Public Notice

IN THE MATTER OF THE ONTARIO HERITAGE ACT

R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER O.18 AND

CITY OF TORONTO, PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

6-8 AND 10-12 SUMACH STREET

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO DESIGNATE THE PROPERTY

TAKE NOTICE that Council for the City of Toronto intends to designate the property, including the lands, buildings and structures thereon known municipally as 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach 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 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach 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 the categories of design/physical, historical/associative, and contextual value.

Description

Located at the foot of "old" Sumach Street, just north of Eastern Avenue in the historic Corktown neighbourhood, the four properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street comprise two adjacent pairs of 2.5-storey semi-detached house-form buildings completed between 1886 and 1889.

The subject properties were identified as having cultural heritage value through the King-Parliament Secondary Plan Review (2019) and were included on the City of Toronto's Heritage Register in December 2020.

Statement of Cultural Heritage Value

Built as two identical pairs between 1886 and 1888, the four properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street are valued as fine surviving examples of Late Victorian-era workers' housing, which proliferated in the King-Parliament area during the second half of the 19th century. As two pairs of semi-detached house-form buildings, the subject properties represent a key building typology in King-Parliament, which originated in the 1800s as a residential and institutional enclave where the side streets and many of the main streets were lined with detached, semi-detached and row houses.

The semi-detached properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street are distinguished by their adaptation of the Ontario House type in response to the narrow lots and high density of housing in one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods. Defining features of the type include a centred entrance on the principal elevation surmounted by a small roof gable containing a round-arched opening and with rooms located to either side. The semi-detached variation found at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street maintains the perception of symmetrical organization of openings characteristic of the Ontario House type but accommodates two centred main entrances to two separate dwellings beneath a shared centred roof gable. Additional features of the Ontario House type found at the subject properties include the Gothic Revival styling, with their dichromatic brickwork, decorative bargeboards in the centred gables, and carved wooden brackets beneath the eaves and sills.

The properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street are valued for their historic association with the history and development of the King-Parliament area during its Urban & Industrial Expansion (1850-1914) period of significance, as an urban townscape combining industrial, commercial and residential functions. They are also valued for their role in the King-Parliament theme of Industrial Decline & Post-War Urban Renewal (1945-1970), whereby the four residential properties narrowly escaped demolition to make way for the adjacent Don Valley Parkway-related Richmond Street Bridge and Adelaide Street Bridge that cut through Corktown's 19th to early-20th century built fabric, including the removal of over 200 residential properties.

Contextually, the properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street are valued for their role in supporting the low-scale, 19th century residential character of the King Parliament area containing the historic Corktown neighbourhood and reflecting the area's evolution from a 19th-century residential and institutional enclave and one of Toronto’s manufacturing centres in the first half of the 20th century, to its current status as a mixed-use community. Having narrowly survived the replacement of much of the earlier residential building stock in the area during the 20th century, in this case due to construction of the adjacent Richmond Street Bridge and Adelaide Street Bridge, the subject properties are valued as surviving examples of the impact on housing and communities of urban renewal efforts that transformed the area in the mid-20th century.

The properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street are also historically and visually linked to their setting on the original southern portion of Sumach Street at Eastern Avenue. Significant transportation projects in the 1960s severed this southernmost block into a stub, including the construction of the Richmond Street Bridge from the westbound off-ramp of the Don Valley Parkway and the eastbound Adelaide Street Bridge, as well as the realignment of Sumach Street south of King Street East on a slight curve to the west and connecting to Cherry Street at the intersection of Eastern Avenue. Despite these interventions on the area's streetscape, the subject properties survive among a significant collection of late-19th to early-20th century residential, institutional and commercial buildings on both sides of the overhead parkway ramps, including the adjacent James Quinn Row Houses to the north at 2-10 and 1-17 Percy Street (1885-1890), Sackville Street Public School at 19 Sackville Street (1887), and the warehouse at 506 King Street East (1923), all of which are recognized on the City's Heritage Register.

Heritage Attributes

Design or Physical Value

Attributes that contribute to the value of the properties as fine examples of a semi-detached variation on the Ontario House type with Gothic Revival styling:

• The 2.5-story scale, form and massing of the two pairs of semi-detached house-form buildings on their rectangular plans with rear tails and gable roofs
• The principal (east) elevations of the four properties, perceived on the exterior as two Ontario House buildings but each containing two mirrored properties organized into two bays, with the inner bay containing the main entrance and the outer bay containing a flanking window opening at the first and second storeys
• On each of the two semi-detached buildings, the small, centred gable roof containing a round-arched, louvered opening
• The materiality with the red and buff brickwork; wooden bargeboards and finial, door and transom trim, and carved brackets; stained glass door transom (8 Sumach); and stone sills

Contextual Value

Attributes that contribute to the value of the properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street in supporting the low-scale, 19th century residential character of the area:

• The 2.5-story scale, form and massing of the two pairs of semi-detached house-form buildings on their rectangular plans with rear tails and gable roofs

Attributes that contribute to the value of the properties at 6-8 and 10-12 Sumach Street as being historically and visually linked to their setting:

• The setback, placement and orientation of the properties on the west side of "old" Sumach Street bounded by Eastern Avenue to the south and the Adelaide Street East Bridge to the north

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: Registrar Secretariat, City Clerk's Office, Toronto City Hall, 2nd Floor West, 100 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2.; Email: RegistrarCCO@toronto.ca within thirty (30) days of December 22, 2025, which is January 21, 2026. 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.

Getting Additional Information:

Further information in respect of the Notice of Intention to Designate the Property is available from the City of Toronto at:

https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.PH26.15.