AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Star:
Massive Lawrence Heights overhaul planned
Huge revitalization to create mix of housing raises fears the poor will get swept out
May 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Donovan Vincent
City Hall Bureau
The Lawrence Heights housing project was built as an "isolated ghetto," but three years from now the walls that separate it from the surrounding community will start coming down.
That's how Howard Moscoe, the councillor responsible for the area, is selling the city's revitalization plan for the often-troubled public housing complex.
There's no dollar amount fixed at this point, but the eventual goal is to tear down all 1,208 units of Toronto Community Housing Corp. that stand on 40 hectares near Lawrence Ave. W. and the Allen Expressway.
All the units will be replaced. Exactly where, in many cases, is still being determined.
When the revitalization is completed, 10 to 15 years from now, the concentration of social housing at Lawrence Heights will have been replaced by mixed housing, adding seniors' residences, condos and commercial space. Some surrounding land will also be redeveloped, including where schools and plazas now stand.
"It will be a public-private development deal, and the goal is to finance it through intensification – the sale of land,'' says Moscoe. "We're going to eliminate the (public housing) stigma.''
But some of the 3,500 residents are expressing unease and suspicion. They're fearful that, being poor, they'll be uprooted by the "renewal," sent elsewhere and never get to return.
"Prime real estate. That's what this is all about,'' says Mayhem Morearty, 26, a recording artist who has lived in Lawrence Heights all his life.
"This land, they can quadruple their money. Instead of rent geared to income, they can build umpteen condos,'' he said. The frustrating thing, he said, is at the end of the day "we can't do nothing about it."
A community meeting at a local school is planned for Monday evening. Moscoe, Derek Ballantyne as CEO of Toronto Community Housing and city staff will explain the early stages of the plan to residents.
The meeting is also billed as a way to get community input and encourage participation.
Moscoe says experience has shown that mixed-income communities are best. Success breeds success, he argues.
"The construction of social housing ghettos has been a failure wherever that's been done," he says.
"We were handed Lawrence Heights by the province. It was downloaded. It was in deplorable shape ... It's been a huge liability in the sense of the city wanting to provide decent affordable housing."
City planner Ted Tyndorf says the revitalization will create an integrated neighbourhood that has better physical connections to the larger community.
The Lawrence Heights makeover is part of the city's new plan for assisted housing, which shuns the construction of warehouses of subsidized housing.
Regent Park, an older, 28-hectare mega-housing project in the east-end downtown, is undergoing a gigantic 12-year, $1 billion overhaul that will reduce the site's proportion of assisted units from 100 per cent to 30 per cent.
The revitalization is being done in large part to stem the street crime and social problems in a housing site whose enclosed design has cut it off from the surrounding community.
Lawrence Heights has seen its share of trouble, too. It was plagued by a summer of gun violence in 2005.
At Regent Park, many subsidized units will be relocated to other sites nearby. The fate awaiting Lawrence Heights units is still undetermined, one of several issues that concern community workers Awale Jama and Eva Tavares.
Jama says residents are concerned about "gentrification," the kind of renewal that ends with the poor being priced out of their neighbourhood.
Tavares also fears the loss of a sense of community. She has lived in Lawrence Heights more than 25 years and raised her children there.
"We understand there will be a new demographic coming,'' she says, while pointing out the diversity of Lawrence Heights' current population. "There's a lot of culture here. It's an amazing place."
Jama and Tavares bring up points of pride such as the annual Canada Day festival, cleanup days, youth programs, sports tournaments and co-op gardens as initiatives that have instilled pride and a sense of ownership.
Instead of revitalization, money would be better spent on more programs, Jama argues.
AoD
Massive Lawrence Heights overhaul planned
Huge revitalization to create mix of housing raises fears the poor will get swept out
May 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Donovan Vincent
City Hall Bureau
The Lawrence Heights housing project was built as an "isolated ghetto," but three years from now the walls that separate it from the surrounding community will start coming down.
That's how Howard Moscoe, the councillor responsible for the area, is selling the city's revitalization plan for the often-troubled public housing complex.
There's no dollar amount fixed at this point, but the eventual goal is to tear down all 1,208 units of Toronto Community Housing Corp. that stand on 40 hectares near Lawrence Ave. W. and the Allen Expressway.
All the units will be replaced. Exactly where, in many cases, is still being determined.
When the revitalization is completed, 10 to 15 years from now, the concentration of social housing at Lawrence Heights will have been replaced by mixed housing, adding seniors' residences, condos and commercial space. Some surrounding land will also be redeveloped, including where schools and plazas now stand.
"It will be a public-private development deal, and the goal is to finance it through intensification – the sale of land,'' says Moscoe. "We're going to eliminate the (public housing) stigma.''
But some of the 3,500 residents are expressing unease and suspicion. They're fearful that, being poor, they'll be uprooted by the "renewal," sent elsewhere and never get to return.
"Prime real estate. That's what this is all about,'' says Mayhem Morearty, 26, a recording artist who has lived in Lawrence Heights all his life.
"This land, they can quadruple their money. Instead of rent geared to income, they can build umpteen condos,'' he said. The frustrating thing, he said, is at the end of the day "we can't do nothing about it."
A community meeting at a local school is planned for Monday evening. Moscoe, Derek Ballantyne as CEO of Toronto Community Housing and city staff will explain the early stages of the plan to residents.
The meeting is also billed as a way to get community input and encourage participation.
Moscoe says experience has shown that mixed-income communities are best. Success breeds success, he argues.
"The construction of social housing ghettos has been a failure wherever that's been done," he says.
"We were handed Lawrence Heights by the province. It was downloaded. It was in deplorable shape ... It's been a huge liability in the sense of the city wanting to provide decent affordable housing."
City planner Ted Tyndorf says the revitalization will create an integrated neighbourhood that has better physical connections to the larger community.
The Lawrence Heights makeover is part of the city's new plan for assisted housing, which shuns the construction of warehouses of subsidized housing.
Regent Park, an older, 28-hectare mega-housing project in the east-end downtown, is undergoing a gigantic 12-year, $1 billion overhaul that will reduce the site's proportion of assisted units from 100 per cent to 30 per cent.
The revitalization is being done in large part to stem the street crime and social problems in a housing site whose enclosed design has cut it off from the surrounding community.
Lawrence Heights has seen its share of trouble, too. It was plagued by a summer of gun violence in 2005.
At Regent Park, many subsidized units will be relocated to other sites nearby. The fate awaiting Lawrence Heights units is still undetermined, one of several issues that concern community workers Awale Jama and Eva Tavares.
Jama says residents are concerned about "gentrification," the kind of renewal that ends with the poor being priced out of their neighbourhood.
Tavares also fears the loss of a sense of community. She has lived in Lawrence Heights more than 25 years and raised her children there.
"We understand there will be a new demographic coming,'' she says, while pointing out the diversity of Lawrence Heights' current population. "There's a lot of culture here. It's an amazing place."
Jama and Tavares bring up points of pride such as the annual Canada Day festival, cleanup days, youth programs, sports tournaments and co-op gardens as initiatives that have instilled pride and a sense of ownership.
Instead of revitalization, money would be better spent on more programs, Jama argues.
AoD
