Can failing schools help solve Toronto's housing crisis?

Some Toronto councilors are pushing the province to change a “bargaining” rule they say prevents the city from buying land from the public school board to build housing.

Mayor Olivia Chow's executive committee is asking Premier Doug Ford's government to make a major change to the rules governing how the Toronto District School Board sells surplus land. Right now, the board must follow a rigorous process that includes a clause requiring all land to be sold at “fair market value.”

Budget chief Shelley Carroll told the committee that one clause often undermines deals that serve the public interest, making them unaffordable.

“It's been a deal for a long time on the same things, where you can come across a social good that we all agree on except for this one issue,” Carroll said.

“We're not asking to sell these places for $1. But if the fair market value is $55 million because it's next to the subway, you're not getting the social good. So if they just accept it, that's a great thing.”

TDSB owns over 600 properties or 5,000 acres of land, making it one of the largest landowners in the city. As Toronto scrambles for space to develop new housing projects amid a deepening affordability crisis, Chow says public land can be repurposed to solve the problem. Chow emphasized that instead of selling surplus school land, it should be given to housing at a low cost.

“Why are we selling public land in the middle of a housing crisis?” he said. “We need to use public land to build housing, community centers and public spaces.”

Cooperation between the board and the city on real estate projects is not new. In his letter to the City Council, Chow notes that the city's development at the site of Davisville Junior Public School has created a new aquatic and multi-purpose community center. According to him, this model should be replicated for housing construction.

“Don't sell the land,” he said. “Because once you sell it, that's it, it's gone.”

TDSB Relies on Surplus School Sales: Chernos Lin

TDSB Chair Rachel Chernos Lin said the board is open to further partnerships with the city. But it projects a $26.5 million shortfall this year and has about $4.4 billion in repairs.

“Essentially, it's still important for us to consider fair market value because it allows us to modernize our own system of old infrastructure,” he said.

The board recently asked the provincial government to lift its ban on school closures and mergers, which would help bridge the budget deficit by eliminating the cost of maintaining underutilized facilities.

At a special board meeting earlier this month, trustees voted unanimously in favor of a motion requiring the Ministry of Education to end a moratorium imposed by the previous Liberal government in 2017. The proposal also asks the TDSB to exempt the TDSB from “consolidating four schools” each year if the province does not want to lift its ban.

“We have schools that are over 100 years old, and many of them, the largest part of our portfolio, are over 60 years old,” Chernos Lin said. “The repair and backlog situation is significant. It doesn't always make sense for us to keep investing in buildings that really need to be completely replaced.”

Number. Parthi Kandavel, who served as TDSB trustee for eight years, said the board was facing a difficult situation with its surplus schools. He said the city wants to focus on looking at its excess properties, including the Green P parking lots, to find new spaces for housing.

“I think the promotion of the work here is, I think, a clear priority for places on the school board,” Kandavel said. “I think it should be a conversation, but we have to be aware of the needs of our students.”

Former TDSB Chairman Bruce Davis appeared before the mayor's executive committee on April 9 and said the school board should consider using excess land to provide affordable housing for its employees. Many board members can't afford to live in Toronto, and that will now affect hiring and retention, he added.

“The affordability crisis and the education staff and teacher crisis are colliding,” Davis told CBC Toronto.

“It's absolutely possible to provide more housing on vacant school sites – and there are many – or on sites where some schools operate,” he said. “They don't have to be mutually exclusive.”

Davis, who now works as a consultant, said the board owns more than 600 properties across Toronto, making it well-positioned to add housing in every corner of the city.

“That's why it's gold,” he said. “Because when you add affordable housing or basic worker housing, I think it's really important to have that housing on a district-wide basis in the neighborhoods that we serve, trade and transit.”

Stephen Lecce, a spokesman for the Education Minister, said the government had moved to help build joint ventures between communities, municipalities and school boards.

“This legislation also allows school boards to dispose of school board property at fair market value to reinvest remaining funds in the repair and renovation of existing schools,” Isha Chaudhuri said in a statement.

The City Council will consider approving Mayor Chow's executive committee request at a meeting beginning Wednesday.