Pickle Barrel
THE DAVID DUNLAP Observatory (DDO) is not easy to find. On Bayview Avenue north of 16th Avenue, turn west on Hillsview Drive. At Richmond Hill Montessori School, turn onto a lane that curves south, rising into thick woods.
At the hill’s crest, surrounded by quiet forest, the telescope building looms: a round stone building, capped by an 80-tonne copper dome painted white.
Inside is Canada’s most famous telescope, a British-built apparatus with a 74-inch mirror, which, at age 70, still generates continuous scientific papers and remains North America’s biggest tool east of the Rocky Mountains for viewing the stars.
“We had a comet-watching night in the fall,” says Karen Civelitz, a Thornhill businesswoman and amateur astronomer active in the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. “The public goes into the observatory, climbs up a ladder and looks through the eyepiece. You can’t beat the feeling. People look through that and say, ‘Oh my God.’”
Next to the telescope stands a limestone castle in Art Deco style, with two smaller domed turrets. A thick door leads into a hushed space of polished stone and wood with a grand stone staircase. A library here, painted baby blue with gold leaf trim, features a rolling ladder to reach books on pulsars and binary systems. Watching the splendour from his proud spot above the mantlepiece is an oil portrait of David Dunlap, the mining magnate, whose wife, Jessie Dunlap, donated this 80-hectare site, in 1935, to the University of Toronto (U of T).
Ms. Dunlap was quite clear: “Should the lands or any part there of cease to be used, held or maintained for the purposes of an observatory or park, or park-like setting, the lands, together with all improvements, shall revert to and become the property of ‘the grantor, her heirs, executors, administrators and assigns.’ ”
It was not to be. The University of Toronto, having used the courts to alter the terms of the bequest, now has control of the lands, which it is “liquidating,” accepting bids until Feb. 15. The university says light pollution renders the telescope obsolete. It plans to use the net proceeds to open a “Dunlap Institute of Astrophysics” at its Toronto campus.
U of T’s abrupt action, after 70 years as a benign member of the Richmond Hill community, has stirred up a huge protest, uniting politicians of different political stripes to see if they can get the university to slow down the sale, so they can find some way to buy the site and save the observatory.
“I don’t think you can walk away from 75 years in a community and say, ‘It’s all about dollars and cents and to heck with the public’s interest,’” says Bryon Wilfert, the 10-year Liberal MP for Richmond Hill, whose riding includes the observatory.
Mr. Wilfert, who has three degrees from U of T, says he has helped the school with astronomy affairs over time and is dismayed at its haste.
Rita Pocious, a spokeswoman for the university, insists the school had for years warned the town of plans to sell the site. She says that U of T needs the money to keep its commitments to researchers and students.
“Our students are not doing research at that observatory,” she said. “Our academic priorities are set toward the future.”
The university quietly worked for two decades convincing the family to alter the terms of the bequest. Two of Jessie Dunlap’s grandchildren, David Dunlap III and Moffat Dunlap, agreed with the school, but the eldest, Donalda Dunlap Robarts, a mother of seven who lives in Windsor, did not. She wanted the school to keep observing or follow the terms of the gift.
“I have written ad nauseam that I felt that what my grandmother said should be respected,” she says. “She said the land was to come back to the family.”
In 2003, the university applied to the Superior Court of Ontario, asking the court to “discharge any and all conditions and covenants” on the DDO and its land.
Mrs. Robarts was shocked. “They used the big stick, and that included my brother and my other brother went along with him,” she says. “It’s just terrible, isn’t it? I really can’t put it nicely. I would call it confiscation.”
Mrs. Robarts capitulated. The terms of the deal, which splits proceeds of the sale between the heirs and the school, are private.
Tom Bolton, a U of T astronomy professor, used this telescope to confirm Cygnus X-1, the first black hole in space. He is leading the movement to save the telescope.
“The light pollution argument is utter nonsense,” he says. “We are able to observe objects that are 1,000 times fainter than we could before, because of electronics.” Mr. Bolton also points to a 21-page light control bylaw he wrote for Richmond Hill, passed by council in 1995.
“The battle to save the observatory and to save the park is going to be fought after the land is sold,” he says. “If the university wants to sell the land, it’s going to be hard to stop them, I think. The only way they can be stopped is if the province steps in and buys the property.”
Considering some value the land at $100 million, that seems unlikely. Even so, any developer faces several hurdles: (1) an application by the Town of Richmond Hill to designate the observatory as a heritage site; (2) the institutional zoning of the site; (3) a city tree bylaw that forbids cutting the Carolinian forest — studded with mature oak, cedar, birch, ash, walnut, apple and pear trees and home to deer, birds, owls, hawks, foxes, rabbits and squirrels — and (4) a lack of sewer capacity to accept any new development.
Dave Barrow, the mayor of Richmond Hill, is working to slow down the sale. “It’s a huge piece of property right in the middle of town,” he says. “There’s a woodlot. There’s wetlands and what I believe is a treasure: the largest telescope in Canada. There seems to be too much going for it that we should just let them tear it down and build houses.”
If a developer buys the site: “We would be in a three-year fight that would cost the municipality millions of dollars and the developer millions of dollars,” he predicts.
Worst-case scenario? “A developer buys it and puts in an application for 3,000 homes.”
Even so, developers are interested. “We have had significant interest,” in the RFP [request for proposals], Ms. Pocious says.
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has raised $50,000 toward a study on saving the observatory. Options include funding it through tourism and research and development.
Denis Grey of the Royal Astronomical Society has a similar vision.
“Our goal is to keep the stars on,” he says. “The most important thing is to make it the hub of a vibrant park in Richmond Hill.”
Having such a park is important for homeowners as well. Joe Agg, whose Hillsview Drive home faces the observatory, can only imagine what development will occur if the land isn’t saved.
“…If we lose it, we won’t be able to enjoy the lands,” Agg says. “If they build plazas, condos, gas stations or a McDonald’s on it, everyone in the neighbourhood will be unhappy.”
Mr. Wilfert and others are asking U of T to slow down the sale so the society can complete that study.
“The university has a social and a moral responsibility,” said Mr. Wilfert. “They have been in Richmond Hill since the 1930s. There may be potential bidders who may want to keep this facility going. It’s very shortsighted not to allow a full process.”
Karen Civelitz, who organized a rally that drew 100 people to Queen’s Park on Jan. 15, is optimistic.
“I was very buoyed by having every level of government represented,” she says.
But she has a warning: “The
minute those tenders are opened, all
hell is going to break loose. The
developers are going to have to have
balls because they are going to have to
deal with community groups and
activists who will not lie down and
allow this to be bulldozed.” 
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