Swansea Mews , 21 Windermere Avenue - CONTAMINATION is much worse than we'd thought. Please help!

Five months ago over 1,500 of you signed a petition asking Toronto Council to slow down and consult properly on Swansea Mews at 21 Windermere Avenue. The petition was delivered to Planning and Housing Committee on February 26, 2026 and referenced during community deputations. Thank you for helping us raise our voices.  Yet still they didn't listen. 

The consultation you asked for should have included the environmental facts of this site. It did not. Ignoring those facts does not change them.

TCHC's own lab contractors confirmed the ground has lead at 30 times the Ontario residential safety limit. Mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and methane exceed provincial thresholds. This was concealed from the Planning and Housing Committee when Council adopted the rezoning motion on March 25, 2026.

The Stage 2 Actions Report is a mandatory Council-directed report. It requires a full assessment of every built form option, every funding mechanism, and every community impact before Toronto Community Housing Corporation can commence redevelopment. Council directed it in April 2025. It was due December 2025.

The Housing Secretariat has confirmed in writing the report is required, yet has provided no delivery date. The City is pushing Site Plan Approval forward before this report is delivered, which is unacceptable.

Four weeks after adopting the Swansea Mews motion without debate, the same Council unanimously deferred a smaller, less contaminated site in Brad Bradford's Ward. 

No Record of Site Condition,  the legal instrument that certifies contaminated land is safe for residential construction,  has been filed as it is 'voluntary'.   Yikes !

Demolition signage from a licensed contractor appeared on the site fences in August. No permits posted. No notification to neighbours. Both are legally required.

The community has asked the Province of Ontario to exercise its responsibility under provincial environmental law to ensure this severely contaminated land meets provincial standards before residential construction proceeds.

The Province refers us to the City. The City has not substantively responded. Both levels of government are in hiding and act as if we can't see them. And all the while they are trying to push for an unstable and unsustainable proposal that doesn't even qualify for funding.

On August 14, 2026, TCHC confirmed in writing it is advancing the project regardless of any of this.   This must stop.

Mayor Olivia Chow has publicly stated, and repeatedly set the standard for what a Toronto neighbourhood requires. In her own words at her first transition meeting as Mayor-elect on July 5, 2023: "The challenge is how do you make some of it affordable, how do you integrate people, and how do you have a holistic community so it's not just people living. They will also have the local libraries and community centers and parks and all of the social infrastructure that makes a neighbourhood successful."   However this hasn't been applied at this site thusfar.

Mayor Chow herself has said years of studies, including environmental assessments, must be completed before major projects proceed. She said it about airport expansion. She said it about waterfront land. The same standard applies to 21 Windermere Avenue, and she has been formally advised of it. She has not yet responded.

She petitioned Torontonians to protect the waterfront. She organized. She marched. The federal government listened. We are asking her to apply her own standard, to our city, on her own watch.

108 families displaced in May 2022 are being denied a safer, faster, and better alternative, Swansea Park at swanseapark.ca,  which they have never been shown.

We have a second petition focused entirely on the environmental emergency at this site. We need your help again. Every voice matters. This is a chance to be heard and make a difference.

Please sign it and share with five people;  neighbours, family, friends, anyone who drinks Toronto tap water or walks in High Park.

To sign -  https://c.org/RVzBCWbw7X

For the full record - https://SwanseaMatters.com

Thank you from the Swansea Neighbourhood Group. 

We really appreciate your support and together we can make our voices heard