There are about four dozen city-owned properties which could be redeveloped with housing, shows a preliminary map created by city staff.
Among them are the Sleeman Centre, River Run Centre, Victoria Road Recreation Centre, municipal parking lots and more.
“We're looking at all those opportunities,” said James Goodram, the city’s general manager of economic development and tourism. “It's really a starting point for us. And then we’ve really got to take a deeper dive into each property.”
The map, which was publicly released on Friday, was created following a strong mayor directive issued in February to identify municipal properties that could be turned into housing, as well as a requirement of the Housing Accelerator Fund grant announced in February.
Even if redevelopment of some of the identified sites is ultimately recommended to city council, there’s a lot of process that needs to come first, Goodram said.
City staff still needs to evaluate each site’s current uses, zoning, servicing capacity and impediments to development such as buried infrastructure. Also, staff is in the process of developing an evaluation framework for city-owned properties that could be redeveloped with housing.
“This information is provided as an evolving body of work and not all sites will be recommended for development,” states a staff report released with the map. “As part of this work, staff (is) reviewing all land inventory to confirm land use and identify lands that may be considered possible surplus, suitable to re-purpose, or needed to accommodate growth of city services.”
If and when municipal properties are recommended for redevelopment, the properties would first need to be declared surplus by city council.
