Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday told council and then reporters on Thursday that he thinks downtown Toronto is an unsuitable place to raise children.

Holyday, a former Etobicoke mayor who lives doors down from his grandchildren in a house on a “very quiet” suburban street, made the comments as he passionately argued against forcing a condo developer to include family-friendly three-bedroom units in a proposed 47-storey building at King St. W. and John St.

Councillor Adam Vaughan has always insisted that developers looking to build in his Trinity-Spadina ward set aside 10 per cent of their buildings for three-bedroom units.

“Where will these children play — on King St.?” Holyday asked skeptically.

The city’s acting chief planner, Gregg Lintern, told Holyday that the area in question is “a neighbourhood, an emerging neighbourhood.” Lintern added that “it just makes for a healthier city” to have families living downtown.

Holyday, dubious, said, “It makes for a healthier city to have children out on a street like King St. where it’s bumper-to-bumper traffic and people galore at all times of night and day? I just think of raising my own family there. That’s not the place I’d choose.”

Lintern told Holyday that there are parks in the area. “In general, it might help to think about Manhattan or living in a European city where people live everywhere no matter what area of the city,” Lintern said. “They have families, they raise families the same way they would in other areas of the city, they go to school, they go to work, everything happens in the same fashion, it’s just that it’s in an urban form.”

Holyday then tabled a motion to eliminate the 10 per cent requirement. “As far as raising your children downtown, maybe some people wish to do that. I think most people wouldn’t,” he said to jeers from other councillors. “I mean, I could just see now: ‘Where’s little Ginny?’ ‘Well, she’s downstairs playing in the traffic on her way to the park!’”

Josh Matlow, a midtown councillor, began his subsequent speech as follows: “To Councillor Holyday: Are you — are you serious? Do you really believe that there is some danger to children by living in the downtown area?”

Holyday responded: “Well, I certainly think it’s really not the ideal place that people might want to raise their families. But on the other hand, if they do, I’m willing to leave the choice up to them, councillor. I’m not going to dictate to a developer that they must provide 10 per cent of their units in the three-bedroom form when there may or may not be a market for it.”

The debate was the latest example of the stark divide between the right-leaning suburban councillors who populate Mayor Rob Ford’s administration and the left-leaning downtown councillors who serve as the de facto opposition. In December, Vaughan derided Councillor Doug Ford’s Etobicoke ward as “an industrial park.”

Holyday, whose proposal was defeated 27-4, was unrepentant in comments to reporters during the meeting’s lunch break. “There are healthier places to raise children,” he said.

“Some people might, and I don’t dispute — if they wish to do it, they can do it. Who am I to say that? I’m saying I personally wouldn’t want to be on the 47th floor of a condominium building at the corner of King and John with three kids.”

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In an interview, Vaughan said, “Sometimes you hear comments like that coming out of people like Doug Holyday and you wonder what decade they’re living in. I was walking through Rome with my son, and he turned to me and said, ‘Papa, how come they have no houses in Rome?’ In urban centres to Paris to Hong Kong to Johannesburg, people live in highrises and raise families in highrises and succeed in highrises.”

“I can tell you,” he said, “as a kid who was born and raised in downtown Toronto and who has a family that’s being raised in downtown Toronto, the parks, the amenities, the cultural wonders of the city, the museums, even just being close to a baseball game or to take part in Caribana (now the Caribbean Carnival) — all the greatest parts of Toronto are at our doorstep. It’s a wonderful place to raise a kid.”

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