Ambitious strategy to revitalize decaying public housing in London and Middlesex County

London and Middlesex Community Housing’s new regeneration plan to improve its affordable units in poor conditions. CTV’s Daryl Newcombe reports.

Weeks after a condition assessment gave London Middlesex Community Housing’s (LMCH) collection of buildings an overall “poor” grade, a strategy is taking shape to overhaul public housing by leveraging the potential of existing properties.

The first step in the creation of a Master Regeneration Plan was in front of the LMCH Board on Thursday evening.

Specifically, the plan will determine which public housing buildings should be retained, which should be revitalized, which would benefit from a substantial redevelopment and if any should be sold.

It’s goal is to increase the number of rent-geared-to-income (RGI) housing units and improve the overall condition assessment of the public housing system in London and Middlesex County.

“If we’re going to build more rent-geared-to-income (RGI) housing, some of it is going to have to be on existing land, because one of the most expensive pieces in developing housing right now is land costs,” explained London Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis, who sits on the LMCH board.

Most of the public housing buildings in the region were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s.

In May, a report to City Council assessed the overall condition of 31 LMCH properties as “poor”.

Only seven buildings of in “fair” condition— the remainder were evaluated to be in “poor” or “very poor” condition.

Bringing the overall assessment up to “fair” condition would require an estimated $34.6 million over the next 10 years.

Achieving an overall “good” condition would require about $110.3 million over the same time period.

“In this phase (of developing the Master Redevelopment Plan), we are only looking at the properties based on their physical condition. We haven’t assessed their market value (and) redevelopment potential. That will be next steps,” explained Lewis.

The report provided to the LMCH board on Thursday recommended businesses cases be prepared for the redevelopment of three properties:

• Ladybrook Crescent (south London)
• Bella Street (Strathroy)
• Limberlost Road (northwest London)

The deputy mayor emphasized that the plan for each property would be unique based on its potential, however, in the case of Limberlost, it could resemble the Reimagine Southdale project that’s currently underway.

Reimagine Southdale increased density on the existing site by demolishing some aging townhouses to make space for what will eventually be the three-phased construction of 165 apartments.

The first apartment building is nearing completion.

“More rent-geared-to-income housing in the City of London without it just being tax payers giving us more money, but actually taking advantage of the properties we have and leveraging those as assets,” added Lewis.

Lewis believes the Master Regeneration Plan will be in front of City Council in the first quarter of 2026.