Rosedale homeowners ordered to remove new brick wall after heritage dispute
A Rosedale homeowner is taking the city to court after council ordered the removal of a recently built masonry wall, citing breaches of the North Rosedale heritage plan.
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By Torontoer Staff
A Rosedale homeowner has launched a court challenge after Toronto City Council refused to let a large masonry garden wall remain. Council denied a bid to keep and complete the wall because it was built without the required heritage permissions in the North Rosedale Heritage Conservation District.
The dispute concerns 2 Whitney Avenue, a 1909 home above Whitney Park. The owners, who previously applied to the city's transportation department for an easement to add the wall and gates, say the work is landscaping and should not fall under heritage controls.
Timeline of permits and construction
- July 2023: Owners apply to Toronto's transportation department for an easement to build a brick wall and gates.
- May 2024: Toronto and East York Community Council approves the transportation-related request.
- Fall 2024: A permit related to the easement is issued and construction begins in October 2024.
- Late 2024: City staff intervene after noticing the work lacks a heritage permit; construction stops.
- July 2025: A retroactive heritage application is submitted.
- Earlier this year: Toronto City Council denies the owners' bid to keep and finish the masonry wall, prompting the homeowners to file a statement of claim.
Why heritage planners object
North Rosedale was designated a Heritage Conservation District in 2004 to protect its early-20th-century Garden Suburb design. Heritage staff argue the new wall, which rises more than two metres in places and features tall brick pillars, breaks with the district's defining characteristics. The original plan favours low, visually permeable boundaries to preserve sightlines and continuity between private yards and surrounding parkland. Planners say the solid barrier now facing the public realm interrupts those views.
What the homeowner says
There have been at least 33 communications submitted to the Toronto Preservation Board in support of the application. The comments are glowing and remark on the great lengths our clients have gone to in ensuring their landscape wall project is carried out in the style and character of their home and the broader neighbourhood.
Rodney Gill, lawyer for the homeowners
Lawyer Rodney Gill argues the Ontario Heritage Act should not apply to what the homeowners describe as landscaping work. He says the design was chosen to match the house and neighbourhood character, and that substantial community support was submitted to the Toronto Preservation Board.
Neighbours and the residents' association
In consultations with Heritage Planning, we have been advised that the proposed structure, which was erected on public lands subject to an encroachment agreement and without a heritage permit, does not comply with the North Rosedale Heritage Conservation District Plan.
North Rosedale Residents' Association
The association emphasises that the wall was built on lands subject to an encroachment agreement and did not have the required heritage approvals. Local residents and heritage planners have told the Toronto Preservation Board that allowing the wall to remain would set an undesirable precedent in a district defined by openness and continuity with parkland.
Legal issues and next steps
The homeowners' statement of claim challenges the city's position that the Ontario Heritage Act covers the landscaping work in question. The case will require the court to consider how the Act applies to boundary walls and similar landscape features within a designated heritage district, and whether the earlier approvals from transportation authorities affect the outcome.
- Core legal question: Does the Ontario Heritage Act apply to the wall as a heritage feature or is it exempt as landscaping?
- Procedural issue: Effect of the transportation easement and related permits issued before heritage staff intervened.
- Practical impact: Whether the wall must be removed, altered, or can remain with conditions.
Court filings are pending and the timeline for litigation has not been made public. The dispute highlights tensions that can arise when different parts of city government issue approvals that touch the same property, and when property improvements run up against heritage conservation rules.
For neighbours and heritage advocates, the outcome will affect how North Rosedale's character is preserved. For the homeowners, the proceeding will determine whether their work stands or must be taken down.
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