Turning parking lots into housing: London, Ont. mayor directs staff to look at options
Global News
Also announced Tuesday was a request for proposal for a mixed-use development at 185 Queens Ave. that will incorporate both on-site parking and affordable housing.
London Mayor Josh Morgan has directed city staff to start looking for city-owned downtown parking lots with potential for redevelopment as high-density housing and parking.
The direction to civic administration was issued Tuesday using the mayor’s “strong mayor” powers. The plan was originally detailed at last month’s state of the city address, along with other housing initiatives.
“The redevelopment of city-owned parking lots will allow us to not only increase available on-site parking, they will also add significant residential density within new high-rise structures above the redeveloped parking facilities,” Morgan said.
Morgan adds that the long-term viability of downtown is linked to the number of people living and working in the area.
“You could try to spend all of your time convincing everybody from the suburbs to come to the downtown each and every day,” he said.
“Or you can get thousands and thousands and thousands more people to live in the core, walk out their front door, support local businesses, engage in the entertainment, creative vibrancy in the city, eat at the restaurants, just create that atmosphere in the downtown core.”
Mixed use will be an aspect of new development, but the focus is mainly on parking and residential.
“I’m not averse to the mix of development in the building. If there’s a good case for some level of commercial in the development, that’s not something that should be automatically excluded.”
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