Help may be on the way for flood-prone Toronto neighbourhood

Residents in a flood-plagued north end Toronto neighbourhood say they've been waiting more than a decade for the city to make good on a plan to fix the problem.

More than 150 homes in Winston Park, near Dufferin Street and Wilson Avenue, are hit by serious flooding every five years or so, residents told CBC Toronto. And they're worried the severe storms that are to blame will soon become more frequent due to climate change.

One of those residents is Fadi Elyoussef, who's lived on Whitley Avenue  with his wife Reem and two children for 12 years.

"We're constantly living in fear — my kids don't even want to go into the basement when it rains," he said. "It's an ongoing nightmare."

Elyoussef said he installed a sump pump, a backflow protector pipe, and water barrier on the exterior of his house. But those precautions were quickly overwhelmed during a 2018 storm that has prompted he and his neighbours to ask the city for a permanent fix.

"In our house, the F-word is flood," Reem Elyoussef said. "We can't live in fear anymore. I wouldn't wish this on anybody."

The local councillor, James Pasternak, said he's been trying for years to convince the city to address the flooding issues in the neighbourhood. During Tuesday's meeting of the city's infrastructure and environment committee, councillors approved his motion calling on staff to provide an update on efforts to solve the problem by next month's city council meeting.

Coun. James Pasternak says one solution is to upgrade a holding tank buried under a local park so that it can handle more runoff. (Paul Borkwood/CBC News)

"There is a feeling in the neighbourhood that this work is long overdue and homeowners have incurred flooding, property damage and ongoing worry about the consequences of the next extreme weather event," part of Pasternak' motion reads.

His motion points out that city staff have been aware of the problem for at least 12 years, and although some work has been proposed, no permanent solutions have ever made it past the planning stage.

Pasternak said Winston Park's geography is at least partially to blame for the basement flooding it experiences. The homes are built around DeHavilland Mossie Park, which acts as a sort of catch basin since it's the lowest elevation in the area.

Despite taking precautions, a 2018 storm left floodwaters about a metre high in the Elyoussefs' basement, the couple says, destroying belongings, walls and carpets. (Fadi Elyoussef)

Exacerbating the problem, Pasternak said, is the fact that storms tend to come from the northwest, and can approach the neighbourhood unimpeded, thanks to the open spaces of the  old Downsview air base, immediately to the north of Winston Park.

"It's a pocket in and around the park, where the infrastructure has not kept up with the extreme weather events we've been getting," Pasternak said.

That stormwater overwhelms the sewer pipes and has nowhere to go but into basements, he said, so the answer is to install new pipes that are big enough to handle the excess rain.

Another solution is to upgrade a holding tank that's buried inside the park itself. That would handle more  runoff from the sewer pipes temporarily, until the storm abates, then return the runoff to the storm sewer.

Justin Blundon has lived in the neighbourhood since 1993 and been flooded so many times, he says, he can no longer get insurance against it. (Martin Trainor/CBC)

But city staff said in an emailed statement to CBC Toronto that money is an issue.

The city has a Basement Flooding Protection Program (BFPP) whose job is to solve problems like Winston Park's.

But the mitigation plan there would require tearing up six neighbourhood streets, replacing the sewer lines, and upgrading the underground storage tank so it could hold more runoff, which would cost $9.5 million.

The email says the BFPP will only go ahead with projects that cost $68,000 or less per home.

"When the $68,000 cost per benefiting property was applied ... the project exceeded the threshold," according to the staff email. "As such, it remained on the deferred projects list.

"With 67 BFPP Study Areas, and many recommended projects meeting the cost threshold, [the Winston Park project] has not been advanced for detailed design in Toronto Water's capital plan."

That angers Rosarea Madrone, an elderly woman who's lived on Whitley for 32 years.

"So many times I got water inside," she told CBC Toronto. "I feel mad.... The city doesn't care about us. They take money for taxes but they don't do anything for us."

'We're just sitting ducks'

Her neighbour, Justin Blundon, says he's lived through seven floods since 1993 and can no longer get flood insurance for his house.

"What I've lost in furniture, furnaces, appliances ... has been well over $100,000," he said.

Elyoussef figures the most recent severe storm, in 2018, did close to $100,000 damage to his basement and property - despite the precautions he'd installed earlier. And he worries that storm is just a precursor of even more extreme weather events to come.

"When the next storm comes, we're just sitting ducks," he said. "We're just hoping and praying."