A two-acre lot at Yonge and Wellesley could house a new city park, or condo towers

A prized two-acre piece of provincial land at Yonge and Wellesley is up for sale and councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam is fighting hard to keep condo developers’ hands off it. She, Toronto Centre MPP Glen Murray and city staff are negotiating with Infrastructure Ontario to try to buy the empty lot, so they can turn it into a park for tree-starved residents of the high-rise-heavy area. Although estimates put the lot’s worth between $30 million and $60 million, Wong-Tam believes the city can either swap city-owned land for it, or buy it outright using the parkland acquisition fund (which, ironically, receives millions from developers who prefer to pay cash in lieu of donating land for park space). A new downtown park would be great—especially if there were much-needed parking beneath it, as the Toronto Parking Authority has proposed. But the province is so cash-strapped, we guess it’ll be looking for the highest bidder (read: developers). [Toronto Star]