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Thunder Bay city administration is recommending council approve the sale of four large pieces of city-owned land for housing developments.

At this week’s meeting of the Mayor’s Taskforce on Building More Homes Advisory Committee, the city is recommending four properties: 300 Tokio Street, 144 Fanshaw Street, 791 Arundel Street, and the land between 211-223 Tupper Street and 224 Camelot Street, be declared as surplus.

That would then allow the properties to be sold to developers.

Deanna Walker, the city’s manager of realty services, said the proposed projects are still in the conceptual stage, and could change. A report to the taskforce, however, states that if all four go ahead as planned, they could create about 1,385 new housing units:

• 400 units on Tokio Street
• 144 on Fanshaw Street
• 600 on Arundel Street, and
• 185 on Tupper/Camelot streets.

“Things like site plan control would be applied through the negotiation process, which would deal with all of the things that communities often find themselves concerned with, landscaping buffers, you know, all manner of things,” Walker said. “As we move through this, the unit count could fluctuate based on those parameters.”

“But I would stress that we have set an ambitious housing target for ourselves, given our housing shortage in Thunder Bay, and these developments would be key to reaching that target and just ensuring that we have appropriate amounts of housing in our community.”

Walker said there is still opportunity for people to provide feedback — that includes a survey on the city’s Get Involved website, and two open houses taking place on Wednesday, first from 2-4 p.m. at City Hall, and then from 6-8 p.m. at the Oliver Road rec centre.

If everything proceeds as planned, and council approves the recommendation in December, Walker said building permits could be issued in 2026. Construction on the project could start that year, as well, or in early 2027.

One city councillor has already been hearing feedback about one of the proposed projects, however: the matter was discussed at a very-well-attended Current River ward meeting earlier this month.

“It was a respectful conversation,” Current River Coun. Andrew Foulds said. “Certainly, I am listening to the concerns of the neighborhood.”

Foulds noted that the Arundel property, unlike the other three, would need to be rezoned before any residential development could take place. That would require council approval.

“There is no question that we are in a housing crisis, not only in the city of Thunder Bay, across the province and across the nation,” Foulds said. “We’re also in a climate crisis.”

“In order to deal with those two huge issues, we do need to have a focus on intensification and increasing the density of our cities, building on existing infrastructure. With that said, we do need to make sure that the infrastructure can handle it. We also have to make sure that the developments are appropriate and safe.”

For his part, Foulds said if the development were to go ahead, he wants to see the connection between the North End and Boulevard Lake maintained, “either through the existing pathway … or if the developer at their expense realigned that trail.”

“Secondly, I do believe that the residents who live on Toledo do deserve some privacy and so I’m hopeful that the use of site plan control could be implemented, and there would be some type of green barrier that would allow some privacy for the the residents there.”

Foulds said he also has concerns about stormwater management, and traffic in the area, as well.

The city’s recommendation regarding the four properties is expected to go before council on Dec. 2.