Closing And Selling Off Toronto’s School Properties
what can be done?

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THE STATE OF OUR TORONTO.

In this instance, Toronto can take a lesson from various churches that now are at least partially supported by attached residences. The church-attached residences vary in nature from seniors’ residences to parishioners’ residences, but they all support and are supported by the church of which they are a part.

The school properties are owned by the city, and the city can build on them. The schools in question are not well-attended enough to warrant keeping them open. We don’t want to lose the city-owned properties.

Putting one and one and one together would have the city building long-term varied lease residences on the school properties specifically for families with school-aged children. Two good-sized buildings can house a thousand three-and-four-bedroom residences, each leased only to families of that description.

Perhaps, based upon the age of the youngest child, a “maximum residency” annual lease for a family might run five years beyond that child’s eighteenth birthday. This would leave the family free to renew its lease annually, but after the youngest child attained the age of twenty three (which would allow the family to stay on until that child graduated from elementary school, senior school, and university if need be), the family would be required to move out and make room for another. Condominium use would be counter-productive because it would turn the property to a non-school-feeder residence over time.

The buildings would take on the name of the school. For example, “Brookhaven Elementary School” would indicate the school itself plus two 500-unit three and four bedroom residences built directly where the school buildings are now, to preserve their playground and green park use areas.

Let’s fantasize for a moment about the nature of those residences. We are starting anew here, so we can allow our imaginations to roam.

First, each should be designed as an award-winning piece of architecture, chosen through world-wide competition. The criteria should be the sustainability of the design as a contribution to the city’s future generations. Would they be favourably impressed by the design? Would it contribute to Toronto remaining a beautiful city?

Second, they should be owned by a city corporation. This would enable the city to not only retain the land and school fed by the residential children but also to collect rents and property taxes on the units. Each unit should be sound proofed, well ventilated, and built with a firewall separation from its neighbours.

Next, as new buildings, they can be built using environmentally efficient heating and cooling assistance. Each could also contain the necessary electrical generation support systems that would reduce the amount of electricity it utilized from the hydro grid. Each can contain a required amount of abundant external year-round greenery throughout its height, walkways, and roof development. Transportation corridors designed for a future PERT system should be included in the floor plans.

The new buildings could serve not only as publicly-owned schools and apartments, they could also serve as a community hub. Multi-level underground facilities attached to the buildings can contain parking, shopping, public transit drive-through stops, and community-use levels containing hobby, daycare, swimming pool, club, meeting, auditorium, cinema, gymnasium, dojo, and music rooms of several descriptions, graphic and ceramic art studios, medical services, and multi-purpose rooms –all for use by not only building residents, but by the entire surrounding neighbourhood as well.
Commercial tenants should be chosen to not interfere with the existing neighbourhood commercial services, but rather as a supplement to it, and existing commercial enterprises in the neighbourhood should be given first opportunity to lease them.

Emergency service vehicles and personnel could be stationed in the new buildings, allowing building security and neighbourhood security to be heightened by resident police, fire, and paramedic services.

Thus, not only do we save the school properties as city-owned, but we also develop a very good source of long-term income for our currently cash-strapped city through a city-owned corporation that manages the buildings, leasing premises and commercial enterprise space. We attract international attention and subsequent immigration especially of families with children, and we provide for the future of the city.