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A condo tower being built stands between the old North Toronto Collegiate and the new school still under construction near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Faced with a staggering backlog of repairs on its aging infrastructure, the Toronto District School Board is launching redevelopment studies of five areas across the city to decide whether to sell off parcels of its land and use the money to rejuvenate the schools on those sites.

The proposal is touted as win-win: Developers hungry for real-estate in a city with an over-heated housing market get prime (and increasingly rare) land on which to build; a school board sitting on a $2.8-billion repair backlog - up from $474-million a decade ago - gets the cash it so desperately needs; students get better facilities.

But some parents are leery of the prospect of sending their children to school adjacent to major construction, only to find themselves living and studying in the shadow of a condo tower once the dust clears. And some local politicians argue that selling off public land to private developers is rash and unnecessary.

Wendy Crawford's daughter Sarah is in Grade 1 at Davisville Public school, one of several whose potential redevelopment is up for discussion. With a timeline of at least three years - more likely five, or as long as seven - her school would be under construction for most of her elementary career, Ms. Crawford fears.

"We don't want our daughter to have to be living in a construction zone."

Davisville is also prime real estate: It's just blocks away from Yonge-Eglinton Square, whose ambitious RioCan makeover city council approved last month. There's no doubt the school board would find plenty of buyers if it were to sell off even small portions of the sites being discussed.

"I think it's very smart for the school board to be looking into this," said Steve Deveaux, vice-president of land development for Tribute Communities. He said there would "absolutely" be interest from developers and buyers in the properties the TDSB is studying.

"There's less and less opportunities for intensification and … a lot of these locations are in prime areas of the city," he said. "They're close to transit, close to amenities, close to retail, and these are the places people want to live."

And, said Sheila Penny, the school board's executive superintendent of facility services, the board needs the money.

"We want to ensure that we end up with great schools and great communities, and we generate revenue. These are the three drivers," she said.

"We're not about putting towers up in the middle of existing residential communities. It's very important to respect the urban context of what it is that we're planning."

The city's model in this regard is North Toronto Collegiate Institute. Construction on a revitalized version of the school's historic building will be completed this summer, just as occupants of the two adjacent condominium buildings move in.

The multimillion-dollar project was made possible by the sale of seven-tenths of an acre of land to Tridel development, which netted the school board more than $22-million. Almost all the 528 units, which range in price from about $500,000 to $2.9-million, have been spoken for and sold months before construction's slated for completion.

Work on the new school went on for years, with about $50-million going toward a new building - including painstakingly restored heritage features - a sports track, landscaping and underground parking facilities. The final price tag is unusually high, Ms. Penny says: She expects work on other school sites being studied to be closer to the $30-million to $40-million range. This was due in part to the scope and special considerations for the project, which resulted in special structural requirements and a school building that's higher and denser than a typical high school.

"This won't work everywhere, but clearly in urban centres where we have the density that's prevalent here, it works very well," said Tridel senior vice-president Jim Ritchie of the development deal.

This, insists school board trustee and city council candidate Josh Matlow, is the new normal for making Toronto's school board economically viable.

"The TDSB's greatest asset is its land - along with the city, it's one of the top landowners in Toronto. And in my view, it has consistently mismanaged its property assets for far too many years."

But Chris Sellors, Mr. Matlow's opponent for the St. Paul's council seat and former assistant to departing councillor Michael Walker, a vehement opponent of the plan, says the city can't afford to sell off its public property.

"It's a short-term, shortsighted plan that could just fix their budgets for a couple of years, but in the long term it will sell our students short," he said, adding that he'd rather see a different provincial funding formula to solve the school board's cash woes.



"We don't want to cause any alarm that the school board is suddenly becoming a condo developer," Ms. Penny said. "This is one creative way to solve part of the problem. But it's just one part."

KICKIN' IT NEW SCHOOL

The Toronto District School Board is launching redevelopment studies of five areas, affecting 13 schools. These include:

Davisville-Yonge

Davisville Public School, 43 Millwood Rd. (Home to the TDSB's deaf and hard-of-hearing program.)

Bathurst Heights

640 Lawrence Ave. West, Now home to a year-round alternative school.

Sir Sandford Fleming, 50 Ameer Ave.

Flemington, 10 Flemington Rd.

Baycrest Public School,145 Baycrest Ave.

Lawrence Heights Middle School, 50 Highland Hill

Lawrence Midland

The TDSB voted in early 2009 to merge David and Mary Thompson with Bendale Business and Technical Institute and to add Grades 7 and 8 to the Donwood Park Junior Public School. About 18 acres of the 38-acre site will be sold.

Donwood Park Junior Public School, 61 Dorcot Ave.

Bendale Business and Technical Institute, 1555 Midland Ave.

Bloor Dufferin

The TDSB has committed to having at least one school on this block.

Bloor Collegiate Institute, 1141 Bloor Street West

Brockton High School (Was leased to conservatory of music; now used by FoodShare and the TDSB's aboriginal education department).

Oakburn - Avondale

Avondale Public School, 171 Avondale Ave.





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