Ontario’s housing minister may nix a development over a pharmaceutical company’s concerns
Sanofi Pasteur representatives say the proposed high-rise project would be a security risk
A proposed rental development near Dufferin and Steeles may fall apart due to opposition from a neighbouring pharmaceutical company.
The possibility of a new three-building high-rise project comes as housing advocates and the province agree on the need for more housing in Toronto. But pushback has come from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of a multinational pharmaceutical company, which is located nearby.
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According to the CBC, since 2022, the company has argued that “there’s a national security risk, having hundreds of residents able to look down on its facilities, where vaccine research and development takes place.”
Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade, recently asked Rob Flack, the province’s housing minister, to issue a minister’s zoning order and cap the proposal’s height at 33 metres as opposed to Tenblock’s intended 133 metres.
“The site needs the density of market housing to help pay for and make the whole project viable together,” Stephen Job, vice-president of the building development company Tenblock, told the CBC. “So we just can’t proceed at that reduced height.” Tenblock’s project would create around 800 new rental units.
Tenblock hired a security expert, Andrew Chester, to assess the level of risk. He told the CBC that, while potential spying is a threat, that there are ways to reduce this, such as covering the windows and holding sensitive meetings in rooms not visible from the outside.
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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.
