London city staff and heritage advocates are calling for council members to refuse a developer’s request to demolish two brick heritage houses on Dufferin Street to make way for a large apartment building in the downtown core. 

A developer has plans to build a 652-unit, mixed-use apartment building which includes a nine-storey podium, a tower that is 40 storeys tall and a second tower that is 29 storeys tall. The development is slated for 100 Fullarton St. and will occupy a large chunk of the downtown block bordered by Fullarton, Talbot, Ridout and Dufferin streets. 

Rygar Properties had plans for the project approved by city council before selling to another developer, Old Oak Properties, in 2019. Those plans call on the developer to work two groups of heritage buildings on the block into the final design of the new building.

They include:

• 479-489 Talbot St. A group buildings known as Camden Terrace. After a fraught debate, council allowed this row of brick buildings to come down, but required the developer to build a “commemorative monument which interprets a range of the significant heritage attributes of the Camden Terrace front facade.”
   
• 93-95 Dufferin St. An unusual double brick house of two different architectural styles (Italianate and classical). The developer was required to preserve the building in place “until such time as partial removal is necessary to facilitate Phase 3 of the proposed redevelopment” and incorporate the houses’ “significant heritage attributes” into the new building’s final design. The house at 93 Dufferin St. was designed by London’s first engineer Samuel Peters, who lived in the house in the late 1800s. In the approved plan, the north and west facades of the houses were to be braced and left in place while the remaining portions were to be removed as the new structure was built behind them.

In exchange for requiring Old Oak to save as much of the facade of the Dufferin houses as possible and rebuild the facade of Camden Terrace, the city agreed to allow the developer to exceed standard limits on height and density, a common process of large planning applications called bonusing. The city granted final approval in September and excavation and foundation work is already underway. 

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