Regent Park

Regent Park was built on a section of south Cabbagetown that planners had identified in the 1930s as one of Toronto's worst slums. On January 1, 1947, Toronto voters approved what is generally described as Canada's first slum-clearance and public housing redevelopment, on roughly 69 acres bounded by Gerrard, River, Shuter and Parliament streets.

A park-like design that isolated its own residents

Regent Park North was built first, with families moving into the new development starting in March 1949; Regent Park South followed in the 1950s. The complex followed a "towers and walk-ups in a park" design influenced by garden-city planning, with buildings turned inward around shared green space and cut off from the surrounding street grid — a design later blamed for isolating the community from the rest of the city.

Revitalization since 2005

By the 1990s, Regent Park's aging buildings and inward-facing layout had made it a symbol of mid-century public housing's limits; in 1995, tenants approached Toronto Community Housing about redevelopment. This led to the Regent Park Revitalization Plan, launched by the City and Toronto Community Housing in 2005, with construction beginning in 2006. The plan reimagines Regent Park as mixed-income and mixed-use, combining replacement rent-geared-to-income units with thousands of new market condominium units across five phases, alongside new amenities including the Daniels Spectrum arts centre and the Regent Park Aquatic Centre. The project's final phases were still under development as of the most recent public reporting.

Sources

• The Globe and Mail — Regent Park: A Look Back Through the Years
• Toronto Community Housing — Backgrounder: Regent Park Revitalization
• CBC News — Application for Final Phases of Regent Park Revitalization Filed