29 units at 235 Gosford unable to be occupied for at least a year

The landlords of 235 Gosford Boulevard have announced that 29 units won’t be ready for reoccupation for at least another year.

Hundreds of tenants were displaced when a fatal five-alarm fire ripped through the building in North York on Nov. 15, 2019.

Ronkay Management Inc., say the 29 units, along the 08 and 09 lines from the second to 15th floor as well as apartments 106, 107, 1606, and 1607, sustained extensive damage that prevents tenants from moving back in.

“We now have identified the scope of repair and are advised that a total of 29 suites will not be permitted to resume their tenancies in the foreseeable future,” read a letter, which CityNews has obtained, to clients from management.

It adds if tenants have not already planned to relocate permanently, to immediately seek out replacement rental accommodation as the ongoing construction on the units is expected to take at least 12 months.

A number of units have already been reoccupied in the last several weeks, including 10 more on the seventh and eighth floors on January 30.

There is still no official word on the cause of the blaze that started in an eighth floor apartment unit which claimed the life of one man.

Preliminary reports said the fire did not look suspicious and the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office had narrowed the source of the fire down to one of the two bedrooms in the unit.

In a letter from Ronkay to residents dated December 20, 2019, the management group says “there were no faults in the design of the building, that it was functioning and fully compliant with all Municipal Building Codes and Standards” and that the building’s fire safety system “performed to specification at the time of the tragic fire.”

Management says moving forward no propane tanks and no barbecues will be allowed in units or balconies and no space heaters will be allowed in units.