The Corktown subway station will be at the intersection of King Street and Berkeley Street. The stationhead is a sliver of the development across almost two city blocks affecting properties at 271 Front Street, 250 Front Street, 68 Parliament Street, and 25 Berkeley Street. It includes the Staples site, Porsche dealership, and First Parliament site. As part of the Corktown Station, the Transit-Oriented Community is expected to include 15,000 new residential units, with towers 46 storeys in height.
A map showing the local context of the First Parliament Site.
Transit expansion is critical, but the site must recognize the existing cultural heritage of the City of Toronto and allow for extensive, robust community consultation. Residents and community leaders have been engaged in the assembly of land and the design of the First Parliament Master Plan for several years. Building complete communities is largely a local effort, working with impacted stakeholders, business owners, and residents to create a strong and vibrant neighbourhood master plan. Metrolinx sought expropriation of the First Parliament site in January 2021, moved quickly, and a report on the business transaction is coming to City Council in October 2021.
To ensure the community was represented in discussions with City Staff, Metrolinx, and Infrastructure Ontario, the City hosted a First Parliament Town Hall where all divisions were represented and responded to a series of questions posed by the community. Find the answers here. This virtual town hall hosted over 400 virtual guests, and was facilitated by my office who gathered questions in advance of the meeting and coordinated responses available on the First Parliament website.
While the City of Toronto is a creature of the Province and consequently subject to its whims, the Toronto Centre office championed a transparent process wherein residents are active members in an effort to help shape and create complete communities, all the while supporting transit expansion.
FIRST PARLIAMENT MASTER PLAN
Above: Artistic renderings of the City of Toronto's First Parliament Master Plan
The First Parliament Site underwent a Master Plan revitalization strategy to create a vision, guiding planning principles, and a plan to develop the site over the next 10 to 20 years. The Master Planning process has engaged thousands of stakeholders and identified partnerships developing an overall vision and implementation plan for the site, including a library, affordable housing and community parkland.
In July 2021, the City of Toronto and CreateTO completed the First Parliament Master Plan after years of consultation and under the aggressive timeline of expropriation of City-owned lands. Alongside community leaders and members of the First Parliament working group, the City continues to advocate for more intentional inclusion of the First Parliament Master Plan to recognize community and City ambitions for these public lands. Read more about the First Parliament Master Plan.
