Toronto community housing officials gave reporters a look at 175 Oak St., the newest building in the ongoing Regent Park redevelopment on Wednesday.
"My family came here in 1975 and this was the first neighborhood to welcome us," said local NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam.
"I learned to speak English at Spruce Court Public School up the street and I walked these streets as a young child. It would have never, ever occurred to me that the transformation of Regent would be so complete."
Regent Park is a 69-acre area of the city's east downtown. Its original form was built in the late 1940s as a replacement for slum housing.
Starting in 2005, the neighbourhood underwent an ambitious transformation that is still underway, which aims to add density — while still providing housing for low-income people.
When complete, the project will have about 1,250 subsidized housing units and about 1,900 with market rent.
Residents of buildings that were torn down have the right to return to reconstructed buildings in the neighbourhood.
175 Oak St. is the final building of the project's third phase. Phases 4 and 5, which will complete the project, will take another 10 or 15 years.
"This project has passed through many hands through the years," Wong-Tam said. "I know that we are not finished with Regent Park. We still have to complete [Phases 4 and 5], and every single time is going to get better."
The building's 213 rental units are divided up as follows:
- 189 are rent-geared-to-income, where rent is subsidized. Rent is calculated as 30 per cent of the family income. There is a waiting list
- 24 are affordable housing, available to people under an income threshold. In this category, a one bedroom apartment would be $1,366 a month, and a two-bedroom would be $1,594
Forty-one apartments are fully accessible. They have features such as electrical plugs a few feet off the ground and kitchen cabinet racks that lower to be accessible for wheelchair users.
The building's new residents may be able to move in starting March 2025.
About 100,000 people live in Toronto's community housing apartments, and about another 100,000 are on the waiting list.
