The Toronto District School Board has accepted $1 million to back out of the fight against a 22-storey condo being built next to a primary school.

The proposed redevelopment will cast a permanent shadow across the Lord Lansdowne Public School playground every morning and increase traffic in the streets where hundreds of children walk, critics claim.

The City of Toronto, community groups, parents and the school council are all fighting the development at an Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearing later this month.

The TDSB, originally part of the opposition, pulled out in late October after signing a $1-million settlement deal with the residential developer, Wynn Group of Companies, TDSB trustee Briony Glassco confirmed to the Star on Wednesday.

Lord Lansdowne Public School, which also houses the alternative school, da Vinci, caters to more than 400 children from kindergarten to Grade 8. . The Spadina Ave. school sits directly behind the site slated for the 70-metre highrise building.

School council representative and parent Amy Furness said the school community was “really disappointed” the board had accepted the payout.

With a 6-year-old son at the school, Furness fears the shadow on the schoolyard will prevent ice from melting off the playground in winter and add to safety hazards for the children.

“The TDSB did not consult at any stage with the school community on what our position would be and they kind of caught us off-guard by doing this,” she said.

Glassco said accepting the payout was “a very difficult decision for the TDSB to make.”

“This is not something that we ever wanted to happen to this school,” she said.

The board was initially “totally opposed” to the development, Glassco said. It commissioned a traffic assessment and a shadow study by Taylor Smyth Architects to bolster its arguments against the project.

The shadow study found the 22-storey complex would rob the playground and some classrooms of sunlight every morning and then creep across the schoolyard until it disappeared about midday, she said.

However, the board’s legal advice was that it was highly likely the development would go ahead regardless of opposition. “We were trying to make the best out of a very poor situation,” Glassco said.

The million-dollar payment was dependent on the development getting the green light at the OMB hearing. If successful, the money would go towards renovating the Lord Lansdowne school playground, which is already in a state of disrepair, Glassco said.

The school community was informed that the settlement was on the table months before the deal was signed, she said.

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Wynn Group of Companies president Paul Wynn was not available for comment. The development’s OMB hearing is scheduled for Nov. 24.

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