It’s easy to think that you can’t win at City Hall – or the OLT – but ABC’s recent victory at the Ontario Land Tribunal is proof that opposing inappropriate developments and continuing to believe in the power of communities to shape the city of Toronto is worth the effort.
The proposed 39-storey condo development for 69 Yorkville Avenue was opposed by the City of Toronto and ABC, and when the developer appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, the development was rejected in a ruling issued November 10, 2025. The initial proposal for the site in 2021 called for a 29-storey building, which the City rejected as too tall. In 2024, the developer submitted a revised plan for the site increasing the height of the building by another 10 storeys. The City’s development policies call for a maximum of 4 storeys on Yorkville’s interior streets, recognizing that the area is unique and worth preserving.
“No amount of massing refinements and architectural design can cure the fundamental flaw with respect to the 39-storey height of the Proposed Development, which does not conform to the City’s OP, the Downtown Plan, and the SASP 211*. Although there is a broad provincial policy which is supportive of intensification, this does not confer an unfettered right to height.”
~ Jean-Pierre Blais, Vice Chair of the Ontario Land Tribunal
Excerpts from Vice Chair Blais’s full decision (below):
Conclusion:
[50] The Tribunal finds that the Proposed Development, the OPA and the ZBA do not conform to the City’s OP, do not represent good land use planning, and are not in the public interest.
[51] From a land use policy and planning perspective, the Village of Yorkville has long been recognized as a distinctive district within the City’s downtown area. The Village of Yorkville is unique and has been expressly protected by policy, including under the Downtown Plan and the SASP 211.
Properly read as a whole, those OP policies provide a planning framework that allows tall buildings and intensification at the edges of the Village of Yorkville, while preserving its core as low-rise, based on delineations set out in the mapping of the SASP 211.The Subject Property is on the edge of the Village of Yorkville, but it is undeniably within the low-rise area. The Applicant’s submissions amount to an invitation for the Tribunal to disregard the City’s policy framework when conformity there with is legislatively required. The Tribunal declines that invitation. 17 OLT-23-000218
Order
[52] THE TRIBUNAL ORDERS that the appeals are dismissed, and that the requested amendments to the Official Plan for the City of Toronto and to By-law No. 560-2013 are refused.
*Site and Area Specific Policies
