Seniors' centre needs to retain parking lot

Seniors' centre needs to retain parking lot. The City of Toronto is considering the purchase of the Fairfield Senior's Centre parking lot, which constitutes a portion of the land currently owned by the TDSB, depicted here in yellow. Courtesy City of Toronto

"We can't operate that seniors' centre without that parking. We need to retain that parking," Etobicoke-Lakeshore Councillor Peter Milczyn told about 100 residents last Thursday night, March 4 in the centre's standing room-only auditorium. "The city is prepared to buy it, or undertake whatever other transaction necessary to keep parking for this centre."

City-board official talks continue six months after the board declared the lands, and 15 of its other properties, surplus and put the lands on offer to eight public agencies, including the city.

Heathercrest Park, another surplus board property in Etobicoke, is presently the subject of lease or land swap negotiations.

The city owns the Lothian Avenue seniors' centre, its front lawn and adjacent Fairfield Park.

But the school board owns the centre's 140-space parking lot, the field behind it, as well as green space flanked by the centre and the city-owned park, purchased 30 years ago by the former city of Etobicoke.

Milczyn said the city intends to retain the parking lot "at a minimum."

Residents urged the city to purchase all three parcels of the Lothian Avenue lands.

Its pricetag - $8 million.

The land is zoned 'parks and open space' in the city's Official Plan.

Klaas Vangraft asked why the city would want to change the land's parks designation.

It wouldn't, Milczyn said, but neither can the city afford to buy it all.

"The argument at the OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) by a developer if the city lets it go would be that the city does not want it for parks and open space," Milczyn said. "This quadrant of the neighbourhood is not parkland deficient. It would be difficult to make the argument at city council that the city spend $8 million for a parking lot and greenspace."

Some residents argued neighbourhoods west of Islington Avenue are parkland deficient.

"Community parks such as Fairfield are the green heart of a community with universal access to the young and the old," resident Ted Morris said of the Islington Avenue-Bloor Street West area greenspace. "Look at that map. It doesn't matter who draws the line or who claims ownership of a certain piece of it. It is parkland. It's used as a park. We see it as a park. And if it gets paved over, it's our park that we're going to lose... Losing a public trust is not in the public interest."

Board chair Bruce Davis said there is interest in the parcels from the private sector, both residential home developers, as well as private schools.

Milczyn said the city would take a strong position that any residential development be restricted to single-family homes.

Motivating the board's declaration of 16 properties surplus is a "tsunami" of $2-billion worth of deferred building maintenance on the board's 558 schools citywide, Davis explained.

Not one school has been repainted in its entirety since the board came into existence 12 years ago, he said.

Annual Ministry of Education funding of $40 million means the gap continues to increase as board schools further decline, board facility head Sheila Penny has said.

"Not one nickel anywhere in Canada has come out of that federal infrastructure program for schools," Davis said. "That means we don't get the provincial matching money."

The board's only opportunity to generate capital to fix schools - sell surplus school sites or vacant lands, Penny has said.

Fairfield Seniors' Community Centre is well-used by area seniors, officials heard.

"There are 800 of us," said Ralph Davis, president of Learning Unlimited. "Two hundred of us come three times a week to lectures here in the fall and winter. The parking now is tight. With this new plan, parking is an impossibility. More is needed."