By Fred Alvarado Fred is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

On July 18th, Affordable Housing advocates and action groups sent a delegation to City Hall to deliver a letter to Mayor Olivia Chow to call on City of Toronto to reverse the sale of 214-230 Sherbourne to KingSett Capital.  The developer has submitted plans for a 47-storey condo to be built in that property.  

230Fight Back, the Shelter and Housing Justice Network, and Right to Housing groups have proposed social housing at this site and has been demanding the expropriation of this property as a way of easing the affordable housing crisis in this neighbourhood and as a way to combat the gentrification that’s removing needed vital services, and displacing residents.  

Gaétan Héroux, member of 230Fightback states in a letter to Mayor Chow that:

 “The Downtown East is, as you will be very aware, an extremely hard-pressed community and there is no doubt that such an upscale development in its midst would drive up rental costs and further the loss of vital services in the area. It would be a singularly harmful project and we are determined to prevent it from happening. For many years, the call for social housing at this very site has been advanced and, when KingSett outbid the City for ownership of this site, a great deal of disappointment and anger ensued. We are asking that you intervene with every means at your disposal so as to make sure that the housing needs of people in the Downtown East will take priority over the profits of a powerful developer.”