SLNA OK to swap park funds for Market St. plan

Dennis Hanagan –

A staff report that recommends taking money slated for a St. Lawrence Neighbourhood park and using it instead to spruce up Market Street was left up in the air at the Jan. 22 meeting of the Toronto and East York community council.

The report asks council to decide whether $700,000 in Section 37 benefits that the city received from the condo development at 40 The Esplanade—originally earmarked for a neighbourhood park—be re-allocated to make streetscape improvements on Market St., which the city wants to make into a pedestrian mall.

The original $700,000 now stands at $738,674 with accrued interest.

The future park would one day be bounded by The Esplanade, Market St., Wilton St. and Lower Jarvis.

It’s currently a city-owned parking lot.

The park can’t be built immediately because the North Market on Front St. has seconded the parking lot to house its vendors in a 1-storey, prefabricated building while its Front Street site is being rebuilt with a target completion date in early 2016.

The St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association—even though it wants the “long-promised park”—favours re-allocating the money.

“It seems far more sensible to use these funds to support the current streetscape improvements planned for Market St.,” SLNA president Suzanne Kavanagh said in a letter to local councillor Pam McConnell.

Kavanagh said park money can be acquired “as opportunities arise” over the next few years while the North Market vendors occupy the site.