How a city housing project took a turn for worse

Officials have been warned for years about deteriorating state of complex

- VICTORIA GIBSON AND CALVI LEON

A tenant walks down the hall at Toronto Community Housing Corporation's Dan Harrison Community Complex recently.

It was a bulldozers-versus-crowd standoff in downtown Toronto, with heavy machinery ready to demolish a row of Victorian houses at Sherbourne and Dundas to make way for a highrise — but dozens of protesters stood in the way.

The tower plan in Moss Park had ignited frustration. Some were upset by its height, while others saw it as growth that threatened to displace low-income tenants renting apartments or rooms in the old houses. Leading the charge of about 80 protesters that day in 1973 was famed urbanist Jane Jacobs, who spurred the crowd to bring the safety fence down.

“They can’t do this if the hoardings are down,” Jacobs cried out before the crowd brought the barrier to the ground, according to archival materials. “Here, give me a hand.”

It was a last-ditch effort that proved transformative. Construction was halted long enough that then-mayor David Crombie could strike a deal with the developer that saw the city buy up the row of heritage houses instead.

The old houses were renovated, with a pair of midrise apartment blocks built between them. The complex offered some family-sized units, studios, one-bedrooms and rooming units — all with rent subsidies attached, which meant eligible low-income tenants only paid what they could afford. Each one of its hundreds of units was connected through an open central courtyard.

Images of the Sherbourne Lanes complex are pictured from the 1977 edition of Progressive Architecture magazine.

Even before it opened, the complex was celebrated as an example of what public housing could be, and how Toronto could grow — preserving elements of its heritage while thoughtfully increasing density to meet local needs.