Public Notice

TAKE NOTICE that Council for the City of Toronto intends to designate the property, including the lands, buildings and structures thereon known municipally as 79 and 81 Granby Street under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.O.18, as amended, as a property of cultural heritage value or interest.

Reasons for Designation

The properties at 79 and 81 Granby Street are worthy of designation under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act for their cultural heritage value and meet Ontario Regulation 9/06, the provincial criteria prescribed for municipal designation under all three categories of design, associative and contextual value.

Description

Located on the south side of Granby Street, between Church and Yonge streets in the McGill-Granby Village community, the two semi-detached residential properties at 79 and 81 Granby Street were built together in 1891.

The properties were included together on the City of Toronto's Heritage Register on June 8, 2021.

Statement of Cultural Heritage Value

Physical and Design Value

The pair are valued as a representative example of semi-detached Victorian-era dwellings whose design is typical of the Bay-n-Gable style with their 2.5-storey form and massing organized vertically on the principal (north) elevation into two bays, the outer one surmounted by a steep gable containing wooden detailing with the wide bargeboards and scalloped shingling. Richardsonian Romanesque design influence is evident in the surviving round-arched brick window opening on the first floor at 81 Granby and the (currently missing) round-arched, red brick entryway spanning the main entrance to both properties.

Historical and Associative Value

The pair are also valued for their historic association with local merchant and real estate developer, Robert Kidney, who was responsible for their construction and was their original owner as well as the three adjacent, mixed-use buildings at 414-418 Church Street that are already included on the City's Heritage Register. All five properties were purchased by Kidney in 1890 and the existing group of brick structures were completed the following year.

Contextual Value

The properties at 79 and 81 Granby Street (standing between the adjacent Heritage Register properties at 414-418 Church Street to the east and 77 Granby Street to the west), together anchor the southwest corner of Church and Granby streets visually, physically and historically, where they embody a surviving collection of late-19th century buildings representative of an early period of land development in the Granby-McGill community.

Heritage Attributes

The Heritage Attributes of the properties at 79 and 81 Granby Street are:

• The setback, placement and orientation of the semi-detached buildings on their lot on the south side of Granby Street west of Church Street
• The scale, form and massing of the 2.5-storey rectangular plan
• The materials, with the red brick cladding (currently stuccoed at 79 Granby Street) and the brick, stone and wood detailing
• The mirrored gable roofline with its decorative shingling and wooden bargeboards in the gables on the principal (north) elevation
• The principal (north) elevation of the semi-detached buildings, which is vertically organized into two mirrored bays with centred main entrances and roof gables in the outer bays
• The organization of the window openings on the principal (north) elevation (N.B. the original round-arched opening seen at 81 Granby Street is currently flat-headed at 79 Granby Street and would be preferable if returned to its original state)
• The brick and stone detailing with the raised brick string courses at the first and second storeys the corbelled hood moulds above the second storey window openings (at 81 Granby Street) and all existing rough-hewn stone sills  The organization of the main entrances, centred at the first-storey level (N.B. the shared, round-arched, brick entryway spanning the main entrances at 79-81 Granby Street has been replaced with a shared flat-headed opening and would be preferable if returned to its original state)

Notice of Objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate

Notice of an objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate the Property may be served on the City Clerk, Attention: Administrator, Secretariat, City Clerk's Office, Toronto City Hall, 2nd Floor West, 100 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2.; Email: hertpb@toronto.ca within thirty days of July 26, 2022, which is August 25, 2022. The notice of objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate the Property must set out the reason(s) for the objection and all relevant facts.