Harbourfront Etc., Toronto’S Harbourfront

Harbourfront etc., Toronto’s Harbourfront • Another landscape shaped by power • We will focus on its most conspicuous developers • Huang & Danczkay Huang & Danczkay • Engineering & development partnership of Michael Huang and Bela Danczkay • Spent the 1970s developing a business as a multiple-unit residential builder in Ontario • Had built 3000+ units by 1984 • Early 1980s entered the Toronto Market Huang & Danczkay • Used their engineering skills to redesign apartment construction • Reputation for lean, mean, no-frills buildings, on-time and on-budget Toronto Harbourfront • Pierre Trudeau offers Harbourfront as a gift to Toronto during the 1972 election • Industrial waterfront land to become an urban park with cultural programming • Will mostly have to self-finance its programme from its own real estate • By the early 1980s: forced to seek revenue by selling land to developers to build high-rises Huang & Danczkay • Become key players in Harbourfront’s high rise construction. • 1983 H&D’s HarbourPoint development begins with three 19-storey residential condo towers • The first large downtown condo buildings in Toronto • Phase 1 sells out in 3 days, • Proceed to pre-sell phase 2 HarbourPoint • Economical with innovative engineering • Panned by the critics • Construction begins Nov 1984 without a building permit "cheap and ugly … the "architectural equivalent of a black hole" --Christopher Hume, Toronto Star HarbourPoint • Turns Harbourfront into Manhattan • David Lewis Stein, Toronto Star • The words Huang & Danzckay "conjure up a picture of bad buildings“ • Alderman Tony O'Donaghue How did H&D get the contract? • H&D take advantage of political connections to get funds and permits • Hired Liberal lobbyist Ivan Fleischmann to promote their schemes • Whose girlfriend was secretary to Don Smith How did H&D get the contract? • Don Smith: London construction tycoon, principal in EllisDon, builder of Skydome, key Ontario Liberal Fundraiser • Ontario Liberal Party chairman • Key fundraiser and architect of the 1985 and 1987 Ontario Liberal election successes • A recent EllisDon project: Toronto’s Bay-Adelaide Centre Liberals coming to Power • Conservatives in office for 40 years in Ontario to 1985 • 1985-87 David Peterson leads a Liberal minority government aided by NDP • Thanks to Don Smith’s organizing, financing • David Peterson, Ontario Premier 1985-1990 • Alvin Curling, Ontario Housing Minister 1985-87 Maple Leaf Quay • 1986 Fleischmann’s girlfriend runs fundraisers for Liberal housing minister Alvin Curling • Fleischmann gets Curling to agree to $3.5 M in construction loans for Huang & Danczkay’s planned Maple Leaf Quay development on Harbourfront Maple Leaf Quay • The $3.5 M construction loan was for ‘convert-to-rent’ • H&D instead spend the money on demolishing the Maple Leaf silos on Harbourfront and the construction of two 21-storey towers • Embarrassed Curling, Peterson • Peterson spends 4 days avoiding media questions Maple Leaf Quay • H&D proceed to build Maple Leaf Quay without a building permit, soon reaches 7 storeys • City allows foundations to be laid, but says that after that they have to stop • Will penalise H&D $1 M if they don’t stop Maple Leaf Quay • But H&D continue construction without a permit • City eventually collects its $1 M penalty • But H&D negotiate it down to $125,000 Maple Leaf Quay • Sloppy construction safety kills a worker • No children’s playgrounds, one tiny windowless “community room” per building • Fills up with families without schools, community facilities • H&D jack up the rents by 30% after 1990 H&D at Harbourfront • Become the key developers of Harbourfront high-rises in the 1980s • Accused of political meddling • Accused of bending & breaching rules, gouging tenants Harbourfront • Originally promised to “give Toronto back its waterfront” • By the mid 1980s the waterfront is disappearing behind a wall of cheap high-rises • Many of which H&D have built H&D at Harbourfront • Annoyed by H&D the City imposes a development freeze, stalling H&D’s Bathurst Quay scheme • Becomes a key issue in 1988 municipal elections • Because of H&D the Federal Government sets up a Royal Commission under David Crombie to enquire into the Toronto waterfront Crombie Commission • 1987-1992 • Publications available here Meanwhile • H&D win the contract to build Pearson Terminal 3 • Helped by the conservative lobbyists they had hired • They also collected a $70M loan guarantee from the Feds, something not offered to other bidders • The other bidders complain • Transport Minister John Crosbie calls them “soreheads”. And • H&D began building Terminal 3 without a permit • This brings conflict with Mayor Hazel McCallion • Who stares down two successive federal transport ministers and H&D and eventually gets her way 1987 Election • David Peterson wins the first outright Liberal majority in Ontario for 42 years • He replaces Alvin Curling as Housing Minister with rookie MPP Chaviva Hosek • Hosek later key to drafting the Liberal Red book which helps bring Jean Chretien to power in 1993 Chaviva gets her reward • An honorary doctorate from York U in June 2009 York University • During the Presidency of Lorna Marsden • A Liberal senator • EllisDon builds the computer sciences and TEL buildings at YorkU • EllisDon sponsors the York U Board of Governors Chair’s Golf Tournament • Raises $600,000 for graduate studies • EllisDon bankrolls Schulich alumni functions • EllisDon brought in to finish the YorkU subway station.

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