Item - 2024.PB25.6

The Toronto Preservation Board recommends that:

1. City Council, in accordance with Section 41 of the Ontario Heritage Act, designate by by-law the area shown on Attachment 1 to the report (November 15, 2024) from the Senior Manager, Heritage Planning, Urban Design, City Planning, as the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District.

2. City Council adopt by by-law the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan as the District Plan for the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District, attached as Attachment 5 to the report (November 15, 2024) from the Senior Manager, Heritage Planning, Urban Design, City Planning.

3. City Council authorize the City Solicitor to make such stylistic and technical changes to the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan, attached as Attachment 5 to the report (November 15, 2024) from the Senior Manager, Heritage Planning, Urban Design, City Planning, as deemed necessary by and at the sole discretion of the City Solicitor in consultation with the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and the Senior Manager, Heritage Planning and to ensure that such stylistic and technical changes are reflected within the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan’s policies, guidelines, schedules, appendices and maps.

 4. If there are any appeals to the by-law under Section 41 of the Ontario Heritage Act, City Council direct the City Solicitor, together with the City's outside counsel and any other appropriate City staff and/or outside consultants to appear before the Ontario Land Tribunal to defend the by-law.    

Cecilia Nin Hernandez, Heritage Planner, Policy and Research, Urban Design, City Planning, Dima Cook, Architect, EVOQ Architecture and Emily Cheng, Architect, EVOQ Architecture gave a presentation on Designation of the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act.

This report recommends that City Council designate the area referred to as Teiaiagon- Baby Point as a Heritage Conservation District ("HCD"), identified on the map in Attachment 1 to this report, and adopt the Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan by by-law under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act.

The designation of Teiaiagon-Baby Point (the "District") as a Heritage Conservation District and adoption of the Heritage Conservation District Plan will manage change within the District to conserve and maintain the area's cultural heritage value through the implementation of contextual place-based policies and guidelines.

The study of Teiaiagon-Baby Point for designation as an Heritage Conservation District was led by Heritage Planning staff, with EVOQ Architecture Inc., and was initiated in 2016 on Council direction. The Heritage Conservation District study process and the Heritage Conservation District Plan have been prepared in accordance with provincial legislation and Heritage Conservation Districts in Toronto: Procedures, Policies and Terms of Reference.

The District, located along the Humber River, is a significant area in the City and has cultural heritage value based on thousands of years of Indigenous settlement and use, archaeological resources and burials, natural features, and association with Indigenous ways of knowing and being. The District has historic and associative value as part of the ancestral lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and as the historic location of Teiaiagon, a mid-to-late seventeenth century Haudenosaunee village. Baby Point was also part of the larger Humber Valley Surveys designed by the Home Smith Company in the early 20th century. The District is a designed cultural heritage landscape, based on its landscape features, street pattern, and built form which reflect the Garden Suburb design. The Garden Suburb is also reflected in its homes that date from the Home Smith building period (1911-1941), during which design restrictions were put in place to protect the character of the neighbourhood. 

The District encompasses 222 properties. For all Heritage Conservation Districts adopted following January 1, 2023, as per Regulation 569/22 of the Ontario Heritage Act, at least 25 percent of the properties within the defined area must meet two or more of the nine criteria for determining cultural heritage value or interest. In the proposed Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District, at least 75 percent of the properties satisfy two or more of the criteria. 

In addition to community consultation over several years and an effective outreach program with urban Indigenous communities, Heritage Planning staff undertook extensive engagement with First Nations and Métis communities with rights and interests in the area throughout the Heritage Conservation District Plan project. This engagement built upon the initial support from the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Huron-Wendat Nation for the development of a Heritage Conservation District in this area. In October 2024, Heritage Planning staff hosted a final meeting with representatives from the Six Nations of the Grand River. At this meeting, attendees from the Six Nations of the Grand River provided positive feedback on the nation's involvement throughout the project and provided verbal support for the adoption of the Heritage Conservation District Plan and designation of Teiaiagon-Baby Point as a Heritage Conservation District.