ACT TODAY – SAVE THE HERITAGE BASILIAN SEMINARY AT 95 ST JOSEPH STREET!

Sadly, a City recommendation will be considered next week by the Toronto Preservation Board to allow demolition of the majority of the Heritage Basilian Seminary, preserving just the façade and disconnecting the chapel. Please act today to try to prevent this – you must lodge your comments with the City before noon tomorrow, Friday 10 June, 2022. If you haven’t already done so – please send an email to hertpb@toronto.ca and councillor_layton@toronto.ca. Tell your friends!

Check out this article in the Globe and Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/article-university-of-toronto-has-ernest-cormier-building-in-its-crosshairs/

When the Basilian Seminary at 95 St Joseph Street was before the Toronto Preservation Board earlier this year a record number of members of the community wrote to the Board to support protecting this building with Part IV Heritage Protection. Continue the fight!

If it would help you, here is a draft for you to cut and paste into your email:

To: The Chair and Members of the Toronto Preservation Board                                                                                                     

As a member of the local community, I would like to voice my disappointment at the lack of heritage protection being proposed in an Alterations Report concerning the Ernest Cormier-designed Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre, located at 95 St. Joseph Street. This building was designated for Part IV Heritage Protection less than 6 months ago. This designation would appear to be meaningless, and the Alterations Report undermines my faith in the system to protect Toronto’s heritage.

Respected expert Phyllis Lambert from the Canadian Centre for Architecture has written you no less than three letters since 2019, and her opinion is that the planned degree of conservation is unacceptable. I urge you to demand better, and to refuse the easy answer of demolition and facadism. You can force a rethink of the future of this building – thereby preserving a unique building, and a special area adjacent to Queens Park, for the sake of all Torontonians.

You must supply your name and address.

For further information about the Heritage Designation, click here: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/decisionBodyProfile.do?function=doPrepare&decisionBodyId=1899#Meeting-2022.PB35