WASTED SPACE Ottawa wants affordable housing on 'every possible piece' of federal land. So how much is out there? [View all]

WASTED SPACE
Ottawa wants affordable housing on ‘every possible piece’ of federal land. So how much is out there? A Globe analysis found enough to house 750,000 people

ERIN ANDERSSEN, CHEN WANG AND RACHELLE YOUNGLAI
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED JUNE 1, 2024

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-could-canadas-underused-public-land-be-the-key-to-solving-the-housing/?

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Near Halifax’s downtown core, a shabby patch of land lounges in the middle of what urban planners call a “super block.” City staff looking for future housing have been coveting this parcel for a decade. It’s close to bus routes, connected to services, and large enough, by their calculations, to contain a cluster of towering apartment buildings, with green space to spare for the 4,000 people who could live in them.

Instead, this 14 acres of prime housing real estate hosts a one-storey Canada Post mail sorting depot, and a parking lot of trucks. The city has grown up, busy with new construction, while the block with the post office property languishes like the slacker neighbour who gets in the way while you’re trying to work.

This land, Halifax city senior planner Luc Ouellet said, could be vibrant and bustling. “It’s not performing to its potential.”

The Halifax property is just one among hundreds of pieces of underperforming urban land owned by the federal government – including large armouries with empty parking lots, aging post offices, and low-rise office buildings in high-storey streetscapes.

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