Ground has broken on Toronto’s first Housing Now project, five years after City Council approved a plan to use surplus City of Toronto-owned lands to build affordable housing and mixed-income communities near transit.

On Wednesday, politicians and stakeholders gathered to symbolically put shovels in the ground at a new 725-unit rental housing development at 5207 Dundas St. W. in Etobicoke.

The city, in partnership with CreateTO (Toronto’s real estate agency), is working with Kilmer Group and Tricon Residential to construct the new building, which will have 218 affordable units, some of which will be deeply affordable, and 507 market-rate rental suites ranging in size from one to four bedrooms.

The building will also have amenities and services as well as retail and public spaces. Occupancy is expected in about four and a half years.

This new development is located on one of seven parcels of an 18-acre site in the former Six Points area, which is also known as “Spaghetti Junction.” The city invested $77 million to decommission the complex interchange and transform it into a new network of streets.

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