Kensington Market could get special protections next year intended to preserve the iconic neighbourhood’s “unique” character.
On Monday, city staff published a report recommending the area become a heritage conservation district, bringing a nearly decade-long effort to its final stages.
While heritage district status is normally meant to preserve a certain architectural style by limiting development, the city is taking a slightly different approach.
For Kensington Market, the designation will be more “flexible” because “part of what people love about Kensington is the mad mix of styles,” University-Rosedale Coun. Diane Saxe said in an interview with TorontoToday.
City staff aren’t “trying to preserve Edwardian houses or Victorian houses or any other particular kind. They're looking for the very fine grained nature of the market. Very narrow lots, a mixture of commercial and residential, predominantly low-rise kind of experience,” Saxe said.
“It is an innovative heritage district.”
David Perlman, a longtime Kensington resident, said the effort is more geared toward the market's “history of use.”
So while the plan permits more flexibility, development will still be limited.
“The demolition of properties that contribute to the value of the … area will not be supported and new construction must be designed in such a way as to retain the area’s sense of place,” city staff told TorontoToday.
“Conservation districts don’t prevent change, but they’re intended to manage it,” Saxe said.
The proposed area includes 704 properties, which is almost the entire market. Properties fronting onto College Street, Spadina Avenue, Bathurst Street and Dundas Street will be excluded.
The staff recommendation will go to the Toronto and East York Community council on Jan. 14, 2025. If approved, it will then go to city council for final sign off in February.
A plan centuries in the making
The official work to make Kensington Market a heritage district started in 2015, but the neighbourhood’s roots trace back at least 100 years.
The area started in the late nineteenth century with a “large concentration of workers’ housing” for settlers from the British Isles, according to the staff report. It continued to be an attractive place for immigrants to settle because it was close to employment opportunities and had affordable housing.
By the early 20th century, Jewish immigrants started making their mark.
“The open-air display of goods in the market area, and patterns of commercial adaptation and building expansion, are a legacy established in the 1910s-1930s by Jewish merchants and businesses,” according to the report.
Then in the mid-20th century, Portuguese and Hungarian immigrants “contributed to the commercialization of Augusta Avenue,” the main north-south street running from College Street to Dundas Street.
In the 1960s, waves of Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean immigrants added to the neighbourhood’s character. By the late 20th century, Latin American, Southeast Asian, African, and Jamaican immigrants settled in the area.
“The visible layering of building additions, particularly within the market area, represents the adaptation that occurred as these groups established homes and businesses,” the report said.
Had immigrants not sought to make the area their own, Kensington wouldn’t be what it is today, "a social enclave that supports innovation, small business, traditions of public art, diverse and alternative cultural expression, and social activism.”
The report also credits Jewish landlords with helping Kensington’s immigrant identity flourish.
“Jewish property owners were more likely to rent to Black, Asian, and other non-white and immigrant populations.”
But Perlman said he’s worried Toronto’s high housing costs may prevent Kensington from keeping what made it special.
“If you have viable residency and commercial occupancy … for artists and for the workers who work in the hospital across the road, if you can keep those things, then [Kensington will] continue to change and renew,” he said.
But though the heritage designation could help, Perlman said, it is not enough to ensure the market stays affordable.
“Is it alone going to save the market? Not a chance.”
-Editor's note: a previous version of this story misspelled David Perlman's name.
