New data shared with CTV News Toronto is revealing the number of rental buildings and units approved for demolition across the city as tenants grapple with being uprooted during an affordability crisis.
Over the past five years, Toronto City Council has approved 117 rental housing demolition applications involving the replacement of 5,148 rental units, according to data provided Monday.
No Demovictions, a collective fighting profit-driven rental demolitions, believes up to 300 buildings across Toronto are on track to come down.
Organizer Lindsay Blackwell said the local city councillor can make a difference in terms of the amenities that go into a redevelopment, even the tear-down being approved or not.
“You need a great councillor who is willing to go to bat for tenants who is willing to negotiate with the city, the developer and push for better amenities and things like that,” she said. “Number two tenants need to get organized.”
One proposal is at 48 Isabella St. near Yonge and Bloor Streets. An application seeks to replace the 10-storey, 84-unit rental building with a 69-storey building with 814 units.
Tenants here said they love their building because of its spacious units, balconies offering outdoor space in the middle of downtown, and underground parking, which helps professionals, young families, and seniors. They are upset about having to leave their homes and immediate community behind.
The 48 Isabella Tenants Association said the residents are not opposed to redevelopment because it understands there is a great need for more housing in Toronto but thought it could work with the developer to secure tenants with units similar to the ones they’re being forced to leave behind.
‘Very demoralizing’
The association, however, said it tried to meet with Hollyburn, the developer, multiple times about securing parking and balconies for tenants in the new tower. It said the city did organize a meeting, and a representative from the company was present, but they were told none of their requests would be granted.
“It is very demoralizing,” said 75-year-old Abbie Adelman, who has lived in her place since 1975. “I feel we’re less than. We’re tenants, and we’re less than. Or we live downtown, and we’re less than.”
She’s also worried after she leaves her one-bedroom unit and moves to another rental building, the same process start over again.
“To be dismissed is very frustrating and insulting,” said Colette Roslin, who lives in a two-bedroom unit with her husband and two young children.
Their home, located near all their services and the child’s school, means everything. Learning they’ll have to find another affordable place to live by 2030 is also problematic because she said they can only find comparable places on the city’s outskirts so far.
What is the city’s replacement policy
According to the city’s Rental Replacement Handbook and its replacement policy, the city focuses on replacement of the rental unit, not amenities, and the owner is not required to replace the same amenities like parking and balconies.
Further complicating matters, while tenants do have the right to a replacement unit at a similar rent, provincial legislation does not allow the city to require parking in major transit station areas, and the property owner is not required to provide outdoor space like balconies.
Blackwell with No Demovictions called it an interjurisdictional quagmire.
“The city councillors are allowed to point at the province and say, ‘Take it up with Doug Ford,’ and the province is allowed to say, ‘Well, you have to work through your council and do this kind of thing.’ So tenants are caught in what they ought not to be caught in,” Blackwell said.
“We have a housing crisis, but make them livable places. Don’t be so cruel. Make it so people can have a home,” said Roslin.
“Our building is a community, like a village, and I’m going to miss that. I’m going to miss the people a lot,” said Adelman.
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Developer responds
CTV News Toronto reached out to Hollyburn and received a statement from Bousfields, the consultant on the planning application.
It said tenants have been a primary consideration for the project team since the start.
“It was important to the team that we proactively communicate to the tenants from the start that the project has a long-term horizon; they have been advised that the earliest possible timing that the proposed changes to the existing building could begin is 2030,” said partner Jocelyn Deeks.
“We have been grateful to the tenants for taking the time to meet with the project team through the process to date, including as recently as mid-July 2026, and look forward to continuing to do so.”
The statement goes on to say the new building will feature extensive indoor and outdoor amenity areas that will be available to all returning tenants, which are not available in the building today, and 48 Isabella is in a neighbourhood with many walkable amenities and excellent access to transit.
“In consideration of the long-term future of the property and the neighbourhood, the new building will include two pick-up drop-off spaces with convenient access into the building. There are several parking lots and car-share services available in the immediate vicinity to 48 Isabella Street.”
Deeks said eligible tenants will have the right to return to a similar type and size and similar rent to what they would be paying at the time they vacate, along with compensation to support relocation, and the new units will feature in-suite laundry and individually controlled heating and cooling.
“The project team has been working on revisions to the planning application for the past few months and looks forward to submitting to the City of Toronto for its continued review in the near future,” she said.
Deeks didn’t reply to CTV News Toronto on whether they would meet again with tenants about their concerns.
What is behind the demolitions
In a statement, the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Association said it’s seen a substantive decrease in the number of reported demolitions in Toronto over the past five years, and all levels of government need to do more to prevent evictions, build social and public housing for all residents, and keep the affordable housing supply we already have.
“Currently, demolition is being used as a tool for eviction by private developers to speculate on housing, which can push tenants onto the streets. What we need is more regulation, including a Demoviction By-Law at the municipal level and vacancy control at the provincial level, ”to stop developers from speculating on renter’s lives.”
For Blackwell, the demovictions are connected to a broader pattern.
On Isabella Street, with a few blocks, several rental buildings are being proposed for redevelopment.
“It seems to be done in the sort of way of a Monopoly board to sort of seize on the land’s speculative value near transit stations, it’s the same pattern near St. George. It’s the same pattern near the Ontario Line,” she said.
