North York, Ontario
North York is not a municipality and has not been one since 1 January 1998 — Canada's own names authority classifies it as an unincorporated place and gives that date as its decision date — so nothing about North York property is assessed, levied or published at the North York level: the City of Toronto files one return for 797.91 billion dollars of taxable assessment and never breaks it down. What is district-specific is public land. Downsview Park's 226.5 Crown-owned hectares are the largest holding any open register names in North York, PSP's 370 acres of former airport sit beside them, and the biggest federal office floor in the district — 52,001 square metres at 4900 Yonge Street — is rented from a landlord Ontario will not name for less than $37.10 a parcel.
10 buildings · 8 with an owner established · 16 sources · 2 tier B · 8 tier A · prepared 2026-10-03
North York is a district of the City of Toronto, not a municipality. Natural Resources Canada's geographical names database records "North York" with the concise code UNP — "UNP-Unincorporated place" — and a decision date of 1 January 1998, the day the amalgamation took effect; the City of Toronto Archives refers to "the former municipalities that existed before the municipal amalgamation of 1998", and Ontario's own municipal boundary layer returns CITY OF TORONTO, a Single Tier Municipality with no upper tier, for the North York place-name point. The City of Toronto governs it, MPAC assesses it and Toronto bills it. Ownership itself follows Ontario's rule: the provincial land registry is the official record and it is public but not open. ServiceOntario states the registry "contains the official records of property ownership and other legal interests" and "covers more than 7.4 million parcels of land in the province", that services "are only available online", and that on OnLand "You can do a self-search for a fee". That fee is $37.10 per PIN for a copy of a parcel register from 2 November 2026; there is no bulk extract at any price, Teraview is restricted to licensed users, MPAC's values sit behind three log-in-only products and are still pegged to 1 January 2016, and Ontario publishes no price-paid file. The one register that does name owners for free here is federal, and it is how most of this record's ownership is established at all.
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yorkdale Shopping Centre 3401 Dufferin St, Toronto (North York) |
Retail | Oxford Properties Group Yorkdale's own site carries no ownership sentence; what it carries is the footer "Copyright © 2026 Oxford Properties — All Rights Reserved", the address 3401 Dufferin St, and a newsletter consent naming Oxford Properties Group, 900-100 Adelaide Street West, as the data controller. Oxford's own home page states "We're backed by OMERS" and dates its figures to 30 June 2026 (s16). The City's asset inventory records its own asset at 3401 Dufferin St — Yorkdale Station — under Former Municipality "North York", which is how this record places the mall inside the district (s9). Tier B: the pages establish Oxford's control, not a registered title; no stake and no price was found. |
Pension fund | —B |
| Yonge Sheppard Centre 4841 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario M2N 5X2 |
Mixed use | RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust The centre's own site states its address and then, in the footer of the contact block, "Owned and Managed by RIOCAN" — a direct ownership claim by the owner, on the property's own page. It stands at the Yonge-Sheppard intersection, the busiest point of North York's downtown. No floor area, stake or purchase price appears on the page, and riocan.com itself returns 403 to a script, so no portfolio figure is carried here. |
REIT | —A |
| CF Fairview Mall 1800 Sheppard Ave E, Toronto (North York) |
Retail | Cadillac Fairview Published on Cadillac Fairview's own property site as "CF Fairview Mall", with the footer "© 2026 The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited. ®A registered trademark of The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited." Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan states on its own site that "Cadillac Fairview (CF), our wholly owned subsidiary" manages "over 35 million square feet of leasable space at 68 properties across the country" (s14) — the second source that makes this tier B. The page gives no gross leasable area and no price. |
Pension fund | —B |
| Downsview Park 70 Canuck Ave, Toronto (North York) 157,579 sq m of floor space |
Land | Parc Downsview Park Inc. The largest single landholding in North York that any open register names: the Directory of Federal Real Property records property 14715, Downsview Park, custodian Parc Downsview Park Inc., interest type "Crown Owned", 226.523 hectares with 157,579 square metres of floor space in 12 buildings. Ontario's municipal boundary layer confirms the coordinates fall in the City of Toronto (s5). Canada Lands Company's own site could not be read — clc-sic.ca returns a Cloudflare interstitial — so the custodian name here is the register's, not the company's. |
Government | —A |
