The city approved a Rosedale family’s construction plan, then changed its mind a month later
This sounds like a you problem, transportation department and preservation planners
A Rosedale family is challenging the city in court after being ordered to tear down a wall they built around their property, less than a year after the city approved their plans to put it up.
According to CBC, the McGrath family followed the rules by applying for an easement with Toronto’s transportation department. They wanted to build an exterior wall, as well as security gates, at their Glen Road and Whitney Avenue home.
The McGraths live in a designated heritage neighbourhood, and a month after one city department approved their proposal, preservation planners found out about it and disagreed. The family was told the wall now needs to come down.
Related: “We wanted to cut down two trees to build two homes. The city was not pleased”
“This was not a case of a homeowner making renovations in contravention or defiance of city by-laws or codes. It is the opposite,” Matthew McGrath, the homeowner, wrote in an email to CBC. The McGraths have asked the court to allow the wall to stay, and are seeking reimbursement of their legal fees.
“The city is a hydra with many heads, and a lot of times those heads don’t communicate with one another,” Alan Preyra, a lawyer specializing in municipal law, told CBC. “It’s very hard on citizens, especially when they follow the process as directed.”
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.
