When Adam Pelissero first walked through the doors of 50 Torbolton Drive, it had been boarded up for a decade. Chairs and carpets were what remained of the townhome complex’s previous life before its residents were forced out by persistent flooding and mould issues.
In the intervening years, raccoons had moved in and graffiti appeared on the walls.
“Seeing this, it was like, OK, this is a big challenge,” Pelissero said.
That day in 2018 was the former architect’s first day on the job as a design manager with the Toronto Community Housing Corp. and he had been tasked with making the Etobicoke building habitable again.
As he looked beyond the grime, Pelissero realized the bones of the property were still in surprisingly good shape. Its walls and foundations were solid.
“It’s just ugly, and it’s in disrepair,” he recalls thinking at the time. “But there is something here.”
Eighteen years after the 17-unit townhouse complex shuttered, Toronto Community Housing is ready to open it up to new tenants.
On Thursday, federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson toured the complex’s large, three-bedroom units, a rarity in Toronto’s social housing stock, and walked through the backyard that abuts Berry Creek, whose floodwaters filled the building’s basement and caused it to close in 2008.
Sean Baird, CEO of Toronto Community Housing, says the redesign and renovation were possible because of federal and city funds unlocked in 2018 through the National Housing Strategy. The $9.7 million spent to make it move-in ready pales in comparison to what it might have cost to build something new, he said.
“We need more housing. But if we’re not careful, we could end up losing some of the housing we have quicker than we can build new,” he added.
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The risk of flooding still exists, but has been mitigated with a simple solution.
Pelissero said crews blocked off the basement and filled it with gravel, which allows water to pass under the building instead of backing up into units. The inspiration for the gravel-filled basement came from gabion baskets Pelissero saw along the coast of Nova Scotia as a student at Dalhousie.
Gabions, cages filled with rocks, are used to stabilize shorelines and prevent erosion better than solid walls that fight against the tides.
“It’s the same idea, the water can come in, the water can go out, but the house above still stands,” Pelissero said.
The design manager noted it’s a solution that worked for 50 Torbolton Drive, but all buildings in flood plains are different and it’s not a one-size-fits-all fix.
The original brick walls of the complex, built back in 1962, still stand – though now encased in thick drywall necessary to meet strict energy efficiency requirements.
Pelissero said the complex has been certified as a passive house, a building standard that requires it to consume 90 per cent less energy than conventional buildings, which will in turn reduce utility costs to tenants.
The townhomes at 50 Torbolton Drive achieve this with substantial insulation and triple-glazed windows that make the building remarkably air tight, as well as a special ventilation system.
Not only does the insulation act as a thermal barrier, lowering energy costs for heating and cooling, but a barrier to sound as well.
Inside one of the units, Pelissero pointed out the window to the cars whizzing by on a busy street.
“That’s Islington (Avenue). And we don’t hear anything,” he said.
The sound-proofing and large size of the units is what makes it an ideal building for families of children with special needs, who will be prioritized for move-in, says Kimberly Moser, a communications manager at TCHC.
“This is accessibility from an autism perspective. Light and sound, it’s really important for those kids,” she said. “A place like this where you can lower the lights, where you don’t hear your neighbours is really good for day-to-day living.”
The building’s new tenants will be selected from the City of Toronto’s social housing waitlist, currently more than 100,000 applications long, or residents may be transferred in from other TCHC housing, freeing up units in other locations.
Rent will be set at 30 per cent of the household’s income, TCHC says, and residents could move in as soon as August.
At a press conference Thursday, the housing minister called the site a “powerful example” of governments working with non-profits to transform abandoned properties into affordable housing.
“Where housing has gone derelict, in particular – we need to rebuild. We need to retrofit,” Robertson said.
Baird, the CEO of TCHC, says the housing provider is working through a backlog of repairs that, unaddressed, could threaten to take more housing off-line.
In 2025, 56 per cent of the housing provider’s developments were in poor or critical condition, an improvement from 2017 when 73 per cent of complexes were in the same state.
“We have a long-term plan that lays out our prioritization around when we’re going to get to every one of those communities. But we need that funding to continue and be renewed,” Baird said.