| YZD — the former Downsview Airport lands Sheppard Avenue West at Allen Road, Toronto (North York) |
Land | Public Sector Pension Investment Board through Northcrest Developments, a wholly owned subsidiary Northcrest's own page states it "is a Toronto-based wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP), a federal Crown corporation and one of Canada's largest pension investors" and that "PSP purchased the 370-acre former Downsview Airport lands from Bombardier Aerospace in 2018 and established Northcrest to steward its transformation." The 370 acres is about 150 hectares — two-thirds the size of Downsview Park next door, and the two together are the largest contiguous redevelopment site in Toronto. The page states no price, so none is recorded here. |
Pension fund | —A |
| Joseph Shepard Building 4900 Yonge Street, Toronto (North York) 52,001 sq m |
Office | Not established a paid title search would answer it The largest federal floor area in North York is rented, not owned. DFRP property 10093, "Joseph Shepard Site", 4900 Yonge Street: custodian Public Services and Procurement Canada, interest type "Lease or Licence", 52,001 square metres of floor space and no land area. The register therefore proves who the owner is not — Canada — and the landlord sits behind it. Ontario's answer costs $37.10 for the parcel register (s2), MPAC publishes no roll, and nothing free that was opened names the owner. The neighbouring 5001 Yonge Street site is the same story: 18,292 square metres, also leased. |
Not established | —A |
| North York Civic Centre, Meridian Arts Centre and North York Central Library 5100, 5040 and 5120 Yonge Street, Toronto (North York) 28,198 + 16,536 + 15,610 sq m |
Civic | City of Toronto The three biggest buildings in the City's asset inventory carrying Former Municipality "North York" stand in a row on Yonge Street, all with Owner "City of Toronto": North York Civic Centre, 5100 Yonge St, 28,198 sq m, built 1978; Meridian Arts Centre, 5040 Yonge St, 16,536 sq m, built 1993; North York Central Library, 5120 Yonge St, 15,610 sq m, built 1987. Next on the list is the former North York Board of Education at 5050 Yonge St, 11,043 sq m, built 1969 — the municipal apparatus of a city that no longer exists, still owned and still in use by the city that absorbed it. |
Government | —A |
| Canadian Forces College Toronto (North York) — DFRP coordinates 43.742364, -79.414658, in Armour Heights 21,923.9 sq m |
Institutional | Government of Canada (National Defence) DFRP property 10072, "Canadian Forces Staff College", custodian National Defence, interest type "Crown Owned": 6.4722 hectares, 21,923.9 square metres of floor space in 5 buildings. The register gives the municipality as Toronto and no street address; the coordinates place it in North York's Armour Heights, and the boundary layer confirms the City of Toronto (s5). Separately, National Defence still holds 29.0707 Crown-owned hectares and 31,766.3 square metres at the former Canadian Forces Base Downsview. |
Government | —A |
| Environment and Climate Change Canada Downsview campus 4905 Dufferin Street, Toronto (North York) 30,578 sq m |
Institutional | Government of Canada (Public Services and Procurement Canada) DFRP property 54078, "Canadian Atmospheric Reasearch Lab Site" (the register's spelling), 4905 Dufferin Street: custodian Public Services and Procurement Canada, interest type "Crown Owned", 5.8951 hectares, 30,578 square metres of floor space in 2 buildings. After Downsview Park and the Downsview military lands it is the third-largest Crown-owned federal holding inside North York, and the largest owned federal office and laboratory floor area in the district. |
Government | —A |
| Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre — the Veterans Affairs lands 2075 Bayview Avenue, North York, Ontario |
Institutional | Not established a paid title search would answer it One of the few DFRP records anywhere that writes "North York" into the address field itself: property 30930, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, North York, Ontario — custodian Veterans Affairs Canada, interest type "Lease or Licence", 32.0 hectares of land and no floor area. It is the largest leasehold interest Canada holds in North York by area, and it establishes the negative: the 32 hectares are not Crown-owned. Who the registered owner is was not established; Ontario charges $37.10 a parcel to look (s2) and no free document opened names it. |
Not established | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
North York files nothing. Ontario's Financial Information Return covers 305 municipalities for 2025 and North York is not one of them — the City of Toronto's single return covers the whole amalgamated city, so every assessment and levy figure below is Toronto-wide and is NOT North York's. That limitation is the point: there is no published assessment total, no levy and no highest-assessed parcel for North York, because for property purposes North York stopped existing on 1 January 1998. The two things that ARE district-specific are both inventories of public land: the City of Toronto's own asset inventory, which tags each asset with the former municipality that held it, and the federal real property register.
