Tempo Tea Coalition • April 17, 2026
Statement Regarding the Toronto Tempo Performance Centre
A formal community statement calling on Toronto City Council to halt any vote on the proposed long-term lease at 701 Fleet Street until every mandatory heritage review process required by law has been completed.
The Tempo Tea Coalition (tempotea.ca) is calling on Toronto City Council to halt any vote on the proposed long-term lease for the Toronto Tempo performance centre at 701 Fleet Street until every mandatory heritage review process required by law has been completed.
We are not opposed to the Toronto Tempo. We are not opposed to community recreation. We are opposed to a City government that announces a major development on land adjacent to a National Historic Site — and calls it done — without conducting a single legally required heritage assessment.
Effective today, this site is dedicated to covering the Toronto Tempo performance centre proposal and the full heritage review processes legally required within the Fort York Heritage Conservation District — until those processes are completed, publicly disclosed, and properly respected.
Toronto Tried This Before. At This Exact Location. And the Community Said No.
In 1999, the City proposed a visitor centre just outside the west gates of Fort York — the same western precinct where the Tempo facility is now planned.
"The proposed visitor centre would have overwhelmed the modest scale of the Fort and, furthermore, would block views from inside the Fort west towards an open common." Fort York HCD Plan (2014), s.2.1.12.13
The community organized. The plan was defeated. A WNBA training facility housing two full-size professional basketball courts is a substantially larger and more visually dominant structure than the visitor centre that was rejected in 1999.
What the Law Requires — and What Has Not Been Done
The Fort York Heritage Conservation District Plan is not a policy guideline. As of the date of the City's announcement, none of the following mandatory steps have been completed:
Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) — HCD s.11.1.4.5; OP Policy 23
Required under Official Plan Policy 23 and Provincial Policy Statement s.2.6.3 for any development adjacent to a protected heritage property.
Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) — HCD s.11.1.4.5
Required by HCD Plan s.11.1.4.5 for large new elements, using the City's own 3D model of Fort York to assess impacts on protected view corridors.
Fort York Advisory Committee (FYAC) consultation — HCD s.11.1.3
Required by the HCD Plan before Council considers any large new element adjacent to the district.
Toronto Preservation Board review — HCD s.11.1.4.5
Required by HCD Plan s.11.1.4.5. No review has occurred prior to the announcement.
Design Review Panel input — HCD s.11.1.4.5
Required for large new elements affecting heritage views. HOK was announced as the architect.
Archaeological assessment — PPS s.2.6.2; HCD s.11.1.4.6
The site sits within the former Garrison Common. The Provincial Policy Statement s.2.6.2 prohibits development on lands with archaeological potential.
Heritage Permit under OHA s.42 — OHA s.42
No structure may be erected in or immediately adjacent to a Heritage Conservation District without a heritage permit.
The Common Deserves Better Than Another Intrusion
The open land west of the Fort — the Common — is described in the HCD Plan as "one of the only remaining areas of the original Garrison Common." The Tempo facility adds a major new structure directly into the western view corridor the Plan requires be cleared.
The heritage protection of Fort York was built by Torontonians who fought for it across more than a century. Follow the law.
Research basis: Fort York Heritage Conservation District Study and Plan (2014); Ontario Heritage Act.