A North York optometrist and his wife are in hot water with the city, after they erected a two story medical office building — complete with its own pharmacy, eyewear retailer and doctors' offices — on a lot that was meant for a single family home.

Dr. Mehdi Shams and Fatemeh Mansoorifar bought the residential lot at 11 Newton Drive in 2009.

City staff and Coun. David Shiner, who represents the area, maintain the couple signed an oath promising to build only a single family dwelling on the lot.

Instead, they erected an office building.

Fatemeh Mansoorifar, co-owner of the building, says the clinic's patients would have nowhere to go if the building is forced to close as a commercial operation. (John Castell/CBC News)

Mansoorifar says the building now houses six doctors and a foot clinic. As well, it has its own pharmacy and an eyewear retailer.

A staff report to council Wednesday also accuses the couple of "paving the entire back yard in order to provide additional parking."

Files of thousands of patients inside a storage room at 11 Newton Dr., in North York. (John Castell/CBC News)

Mansoorifar also told CBC Toronto Wednesday she knows the building doesn't match the residential zoning. But neither do other lots on adjacent streets, she said.

"But really what I need right now is help. Please Mr. Shiner don't close this office," she said.

Clinics serve 35,000 people, owner says

She says the clinics now serve 35,000 patients, and forcing them to close would be a hardship to the community.

She also said it would put about 20 doctors and employees of the clinics out of work.

But Shiner says that volume of clients on a residential street is part of the problem.

"It's exactly the reason they shouldn't be there," he told CBC Toronto Wednesday. "Why should there be an office with thousands of patients every day, when they could be around the corner where it's permitted?

"They knew from the very beginning this was illegal."

The story began in 2009 when, according to a report to council, the couple applied for a building permit, which the city was reluctant to issue out of concern that the planned structure could be used for commercial purposes.

In exchange for a permit, the couple "both signed affidavits under oath that they only intended to use the building as a residential single family detached dwelling."

More violations

Soon afterward, the building was erected and it became clear it was being used as a medical office building, the city report states.

Coun. David Shiner, who represents the neighbourhood, says a residential street is no place for a medical clinic. (John Castell/CBC News)

More notices of violation continued as the years passed, the report states — one for illegally erecting a sign on the building, and the most recent, in May 2016, for "paving the entire back yard in order to provide additional parking."

The couple has appealed the zoning designation to the city, and has been rejected. They are now appealing that rejection, both to the city and to the province's new planning appeal tribunal.

'A mockery of the city'

Shiner's motion at Wednesday's council meeting asks city lawyers to fight those appeals, including at the provincial tribunal. If necessary, the motion states, city lawyers should fight all the way to divisional court to force the couple to return the building to a strictly residential use.

The report says allowing the couple's building to remain could set a precedent for other neighbourhoods, and "would make a mockery of the city."