Scarborough’s Golden Mile today is mostly parking lots, car dealerships, plazas, an indoor mall, the legacy of decades as a suburban commercial street.

It’s about to be something very different.

In 2016, the city launched a plan to turn about 113 hectares along Eglinton Ave., from Victoria Park to Birchmount Aves., into the type of high-density, mixed use community seen along Toronto’s busier streets.

The new Golden Mile will be laid on a new street grid, and fitted around the Crosstown Light Rail Transit line soon to run east to Kennedy station.

The possibilities — and what may not be realized as redevelopment happens — are enough to worry people.

Laura Dijana Higgins founded the Golden Mile and Neighbourhoods Community Association to give long-established places such as Clairlea, Ionview and Wexford a voice in what happens to the space between them.

“The last thing we want to do is put up a barricade against development. We just want good development,” she said.

Higgins wanted residents to embrace what would become the city’s Golden Mile Secondary Plan, and to keep asking questions.

Golden Mile — originally the Golden Mile of Industry, a place of wartime munitions factories — had maybe 800 people living in a few low-rises.

With five LRT stations coming, the community was expecting 30,000 people. The latest version of the plan calls for 26,000 units, at least 45,000 residents, Higgins said.

“I was probably overly optimistic,” she said, laughing.

Residents want “outstanding architecture” from the plan, integrated public services, and more things to do locally than just the Cineplex Odeon or shopping, said Higgins.

“We want to know the seniors aren’t being put in a cubby hole and ignored,” added Higgins, gesturing toward the nearby food court tables where dozens of seniors were sitting at Eglinton Square, the area’s largest retail centre.

Some had come from as far as Steeles Ave., or Pickering, to gather at the mall in the morning, she said.

“This is the crux of the opportunity,” Higgins said. “If they’re going to take down the mall, make sure there’s still a community hub.”

The current draft envisions Eglinton Avenue as a “great street” lined by tall buildings, the largest at LRT stops. A new Golden Mile Blvd, running east-west north of Eglinton, will be a destination street, with smaller mixed-use buildings, parks and shopping.

South of Eglinton, an extension of O’Connor Dr., which now ends at Victoria Park, will go to Birchmount along a ribbon of mid-rise “employment buildings.”

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The O’Connor extension gave Scarborough councillors bad moments earlier this year. The plan boundaries were expanded west, outside Scarborough, which meant control of the plan could be handed to the city’s planning committee.

A compromise, however, will see recommendations presented to North York Community Council on Sept. 16 before the plan lands at Scarborough Community Council for approval this fall.

Scarborough councillors see benefits coming for surrounding neighbourhoods, and say mixed-income and purpose-build rental housing could be part of the plan.

They aren’t, however, making guarantees. There’s a lot of consultation with developers and others still to do, they say.

“There’s an opportunity, done properly, to turn this into a vibrant part of the city,” said Gary Crawford, whose ward includes the south side of Eglinton.

Michael Thompson, councillor for neighbourhoods north of Eglinton, said people should be happy about the sheer amount of work done for the plan, a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Golden Mile corridor.”

By unlocking the value of land, the area will see more amenity space, more parkland, he said.

At the Victoria Village hub, a former pool hall on the Scarborough side of Victoria Park at Eglinton, the settlement services agency Working Women Community Centre is preparing to spread the word about redevelopment, and how residents can get more of what they want.

Executive director Marcie Ponte believes many local people have little spare time and don’t know about the plan.

“This development has to be for the whole community,” she said. “It all needs to be accessible and inclusive.”

The hub, where Working Women Community Centre became lead agency in 2010, is a one-stop shop and meeting place for immigrants in an area where few social services existed.

Increasingly, it serves Arabic-speaking newcomers from Wexford, including Syrian refugees who started arriving in 2016 and “received the welcome they were looking for,” said Sylvie Charliekaram, a program manager.

Our Strong Neighbourhoods (formerly Action for Neighbourhood Change) hosts an open house at the hub on Aug. 22, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., on the plan and how residents could benefit. Other forums will be held this fall.