West End Boy
Active Member
There was a big public meeting yesterday about the TDSB's Bloor/Dufferin land sale. TDSB, City, Toronto Lands Corp, and the Provincial community hub secretariat were all represented.
The plan is still to sell 7.3 acres of land at Bloor/Dufferin, and the old Brockton school on Croatia will be renovated and Bloor CI and Alpha 2 schools will relocate there in Sept 2018.
There is a RFP going out soon for interested developers, and so the idea is to get a developer on board with a vision and who will be required to include community benefits (still not fully defined). The timeline is to choose the developers in the Fall.
There were 2 breakout sessions about the Brockton renovation, the community hub idea, and the planning ideas for the site.
The Brockton renovation is budgeted at $20-million, and the TDSB staff admitted it is a downgrade from past plans for the school, due to money issues and Provincial rules. Many attendees, include teachers from Bloor CI, had concerns about the sizes of the classrooms at Brockton and the TDSB staff did their best to provide useless answers. It was a bit shocking, as one person pointed out, that they didn't bring floor plans of the existing building to bolster their tepid claims that everything should be fine, when in fact others in attendance had first-hand knowledge of the classroom sizes. Lots of other concerns, including space, safety of the connection to the field across the street, construction impacts on students, etc. One teacher suggested that they should consult with staff and students to ensure their needs are met (crazy idea, eh?) and the TDSB seemed uninterested in this idea. Architects know best, apparently.
The City will require lots of hoop-jumping before re-zoning is ever approved. They are looking for parkland (they will not take $ in exchange in this case), heritage studies, etc. Lots of interest in the crowd for affordable housing, art spaces, childcare, etc. to be included. Someone from the City said that demographically, the neighbourhood is well served by many services, but is short on green space and childcare spaces. He also said the neighbourhood has a higher millennial percentage, lower unemployment, but also lower income than the city overall.
My overall impression was that the community accepts that there will be tall condos on the site, but will work very hard to ensure that positive community benefits will also be included. The school renovation is disappointing to most, so we'll see where that goes. It does seem like things may move quickly now, barring a big slowdown in the economy and housing sector.
Anyone else in attendance? I didn't attend the community hub breakout session but would love to hear more about what happened there.
The plan is still to sell 7.3 acres of land at Bloor/Dufferin, and the old Brockton school on Croatia will be renovated and Bloor CI and Alpha 2 schools will relocate there in Sept 2018.
There is a RFP going out soon for interested developers, and so the idea is to get a developer on board with a vision and who will be required to include community benefits (still not fully defined). The timeline is to choose the developers in the Fall.
There were 2 breakout sessions about the Brockton renovation, the community hub idea, and the planning ideas for the site.
The Brockton renovation is budgeted at $20-million, and the TDSB staff admitted it is a downgrade from past plans for the school, due to money issues and Provincial rules. Many attendees, include teachers from Bloor CI, had concerns about the sizes of the classrooms at Brockton and the TDSB staff did their best to provide useless answers. It was a bit shocking, as one person pointed out, that they didn't bring floor plans of the existing building to bolster their tepid claims that everything should be fine, when in fact others in attendance had first-hand knowledge of the classroom sizes. Lots of other concerns, including space, safety of the connection to the field across the street, construction impacts on students, etc. One teacher suggested that they should consult with staff and students to ensure their needs are met (crazy idea, eh?) and the TDSB seemed uninterested in this idea. Architects know best, apparently.
The City will require lots of hoop-jumping before re-zoning is ever approved. They are looking for parkland (they will not take $ in exchange in this case), heritage studies, etc. Lots of interest in the crowd for affordable housing, art spaces, childcare, etc. to be included. Someone from the City said that demographically, the neighbourhood is well served by many services, but is short on green space and childcare spaces. He also said the neighbourhood has a higher millennial percentage, lower unemployment, but also lower income than the city overall.
My overall impression was that the community accepts that there will be tall condos on the site, but will work very hard to ensure that positive community benefits will also be included. The school renovation is disappointing to most, so we'll see where that goes. It does seem like things may move quickly now, barring a big slowdown in the economy and housing sector.
Anyone else in attendance? I didn't attend the community hub breakout session but would love to hear more about what happened there.
