If you haven’t heard of Car­leton Vil­lage before, you are not alone. It’s a rel­a­tively small com­mu­nity north­east of the Junc­tion that is slowly becom­ing more attrac­tive to first-time buy­ers, young fam­i­lies and investors.  It is also know as Weston-Pellam Park.

Car­leton Vil­lage is named after Guy Car­leton, who served as the first Govenor of Canada, in 1768. A very diverse neigh­bour­hood with a large pro­por­tion of the demo­graphic being Por­tuguese and Italian.

Real estate would be pri­mar­ily res­i­den­tial with light indus­trial areas bor­der­ing the rail­way lines. The res­i­den­tial would pre­dom­i­nantly be sin­gle fam­ily semi-detached and some homes would have been con­verted to multi-family res­i­dences to accom­mo­date a rental demand.

The spelling of the Car­leton Vil­lage name, with or with­out an “e”, has been con­tentious since the areas incep­tion in the 1850′s. Even today, the his­tor­i­cal street mark­ers in the Vil­lage spell Car­leton with­out an “e”, while the local pub­lic school spells Car­leton with an “e” in its name.

Car­leton Vil­lage Real Estate Map

By the 1860′s, despite its spelling con­tro­versy, Car­leton Vil­lage had emerged as a pros­per­ous rail­way and indus­trial cen­tre. Car­leton Vil­lage amal­ga­mated with the Town of West Toronto in 1889. Then in 1909, this dis­trict was annexed by the City of Toronto.

Some of the old labour­ers’ cot­tages’ on Old Weston Road date back to the 1850′s and 1860′s. How­ever, the major­ity of Car­leton Vil­lage homes were built between the 1880′s and 1920′s.

Carleton’s hous­ing stock is a mix of detached, semi-detached, and attached Victorian-style homes. The front facades of some of these houses have been refaced with new brick, cre­at­ing a mod­ern look that is in sharp con­trast to the older houses in the neighbourhood.

Due to much of the indus­trial oper­a­tions along the rail­way lines mov­ing out in the 70’s and 80’s many town home, hard/soft lofts and apart­ment con­do­mini­ums have been devel­oped and are a large part of the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of this tran­si­tion neigh­bour­hood. It’s afford­abil­ity also has cre­ated a lot of inter­est from younger pro­fes­sion­als and fam­i­lies who want to live close to the down­town core but yet remain in a largely res­i­den­tial and fam­ily friendly neighbourhood.

Car­leton Vil­lage Real Estate

With tree-lined streets, parks and schools, the streetscape is very attrac­tive and has a lot of poten­tial. In the future, the most cov­eted homes will over­look Wadsworth Park or be on the dead-end por­tion of the streets link­ing to the soon to be trans­formed aban­doned hydro lands. The reju­ve­na­tion of the hydro cor­ri­dor into green space is one exam­ple of the changes tak­ing place in Car­leton Village.

Retail devel­op­ment may be the most impor­tant indi­ca­tor of what direc­tion a neigh­bour­hood is trend­ing. Vacant shops, unkempt store­fronts and poorly run busi­nesses are not a sign of a healthy neigh­bour­hood. On this front, there is still much work to be done in Car­leton Vil­lage, but pos­i­tive devel­op­ment is hap­pen­ing. The most sig­nif­i­cant will be the com­ple­tion of the nearby Stock Yards project in the fall of 2013. Located at the north­west cor­ner of Weston Rd and St. Clair Ave West, the mega project will bring in big box stores such as Tar­get, Best Buy, Old Navy and Pets­mart. As well, there will be many smaller, well-known retail brands leas­ing space.

Look­ing north on Weston Road above St.Clair

One thorn in the side of many res­i­dents in Car­leton Vil­lage is the con­ges­tion at the St. Clair Ave West / Old Weston bridge. The bridge cre­ates a bot­tle­neck as it tight­ens traf­fic to one lane each way to under­pass the rail­way tracks. The issue has been raised before the city coun­cil and they have given approval for an envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment study to pro­ceed. Another intrigu­ing devel­op­ment has also arisen from the recon­struc­tion of the bridge, as the coun­cil has asked for an “analy­sis of the fea­si­bil­ity and ben­e­fits of estab­lish­ing a new sta­tion or trans­fer oppor­tu­nity of the George­town South GO Tran­sit Line and the Air-Rail Link, as part of any pos­si­ble recon­struc­tion of the bridge.” This would be another pos­i­tive devel­op­ment in terms of pub­lic tran­sit in and out of the area.

It’s impor­tant to note that although there are many pos­i­tives hap­pen­ing in the com­mu­nity, the area is still very much in the begin­ning stages of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion. It has seen its share of crime in the past and Carl­teon Vil­lage Pub­lic School is one of the 10 poor­est per­form­ing schools in Toronto. In 2006, a cen­sus reported that of the 1,665 fam­i­lies in the area, 26% are lone par­ent house­holds. There is also low-income Toronto com­mu­nity hous­ing in the area. Until the Stock Yards open, one may also find there to be a lack of shop­ping and qual­ity pro­duce in the imme­di­ate area. For restau­rants and nightlife, you will want to head east on St. Clair or jaunt over to the Junction.

Car­leton Vil­lage is not for every­one, but the upside and value in this neigh­bour­hood can’t be ignored. Do your­self a favour and give it a look before break­ing the bank to live fur­ther inside the Toronto core.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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