Toronto is moving to protect the Richard L. Hearn Generating Station as a heritage site even though the waterfront property’s new owners are protesting.

The Toronto Preservation Board voted Wednesday to approve a city planning staff recommendation that the decommissioned power plant, including a 70-storey smokestack, be protected under the Ontario Heritage Act from significant alteration or destruction without city approval.

Planners say the massive building constructed in 1951 to help power booming postwar Toronto, and decommissioned in 1981, “exhibits a high degree of artistic merit,” with “a skilful application of the mid-century Style Moderne.”

Ontario Power Generation in 2002 gave Studios of America a 40-year lease on the site, which has since hosted special events including Luminato and served as a movie and TV filming location.

Last November provincially owned OPG sold the 16-hectare (40-acre) site to Studios of America for $16 million. The Premier Doug Ford government said it wasn’t involved in the sale but believes it was in the best interests of taxpayers.

Conditions of the sale included the property, which has contaminated soil from its time as a power plant, not being resold within three years and not hosting “sensitive” uses such as homes for at least 15 years. Studios of America told the Star it had no plans to change the building or its park-like grounds which are open to the public.

After Mayor John Tory complained the city was given no notice about the sale of an important site in the redeveloping Port Lands, city council voted to move to protect the site with heritage designation and reach out to Studios of America, co-owned by prominent developer Mario Cortellucci, to see if Toronto can buy the site.

In a letter to the city’s preservation board, Quinto Annibale, lawyer for Studios of America, said the company objects to the city bid to list the Hearn’s exterior, interior, ancillary structures and setting under a restrictive section of the heritage act.

Annibale cites past Hearn heritage reviews citing the significance of the brick-clad interior and smokestack, but notes they don’t mention the ancillary buildings or setting. “The owners are questioning the basis for the expansion of the items proposed as heritage attributes,” he writes.

Annibale also argues the heritage designation can’t be granted “in good faith” while the city is talking to Studios of America about possibly buying the site.

“Designating the site as a heritage property would have an impact on these discussions and on the market value of the site,” he wrote, asking the preservation board to put the application on hold at least until April 9 when Mayor John Tory’s executive committee will get an update on sale talks.

Studios of America can ask the provincial Conservation Review Board to review the application and give advice to city council, but the advice isn’t binding. Once heritage status is conferred, site owners must ask the city for permission to demolish or significantly alter the site.

If the city refused a demolition request, the owner could appeal to the provincial Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, which would have final say.

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