counter appeal. According to their lawyer, Richard Fink, the 14-storey condo building was built 30 metres to the north of the luxury apartment building, by a sister corporation of the landlord.

He said the suffering caused by this included problems with access to the building, dust and noise. For those facing the 14-storey condo building, there is the additional permanent loss of view.

“They used to look off at landscape, the parking lot, other buildings, trees,” he said. “Now they’re seeing what their neighbour’s eating for breakfast.”

A representative of First Ontario Realty Corporation declined to comment on the matter while it’s before the courts.

In the appeal filing, the landlord challenges that the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board has the jurisdiction under the Residential Tenancies Act to hold it liable for inconvenience and loss of view to the tenants resulting from lawful, authorized development activity occurring on lands that are not part of the apartment residence and that it doesn’t own.