Small shops and cafés will be able to open in some Toronto neighbourhoods
After much debate and some NIMBY resistance, city council voted in favour yesterday
Toronto city council voted yesterday to permit operation of small shops and cafés in some neighbourhoods.
The debate over small businesses tucked within residential areas intensified in recent weeks, with one particular clip making rounds on social media. In it, a Beaconsfield Village Residents Association member stated her opposition, noting that a church had to block off its steps due to impolite patrons. The residents association has cited concerns over litter and traffic congestion, particularly near Pizzeria Badiali on Dovercourt.
Related: Josh Matlow dreams of a Toronto without piles of hot garbage. Can it be done?
Parkdale-High Park councillor Gord Perks told reporters he considered the vote a victory for Toronto residents. “They’ll have access to services in their local neighbourhood, they won’t have to drive to get everything they need and they’ll get more vibrancy in their neighbourhood,” he said.
Wards where small shops will now be allowed are Davenport, Parkdale-High Park, Spadina-Fort York, Toronto-Danforth, Toronto-Centre, Toronto-St. Paul’s, University-Rosedale and Beaches-East York.
As excited as you may be about the prospect of picking up a latte close to home, businesses must meet certain criteria in order to be approved. The new policy says businesses can open on corner lots of community streets, in lots abutting a park or school that fronts onto the same street, or a lot abutting a lot that fronts the same street, and which has been zoned commercially.
Torontonians and GTA residents of the 905-variety: please don’t mess this up. Litter goes in the trash can, not on the sidewalk, and definitely not on church steps. Let’s try and have nice things, okay?
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
