It started with a petition, as many grassroots movements do. Then came door-knocking. Leafletting. Calls to the city councillor’s office. Community consultations.
Many involved in the struggle were new to community organizing. Some were looking for an alternative to doom-scrolling. Others wanted to finally meet their neighbours. All were committed to fighting for housing justice and affordable rent.
The target was KingSett Capital, one of Canada’s largest private equity real estate investment trusts (REITs), with upwards of $18 billion in assets.
In August 2023, KingSett proposed the development of a luxury 21-storey condominium at the corner of King Street and Cowan Avenue in the heart of South Parkdale, a working-class community west of downtown Toronto. The tower would replace a humble 2-storey building containing eight rental units and seven commercial spaces. In recent years, Parkdale has become a gentrification magnet for private equity real estate firms like KingSett. There are over twenty new developments slated for South Parkdale alone.
A neighbourhood in desperate need of more low-cost family housing, KingSett’s proposed development would contain almost exclusively studio units catering to high-income occupants.
In response, community members formed the Parkdale Housing Justice Network (PHJN) and started hosting weekly meetings. In May 2024, we presented a petition with over 1,500 signatures to city council, and spoke passionately about the displacement and gentrification threatening our neighbourhood.
The councillors listened. In what felt like a bureaucratic miracle, the city rejected KingSett’s proposal. It was a rare feel-good story: A community stood up against a bad development and won.
That is, until the province got involved.
Steamrolling community voices
After KingSett received the rejection, they wasted no time appealing to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).
The OLT is a provincial body that has the final say in disputes between developers and municipalities related to land use planning. The tribunal has a reputation for rubber-stamping luxury condo projects while ignoring community voices and resistance.
Direct participation in OLT hearings is extremely difficult for community members. If we wanted to speak at the hearing, we were strongly advised to retain legal representation and call on expert witnesses to help argue our case. This would require thousands of dollars we didn’t have.
Effectively barred from participating, we learned months later that the city and KingSett had eventually reached a development agreement behind closed doors — brokered and approved by the OLT.
This is far from an isolated case. In 2024, a similar fight took place in the Junction neighbourhood over a proposed 20-storey condo. The OLT approved the development and even ordered a community group to pay KingSett’s legal fees. Another OLT ruling in January 2026 overrode both community and city council opposition, green-lighting a 27-storey tower at 1117 Queen St. W., a historic former Canada Post office.
This pattern raises questions: Who runs the OLT? Who are these unelected judges deciding the fate of our communities?
We started digging. What we found was not a body of neutral experts, but industry insiders with business and political ties that suggest a revolving door between industry and regulators.
Ties to politicians and lobbyists
Take Sharon Dionne, the OLT adjudicator who oversaw our community’s case against KingSett. Prior to joining the tribunal, she spent over a decade working for developers and also served as a regional chair of BILD, a developer lobby group. Dionne donated thirty times to the federal Conservatives before she was appointed to the OLT.
These sorts of connections are common.
OLT appointee Gordon Driedger is also listed as a trustee with real estate investor Skyline Retail REIT.
Ashley Mason worked in senior positions at large real estate companies prior to joining the OLT.
Neil Rodgers is a past president of a powerful developer lobby group.
OLT members with connections to the federal and provincial conservatives include a former aide to Jim Flaherty and Joe Oliver, a former Conservative Party candidate, and a close personal friend of former PC leader Patrick Brown. And the OLT’s chair, Michael Kraljevic, was reportedly high school football teammates with Doug Ford.
The OLT declined to comment while KingSett and the individuals listed above did not respond to our requests for comment.
It’s become clear to our community that this process is not designed for community participation. Instead, it’s designed to enrich developers. Fighting this battle according to the formal rules was a waste of our time.
We decided to take the fight directly to KingSett.
Shifting strategies of resistance
Direct action against developers emerged as a key strategy for many housing organizations, including 230 Fightback, a grassroots group that’s been sparring with KingSett for years in the downtown east.
Parkdale Housing Justice Network decided to join forces with other organizers to directly confront developers and capital.
Last spring, armed with a letter outlining our demands and a “Parkdale is not for sale” banner, we entered Scotiabank Plaza downtown, home to KingSett’s HQ.
Members of our group were tackled by security. Undeterred, we unfurled our banner and successfully blocked the elevators. We gave out leaflets and chanted for housing justice. For a brief moment we transformed the Scotiabank Plaza into a site of resistance.
KingSett consented to meet with our representative, who hand-delivered our list of demands to their Chief Asset Management Officer.
This protest took place against a backdrop of shifting market conditions, as condo prices in Toronto were crashing. Today, luxury condos once slated for development in Parkdale are now being planned as rentals. Developers like KingSett are now sitting on empty lots with no profit in sight.
Conditions are ripe for change.
In March of this year, we returned to Scotiabank Tower with the same message: “Parkdale is (still) not for sale.”
Construction on KingSett’s condo at King and Cowan shows no signs of breaking ground, and we intend to make every phase of this project as difficult as possible.
As the OLT continues to override local democracy, communities are increasingly abandoning a process they see as stacked against them. Instead, they are turning to direct confrontation with the developers themselves.
It started with a petition, but that’s not where this story ends.