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
North York is the ninth most common registered address in Ontario's entire builder directory: of 9,848 licensed, conditionally licensed and umbrella accounts in the Home Construction Regulatory Authority's register, 236 give North York as their city — behind Toronto (1,561), Concord (402), Ottawa, London, Markham, Vaughan, Mississauga and Richmond Hill, and ahead of Woodbridge, Burlington and Oakville. The figures below are each umbrella group's "Total Possessions": freehold and condominium homes actually occupied by a buyer, cumulative and province-wide. The caveat the directory forces, and that this record states in every Ontario entry: it gives the licensee's registered address, not where the homes were built. The clearest proof is in this very table — the largest group registered in North York, The Kaitlin Group at 220 Duncan Mill Road, is the builder of the Lakebreeze waterfront in Bowmanville, 70 kilometres east.
| Name | Type | Total possessions (cumulative, Ontario) |
|---|---|---|
| Fieldgate Developments 3,656 freehold + 650 condominium, umbrella account 3450, registered at 5400 Yonge Street in the heart of North York's downtown. 22 of its project companies give a North York address. Six chargeable conciliations recorded. |
Private company | 4,306A |
| The Kaitlin Group 1,062 freehold + 1,201 condominium, umbrella account 12267407, registered at 220 Duncan Mill Road in Don Mills. 12 of its project companies carry that address, and the three largest — Bowmanville Lakebreeze West Village, Towns and East Village — account for 564 possessions on Clarington's waterfront. 23 chargeable conciliations, the highest in this table. |
Private company | 2,263A |
| Tiffany Park Homes 786 freehold + 244 condominium, umbrella account 11656309, registered at 601 Magnetic Drive near Dufferin and Steeles. Five project companies at that address, the largest being Tiffany Park Homes (Mapleview) Ltd. with 238 freehold possessions. |
Private company | 1,030A |
| Kingdom Canada 776 condominium units and no freehold, umbrella account 500000512, registered at 3389 Steeles Avenue East, which the directory records as North York. A pure high-rise builder; two chargeable conciliations. |
Private company | 776A |
| Yorkwood Homes 567 freehold and no condominium, umbrella account 9958, registered at 95 Barber Greene Road in Don Mills. Its single operating company, Yorkwood Building Group Ltd., carries 424 of them. No website on file with the regulator. |
Private company | 567A |
| Touchstone Homes (Laredo Construction Inc.) 162 freehold and no condominium, registered at 54 Lesmill Road in Don Mills with no umbrella account — a single-company builder, the largest in the North York list that is not part of a group. |
Private company | 162A |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
North York's commercial ownership divides cleanly into three: two pension-owned shopping centres that between them define the district's retail (Oxford's Yorkdale and Cadillac Fairview's Fairview Mall), one listed REIT that owns the Yonge-Sheppard corner outright and says so on the property's own page, and the Government of Canada, which is a large occupier here and mostly a tenant rather than an owner. The last of those is the only figure in this section that comes from a register rather than from a company describing itself.
| Name | Type | Floor area / assets |
|---|---|---|
| Cadillac Fairview Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's own page: "Cadillac Fairview (CF), our wholly owned subsidiary, is one of the largest owners, operators" and "CF manages over 35 million square feet of leasable space at 68 properties across the country." CF Fairview Mall at 1800 Sheppard Ave E is its North York asset. No North York-only figure is published. |
Pension fund | 35M+ sq ft, 68 properties (Canada-wide)A |
| Oxford Properties Group Oxford's own home page states "We're backed by OMERS, one of the largest defined benefit pension plans in Canada" and "That means everything we do serves 665,000 public sector workers in Ontario", and dates its figures "as of June 30, 2026 unless otherwise stated" — but the "Oxford at a glance" counters for assets, square footage and AUM render client-side and returned zeros, exactly as they did for the Toronto and Mississauga records. Yorkdale is its North York asset. |
Pension fund | not established — the counters render as zerosA |
| RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust The only owner in this section that states its ownership on the property itself: yongesheppardcentre.com carries "Owned and Managed by RIOCAN" under the address 4841 Yonge Street. No portfolio figure is claimed because riocan.com answers a script with a 403 Cloudflare interstitial, so no RioCan square footage or property count was read first-hand. |
REIT | not established — riocan.com returns 403A |
| Government of Canada (as tenant) The inverse of a landlord list. Of 16 federal properties in North York, 9 are held by lease, licence or occupation without formal agreement, and they carry 74,124 square metres of floor space: 4900 Yonge Street 52,001 sq m, 5001 Yonge Street 18,292 sq m, 1122-1124 Finch Avenue West 1,673 sq m, 55 Tempo Avenue 1,129 sq m, 700 Lawrence Avenue West 520 sq m, 110 Sheppard Avenue East 373 sq m, 2215 Steeles Avenue West 136 sq m, plus the 32-hectare Veterans Affairs interest at Sunnybrook and a small National Defence site. Every one of those landlords is behind a $37.10 parcel register. |
Government | 74,124 sq m leased across 9 properties in North YorkA |
| Toronto and Region Conservation Authority In the City's own land inventory, the three largest parcels tagged "North York" are not the City's: Northwood Park (1705 Finch Ave W, 52.96 ha), Derrydowns Park (23.07 ha) and one further parcel are recorded with Owner "Toronto & Region Conservation Authority". A conservation authority is the second-largest public landowner in the district's open record after the City itself. |
Government | 3 parcels, 79.1 ha of the North York land inventoryA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Yorkdale Shopping Centre's registered owner and the split between OMERS and AIMCo. Search results describe a 50/50 OMERS-AIMCo ownership operated by Oxford, but no primary document was opened that states it: Oxford's property page is a 404, its glance counters render zeros, and yorkdale.com's about page returns no body text. The record names Oxford Properties Group at tier B on the footer copyright and data-controller line, and claims no stake.
