The Dominion Wheel & Foundries is a collection of four buildings on the City of Toronto’s heritage register, all constructed between 1917 and 1929 at 153-185 Eastern Ave in Toronto. The site is currently at the centre of a heated civic discourse on the importance of heritage value and community consultation in the development process.

The provincially owned properties have been largely neglected for 40 years. On January 18, 2021 the community was shocked to see demolition beginning at the site, the same day the provincial stay-at-home order was implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19 (and dominated the new cycles). The community was outraged by the revelation that a secretive sale of the land had occurred to an undisclosed buyer and began protesting the province to undergo the due process of city and community consultation. To date there has been no disclosure of the purchaser or any plans for the site published.

The city is currently in an affordable housing crisis with >80,000 households on the social housing waitlist. We argue that heritage properties such as the Dominion Foundry present an incredible opportunity for adaptive reuse. Toronto is known as a vibrant cultural city, but our architecture does not represent the vibrancy of our communities in any way - largely because there is little municipal will to invest in the preservation and restoration of these heritage sites for the needs of the present day.

Our proposal for the Dominion Foundry is a co-housing approach in which each resident has the ability to contribute to the community through shared spaces and providing mutual aid.