[URBAN NOTE] "TTC letter warns homeowners their houses might be expropriated for Scarborough subway"

[rfmcdonald]

San Grewal's Toronto Star article isn't surprising. Scarborough may well want a subway to symbolize its inclusion in a greater Toronto, but there will be costs. The expropriation of property is just the start: the transformation of entire neighbourhoods is in the offing.

Residents on a quiet Scarborough street, some who have lived there for four decades, have received letters from the TTC warning them their houses might be expropriated to make room for the new subway extension.

“I’m not going, they’re going to kill me to take me out of here,” Scott Cole said Monday, after receiving a letter on May 25 from the “Toronto Transit Commission” informing him that the bungalow he’s lived in on Stanwell Dr. for 26 years might be subject to a “Property Acquisition Process.”

There has been no official approval of the subway alignment — running north-south under McCowan Rd., which the homes back onto — that would affect these homeowners, but they’re now convinced it’s a done deal.

The letter says this particular alignment will be presented at a public meeting Tuesday, the first in a series of meetings planned over the next three weeks. However, the letter, received by at least a dozen neighbours, says no decision has yet been made by council, and the recommendation has not even been seen by the City of Toronto’s executive committee.