New affordable housing is planned as the City of Toronto proposes to cut down the amount of real estate space it is using.
A report for the CreateTO Board reveals a plan to optimize the City’s real estate portfolio which includes offices housing more than 15,400 employees across 3 million square feet.
This space includes 52 locations that are either owned by the City or leased and the plan calls for this to be cut to 20, mostly through the collapsing of leases that are expiring in the next few years.
The plan also releases 8 buildings that will be repurposed including affordable housing.
The City’s key Civic Centres, City Hall and Metro Hall will be optimized and become modern office hubs that will be able to accommodate up to 5,600 more employees through more efficient office design.
"This is an opportunity to explore how we can make better use of public land to build more vibrant and livable communities with greater investments in services such as affordable housing, transit, parks and libraries. The first step is to evaluate current and future uses of our public lands to see if they are still serving their purpose; then we must identify the needs of our communities, which in some cases might involve planning to use public land to better meet changing needs, said Toronto councillor Mike Layton.
