Revised plans for the proposed Ontario Place redevelopment in Toronto are once again drawing critical attention after being submitted to the city’s planning officials at the end of November.

Storeys has the details on the updated scheme, which still calls for one-third of the 155-acre site to be privately developed — a contentious provision that has led many Torontonians to call for the plan to be rejected outright in place of something more in tune with its original use as a public attraction. The revision also reclassified a 12-acre swath of beachfront land for public use in what appears as the only slight concession. 

The update also includes details for a five-level underground parking structure to be enacted between the Therme Group’s nine-story private spa and the renovated Live Nation amphitheater at the cost of over 800 trees, which is about 40% of the current iteration's total canopy. A report in the Toronto Star indicates that over 3,000 new trees will be planted in an unspecified portion of the site. Comments from Mayor John Tory at a recent press conference have cast doubts as to whether the disruptive parking accommodations will ever see the light of day. 

“I think that (review) will include whether or not a 2,000-car parking garage is something that’s necessary or desirable,” Tory said. “We are building a very expensive transit line, in partnership with the province and the federal government, that’s going to end up pretty close by there.”

“Investing $300 million in public funds to subsidize a private spa and waterpark, and accompanying parking structure, is a terrible use of taxpayer dollars,” Toronto Councillor Ausma Malik added.

Toronto's planning division is expected to make its final recommendations to the city council “by the end of 2023.”