A wave of affordable housing and shiny venues is taking over Parkdale
More than 400 new units will soon line Queen West
Parkdale is changing—just don’t call it gentrification. This week, the city and a coalition of non-profits announced that more than 400 new affordable and supportive homes will soon be built across the beloved west-end neighbourhood. The group also announced a suite of new community and health care centres to help serve what will be a surge of new residents.
The massive cluster of projects involves Toronto’s real estate and housing agency, CreateTO, plus the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust and the University Health Network.
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Construction is already underway for a supportive-housing low-rise on Queen, just west of Brock Avenue, with affordable units designed for long-term tenancy. A few blocks west, at Beaty Avenue, the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre is working to replace its current properties with a 10-storey mixed-use tower containing 141 affordable rental units (including 50 rental replacements) along with a new community space.
The biggest development of the bunch is Parkdale Hub: a long-planned three-building complex atop several publicly owned sites at Queen and Cowan. It will come with affordable housing up top and a library, a recreation centre and other community facilities below.
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The Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre also plans to build a seven-storey, 55-unit addition as well as the second phase of Dunn House, part of UHN’s social medicine housing program led by Andrew Boozary.
For Parkdale folk, this news could not come soon enough. The neighbourhood’s renters are currently plagued by high rates of eviction, with affordable options disappearing as high-end condos and apartments encircle the neighbourhood. Across Toronto, decent housing remains out of reach for many, with the ownership costs of an average-priced home now eating up 63 per cent of the average household income, according to RBC.
Zakiya Kassam is a writer and fact checker whose work has appeared in Post City Magazines, This Magazine and Now Toronto. She was previously the associate editor at Storeys.
