The downtown core is going to see a little more green space. A city-owned parking lot at Spadina Avenue and Adelaide Street will become a park amidst the daily hustle for all to enjoy in the coming years.
Late last month, Toronto councillors approved a motion by Coun. Joe Cressy – who represents Ward 20 Trinity-Spadina – that would fund the transformation of a public parking lot into a 13, 658 square-metre (one-third of an acre) park. The idea is to have a new green space for kids and dogs in a city increasingly peppered with glassy, sky-high condo buildings.
According to CBC, the tab will be financed by $10 million Toronto will receive from a developer in exchange for increased height and density in one of their projects close by.
Cressy’s motion also asked for the city to advance the development of the park and other green spaces. At a time when the congestion and the concrete can consume even the calmest of Toronto’s pavement pounders, adding green space ASAP is more than a nice idea – it’s a necessity.
This move marks another step away from prioritizing the car in Toronto like we did in the past. It also recognizes the inevitable fact that – thanks to a climate that has priced millennial-aged homeowners out of the housing market – more children will be raised in high-rises in the city core. “Downtown Toronto is the most parks-deficient area in the entire city today,” Cressy said, according to CBC. “If you’re going to raise a family in a high-rise, the park becomes your backyard.” It’s therefore critical that we create these new green spaces, he stresses.
In a statement, he stressed what most Toronto residents have long noticed: “For too long, development was not accompanied by the growth in services and spaces needed to make our downtown neighbourhoods livable. Building a park in the heart of the Entertainment District is a crucial step in our work to catch up and build the green space our communities need,” he wrote.
And it’s about time. After all, the sunny Sunday park-blanket real estate is quickly diminishing at Trinity Bellwoods these days.
Featured image: Instagram/ @cynthiaejohnson