4 years after Toronto bought land to honour heritage oak, residents still waiting for promised parkette
The city bought the suburban property at 76 Coral Gable Dr. in 2021 with the intention of demolishing a bungalow that sits on the 700-square metre lot and transforming the property into a parkette showcasing the tree. Estimated to be at least 250 years old and at about 24 metres tall, it towers over other trees in its Sheppard-Weston Road neighbourhood, about 300 metres from the Humber River.
Construction had been scheduled to begin on the parkette in 2022 but the local councillor, Anthony Perruzza, told CBC Toronto the project has been hampered by a series of unforeseen delays.
"I'm absolutely appalled," said Edith George, who lives around the corner from the tree and who has been campaigning to preserve the red oak for more than 20 years.
"I'm not getting any younger and I want to see a parkette finished."
Perruzza hopes to see shovels in the ground by the end of the year, but as yet, says "there's no commitment to an opening day for the parkette."
That's frustrating to people who live in the area and who campaigned to help raise about half the property's $860,000 purchase price back in 2020 — a condition city councillors insisted had to be fulfilled for the city to buy the property and turn it into a parkette.
Perruzza told CBC Toronto that when the city bought the property in late 2021, staff didn't realize there were tenants living in the house.
Demolition work couldn't start until they moved out, which happened about two years ago, according to George.
Roots and branches nearly envelop house
Then there were bureaucratic snags with the demolition permit. Perruzza pointed out that city rules dictate a demolition permit can't be issued until a property owner — in this case the city — has presented a plan for the property's future development.
Although a contractor has been hired, Perruzza says demolition can't start until the city has a design for the parkette. That still hasn't happened and won't until the landscape designer has been hired and has finalized a concept, in conjunction with members of the public.
That work is expected to happen this summer, according to the city's website, although the page also warns "this timeline is subject to change."
Once a demolition permit is issued, removing the structure won't be simple, Perruzza said, because the oak is only about a metre from the house. Its roots and branches virtually envelop the structure.
"This isn't a place you can come into and tear down with machinery," he said. "People have to come in here and, by hand, remove it brick by brick and piece by piece."
'Living history'
Alice Casselman, 87, a retired teacher and an environmental educator, helped with the fundraising campaign. She says she understands that park projects take time, but "bureaucracy should not take this long.
"This parkette would be a fine statement of how we protect our heritage."
Trevor Comer, a neighbourhood resident of Métis heritage, says the tree was a well-known wayfinding marker for both European explorers and Indigenous people as they travelled the nearby Humber River.
"It's living history," Comer told CBC Toronto. He called the delays "disheartening."
"We know things take time, but it's been a while."
Judy Fricker, who's lived in the neighbourhood for 37 years, agreed.
"It's very important to honour our past and to have something positive happening in our neighbourhood," she said. "The delays are such a disappointment."
City staff told CBC Toronto in an email they "will develop a detailed tree protection plan for the demolition process. The City is considering the health and protection of the heritage oak tree at every stage of the process."
Perruzza said he hopes that by the end of this year, the house will have been removed and the property graded, so the future parkette — and the red oak — will at least be accessible to the public.
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