City politicians endorse demolition of Lorne Ave Public School

The city is set to move forward with demolishing a school in London’s Old East neighbourhood that community members long tried to keep open.

During Tuesday’s corporate services committee meeting, councillors voted to no longer accept proposals for re-purposing Lorne Avenue Public School and move forward with bringing it down instead.

The current plan calls for the building to be demolished and for parkland to be established with the potential for a low-density residential development in the future.

Scott MacLean with the Save Lorne Ave. community group tells AM980 it’s good to have some closure.

“A lot of the homeowners in the area, specifically the ones who are bordering the school, have always been worried about what the adaptive use could be and given that we’re now at this stage and we’re going to be moving forward with some park space and what the city has proposed for the remainder of the space is potentially for low-density residential single family homes, it’s in keeping with the neighbourhood and would just help to enhance the community at large,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "A lot of the homeowners in the area, specifically the ones who are bordering the school, have always been worried about what the adaptive use could be and given that we're now at this stage and we're going to be moving forward with some park space and what the city has proposed for the remainder of the space is potentially for low-density residential single family homes, it's in keeping with the neighbourhood and would just help to enhance the community at large," he said.

He believes demolishing the building is the best option on the table.

“There had been a couple of unsolicited proposals that came in well after the process that the city put out for adaptive re-use of the space, and none of them met the proper criteria or had enough funding behind them to actually make it viable, so given all of that this was already Plan B as part of the whole community consultation and I’m glad to see it’s moving forward at this point.”

The city will hold a public meeting on June 27 to discuss the plans further with the community.