Even before the city has passed judgment on the project, the University of Toronto has asked the Ontario Municipal Board to give the green light to a controversial new student residence on its downtown campus.
Despite mounting opposition from powerful neighbours, the university wants the OMB to approve a building variance that would allow it to tear down an existing graduate residence and erect a 41-metre-high, 17-storey undergraduate dormitory for Woodsworth College at the southeast corner of St. George Street and Bloor Street West.
Under current planning guidelines, the height would be restricted to 31 metres.
The proposed 357-room facility is part of an ambitious long-term plan to build as many as six new high-rise residences to accommodate projected enrolment. Many of them would be on the present site of Varsity Stadium and Varsity Arena.
The Royal Ontario Museum and the Bata Shoe Museum are among neighbourhood institutions that say they intend to challenge the plan.
Sonja Bata, chairwoman of the Bata Museum, across the street from the proposed Woodsworth residence, said she is "quite upset" by the university's design, and that officials at both the Royal Ontario Museum and the York Club are equally opposed.
William Thorsell, chairman of the ROM, could not be reached for comment. Harold Corrigan, director of the York Club, on the northeast corner of Bloor and St. George, said the organization "had not yet developed a position" on the controversy.