- Gross leasable area for Yorkdale and CF Fairview Mall. Neither property page states one.
- The landlord of 4900 Yonge Street (52,001 sq m) and 5001 Yonge Street (18,292 sq m) — the two largest federal leaseholds in North York. The register proves Canada does not own them; Ontario charges $37.10 a parcel to learn who does.
- The registered owner of the 32 hectares at 2075 Bayview Avenue over which Veterans Affairs Canada holds a lease or licence.
- A population figure for the North York district. The City publishes ward profiles, not district totals, and summing wards would be an inference rather than a reading.
- Any North York-specific assessment, levy or highest-assessed-parcel figure. Ontario's Financial Information Return covers 305 municipalities for 2025 and North York is not among them; the City of Toronto's single return carries no district breakdown.
- Per-sale prices anywhere in Ontario. Consideration appears only on the registered transfer instrument, per parcel, at the fees above.
- A purchase price for the 370-acre former Downsview Airport lands. Northcrest's own page states the purchase and the year but no figure.
Sources
- Land Registry — "the official records of property ownership", 7.4 million parcels, self-search for a fee — ServiceOntario · openA
- Bulletin No. 2026-04 — Land Services Fee Changes effective November 2, 2026 — Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, Land Registry Services Branch · openA
- The Assessment Cycle — 2026 taxes still based on 1 January 2016 values — Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) · openA
- Canadian Geographical Names Database — "North York", id FDQBX, concise code UNP, type "UNP-Unincorporated place", decision date 1998-01-01 — Natural Resources Canada (GeoGratis geoname service) · openA
- Municipal Boundary — Lower and Single Tier (layer 14), point query at 43.76205, -79.41026 — Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Land Information Ontario · openA
- Financial Information Return — FIR Data by Year, .CSV bulk file for 2025 (last updated 2 October 2026) — Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing / Ministry of Finance (EFIS) · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property — full XML dataset (custodian, interest type, land area, floor area, building count per parcel) — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat · openA
- Ontario Builder Directory — /api/builders, /api/buildersummary, /api/umbrellaSummary — Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) · openA
- Real Estate Asset Inventory — building and land asset layers, with a "Former Municipality" attribute — City of Toronto Open Data · openA
- Resources on Former Municipalities — "the municipal amalgamation of 1998" — City of Toronto Archives · openA
- Yonge Sheppard Centre — "Owned and Managed by RIOCAN" — Yonge Sheppard Centre (RioCan) · openA
- Yorkdale Shopping Centre — site footer "Copyright © 2026 Oxford Properties" and newsletter data-controller "Oxford Properties Group, 900-100 Adelaide Street West, Toronto" — Yorkdale Shopping Centre (Oxford Properties) · openA
- CF Fairview Mall — property page, footer "© 2026 The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited" — Cadillac Fairview · openA
- Real Estate — "Cadillac Fairview (CF), our wholly owned subsidiary"; "CF manages over 35 million square feet of leasable space at 68 properties" — Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan · openA
- Who We Are — "a Toronto-based wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP), a federal Crown corporation"; "PSP purchased the 370-acre former Downsview Airport lands from Bombardier Aerospace in 2018" — Northcrest Developments · openA
- Oxford Properties home page — "We're backed by OMERS, one of the largest defined benefit pension plans in Canada"; "as of June 30, 2026 unless otherwise stated" — Oxford Properties Group · openA