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“They will not be massive (towers), it will not be an eyesore. I will not intensify that area,” he said. “We’re passionate about making this a legacy project the city will be proud of. It will attract people to live around this development.”

It’s the second major land purchase and development unveiled in London in recent weeks, after Old Oak Properties announced it has bought the 72-hectare former London Psychiatric Hospital lands on Adelaide Street, south of Oxford Street, and plans a 3,000-home mixed-density development in the city’s east end.

As for the Byron gravel pit, Aarts envisions midrise to highrise towers on the northern portion of the land, fronting on Baseline Road, with the lake and green space to the south that may feature hiking and bicycle trails, among the recreational uses.

“The community is going to love this, it’s going to be awesome. It will be great for the growth of the city too.”

It’s early days and there is no estimate yet on how many units and buildings may rise on the site, but Aarts said the towers will not resemble downtown skyscrapers, but be more modest in scale in keeping with the area.

“There has been a designation for this land to be developed and we will be consistent with that,” Aarts said.

“We have experience with pits, with the way the land is and it opens up opportunity. We have a park, an important part of the city, across the street,” he said, referencing Springbank Park.

City hall still owns some land in the gravel pit, as do some private property owners and Lafarge, the aggregate company that had extracted stone from the pit before it closed.