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The building at 1510 King St. W., locally known as The Pope Squat, has been rundown since the '80s - on that point everyone agreed.

What the community stood divided on was how the building should be dealt with.

The owner plans to turn it into 20 bachelorette units under the Parkdale Pilot Project. Some strongly supported the idea while others in the neighbourhood were so adamantly opposed to it they took the plan to the Ontario Municipal Board.

The Parkdale Pilot Project was approved by the City of Toronto as a trial program in 2000. It's intended to deal with illegal properties in south Parkdale.

"South Parkdale is an area where a whole host of bylaws haven't been enforced for a long time," said Neil Spiegel, a Parkdale real estate agent. "A bunch of owners had built illegal buildings and the city was having a very difficult time enforcing the bylaws because of the concerns of de-housing tenants."

Spiegel filed the appeal with the OMB, looking to have the project at 1510 King St. W. modified. He said the Parkdale Pilot Project creates a loophole for landlords in Parkdale.

"Normally if you want to put 20 units in a building you go and ask for a building permit," Spiegel said. "Then you would need to go to the committee of adjustment and ask to have the bylaws relaxed because you are not allowed to put 20 units, of 200-odd-square-feet each, into a converted house."

He said converted houses are not built for that use so there are bylaws that restrict both the number of and size of units.

"There's a reason for that. It's to try to maintain the stability of the neighbourhoods and the built form," he said.

The issue of illegal rooming houses, Spiegel said, needs to be dealt with, but he doesn't think new rooming houses should be made.

"At some point the situation has to stop and that is why we made the appeal," he said. "It is just another run at continuing 30 years of bad planning in south Parkdale.

"Because it is a largely rental community, a largely transient community, it's very easy for what I call 'the poverty industry' to manipulate south Parkdale," he said.

He said what is really needed is more affordable housing across the entire city.

"You can't have communities that have more need than capacity to support that need and that is what we have in south Parkdale," he said.

The OMB hearing concluded on March 1 but the decision wasn't rendered until July 9. The appeal was dismissed, and in the decision, delivered by J. de P. Seaborn, said the project is a positive enhancement to King Street West and will ensure a vacant building is occupied.

The decision states the building on King Street is conducive to affordable housing because of it's proximity to public transit. Seaborn also wrote that since the building next door was approved for 31 bachelor units in 2005, the 1510 King West development is not a situation where bachelorette units will be introduced to an area for the first time.

Ward 14 (Parkdale-High Park) Councillor Gord Perks supported the project and said the OMB decision has validated the Parkdale Pilot Project and its efforts to get good, licensed and affordable rooming houses in Parkdale.

"The Parkdale Pilot Project was designed to resolve the conflict in Parkdale that has existed for decades about housing," Perks said. "That is what we are doing.

"I hope now that it is finished we can all work together to try and improve the quality of housing in Parkdale," he said.

Although Spiegel said he agrees with some of the points made in the decision, he feels it ignored the particulars of Parkdale and a failed system of housing.

"I felt like it didn't take on the issue of ghettoization and how planning speaks to it," Spiegel said. "It's a difficult question to address so it just got ignored."