Fiona Fu and her parents have lived in their modest Willowdale townhouse for 17 years. But on Thursday, the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) decided that the family’s townhouse, along with 16 others at Cummer and Bayview Aves., will be expropriated and razed to build a new high school.

This will cost the deficit-ridden school board at least $31 million. And although the move is being decried by municipal and provincial politicians, provincial legislation lets school boards take land without consent, so long as it is in the broader public interest and owners are compensated.

“It’s not about the money — we just want to stay in this home,” a disconcerted Fu said on Friday. “This is completely unjust.”

TCDSB spokesperson John Yan defended the board’s decision.

“We don’t expropriate on whims,” Yan told the Star on Friday. “We have no choice in this particular situation.”

Yan says that the 17 properties are needed to make room for the St. Joseph’s Morrow Park Secondary School. The all-girls school is currently on leased property slightly north of the contentious site, which was purchased from the Toronto District School Board. That lease expires in 2018. Yan says the new school will serve 850 students.

An alternative proposal that would have required a zoning variance to build a three-storey school without having to expropriate homes was rejected by residents and the city’s Committee of Adjusment, Yan says. Yan, however, admits that the expropriation is unprecedented.

“We have expropriated in the past, but this is the first one of this size.”

Yan says that the fair market value of the townhouses ranges from $800,000 to $900,000. The new school, he says, could cost anywhere from $18 to $23 million. At a minimum, the project will cost taxpayers at least $31 million. In February, the Star reported that the TCDSB is facing a $16.9 million deficit this year.

“It really doesn’t seem like a good use of taxpayers’ dollars,” Willowdale city Councillor David Shiner said tersely on Friday. According to Shiner, the money the TCDSB will be offering residents is also not enough for them to stay in the relatively affluent area.

“It’s more than just taking their houses — it’s taking them out of their community.”

David Zimmer, the area’s MPP, called the school board’s decision “callous.”

“Expropriation is something that should be used, in any circumstance, as the last possible option and only after every other option has been examined,” Zimmer said on Friday. He thinks the TDCSB could have done a lot more to reach a compromise.

“These aren’t houses — these are homes.”

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According to a Ministry of Education spokesperson, the ministry is not required to approve an expropriation. If there are people in the ministry, feeling powerless, they’re not alone — after Thursday’s shocking news, the Fu family and their neighbours have no idea of how to fight back.

“We’re at a loss of what to do,” Fu, who cares for her ailing parents, says. “Anyone who lives beside a school, whether it’s a Catholic board or not, they should watch out because this is something that the board has power to do. It’s expropriation without anyone overseeing them.”