They say they have nothing against towers. After all, many people near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue already live in condos. But residents say the rampant pace of development — from subway level to 50 storeys above ground — is bringing their neighbourhood to its knees.

Even on side streets, condo dwellers say they are breathing construction dust on their balconies as trucks clog their streets and the people, including school kids, jostle for space on the sidewalk. They cite the death of a pedestrian hit by a cement truck on nearby Erskine Avenue in September.

Now the residents are accusing the church of contributing to their woes through its proposed redevelopment of St. Monica’s Catholic Church on Broadway Avenue.

They want the Archdiocese of Toronto and developer Collecdev to reconsider a plan to incorporate a new four-storey church building into a 44-storey, 398-unit condo at the site east of Yonge Street and north of Eglinton Avenue.

“To us that is egregious,” said Miria Ioannou of the Republic Residents’ Association, a group that includes residents of 25 Broadway Ave., 70 Roehampton Ave., North Toronto Collegiate Institute (NTCI) students, parents and staff and those living in buildings adjacent to the high school.

It is one of 12 neighbourhood associations asking Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark to visit their community to see for himself the impact of the provincial Progressive Conservative government’s decision to overturn a city plan called Midtown in Focus that took eight years to develop and, they say, would have kept development in check.

Clark’s office said the minister is working on setting up a tour of the neighbourhood.

In an email to the Star, a spokesperson said the city submitted its official plan amendment, designed to reflect the Midtown in Focus goals set in consultation with the community, before the province introduced its own housing supply plan.

“Because of this, (the city’s) plan did not take full advantage of opportunities to create much needed housing supply, support a vibrant economy ... Our government’s changes support transit infrastructure and increase the right mix of housing in the right place,” said the email.

In a letter to Catholic archbishop Thomas Cardinal Collins, the residents’ association says the archdiocese is promoting “another excessively large condominium tower” that would “contribute to the degradation of the community.”

The residents’ “shock and dismay” has been compounded, it says, by comments published in The Catholic Register quoting a church official who says, “The more height at St. Monica’s the more money we make.”

Archdiocese director of communications Neil MacCarthy said the height of the proposed condo is within the developer’s, not the church’s, jurisdiction.

Asked about the quote attributed to chancellor of temporal affairs James Milway, MacCarthy said, “That wouldn’t be my lead.”

“The sale is based on the size of the building. Depending on the number of units and how high it is that would be a consideration for sure. But we’re not making a final decision about that,” he said.

The 60-year-old church has about 800 parishioners. It is the second church in the 113 years that St. Monica’s has occupied the site. It isn’t considered historically significant but it needs extensive refurbishing to continue serving the community, MacCarthy said.

“The heating system would be old. It has accessibility issues where we can’t get someone if they’re in a wheelchair down to a meeting in the basement,” he said.

A new church would be $10 million to $15 million, a sum that could take years to raise, MacCarthy said. But this redevelopment — a first for the archdiocese — is possible because St. Monica’s is located in a “desirable area close to transit.”

“We don’t have a lot of churches that would fit that template,” he said.

Unlike other denominations that have sold off old or underused churches, the Toronto Archdiocese has opened a new church each year for the last 20 years.

Collecdev president Maurice Wager said the arrangement with the church is complex and the land severance between the developer and the archdiocese doesn’t officially occur until some important planning milestones have been reached, specifically the zoning bylaw amendment needed to make the site a mixed-use development.

He said his company is committed to a collaborative process that includes the church and the community around St. Monica’s. He points to Collecdev’s redevelopment of 300 Bloor St. W., another church site that ultimately saw the tower lowered from an initial 38 to 28 storeys and a reduction in the number of residential units.

Wager said it is premature to speculate on timelines or the outcome of community consultations around St. Monica’s.

“We operate from a perspective of every stakeholder in the process has to have agency and local residents are stakeholders and they have to have agency. With that comes a degree of responsibility,” he said.

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“That requires a tremendous amount of energy and a time investment. If we’re talking about the local area residents they’re often volunteers. It’s not perfect but that’s the way we want to plan our communities,” Wager said.

City Coun. Jaye Robinson said she has also asked the developer to reconsider the application.

“Yonge-Eglinton is at a breaking point,” with constant construction, overcapacity schools, overcrowded transit and a parks and green space deficit, she said in an emailed statement.

“At the end of the day, the existing community infrastructure is simply not equipped to support the proposed density,” Robinson said.

The Yonge-Eglinton Urban Growth Centre is the densest in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe, exceeding the 2017 provincial growth plan targets by more than 50 per cent, she said.

“Development applications approved but not yet constructed will more than double the current population,” Robinson said.

Toronto chief planner Gregg Lintern said, “The density of population continues to concern us.”

Although the city must abide by the Official Plan amendment set out by the province, it can take steps to manage the development, including through zoning bylaws that prescribe more precisely what can be built within the larger vision — features such as building setbacks and green streets.

“The more we update the zoning we’ll be in a better position to specify the actual potential for growth in that area is,” he said.

Meantime, the city is doing a block study on Broadway to understand how the St. Monica’s development could work in relation to other sites on the block.

“Ultimately it all has to work and the height is only one aspect of the review we’ll be undertaking. We’ve had an indication from the applicant they would be willing to work with us on the block study,” Lintern said.

The other tool available to the city is one that has been used in Regent Park, the waterfront and City Place — a holding bylaw that puts a hold on development approvals in cases where the city is concerned about infrastructure or other unknowns.

“We’re doing everything we can to manage the growth understanding this is a private development economy,” Lintern said.

But Dorijan Najdovski, who recently received his Master’s degree in economics, says he’s worried about what character will remain in the neighbourhood where he grew up.

“One of the great things about Toronto is it’s a city of neighbourhoods. Anywhere you go you can find some life, some culture, some excitement. My worry is in 10 or 15 years this neighbourhood will not be livable, will not be desirable,” he said.

“I understand the need for more development. But this rampant overdevelopment the province has bestowed upon us ... and now we have this crazy thing that’s going to happen. I’m not going to live here in 15 years. It’s kind of devastating.”