THE CENTRE FOR Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is in talks with a mental health and addiction clinic, based out of Guelph, to occupy CAMH’s vacant Brentcliffe Road site.
 

Kathleen Wynne, MPP Don Valley West, said it was made clear at a recent community meeting that residential use is not welcome for the site because of already overcrowded schools, traffic congestion and wanting to maintain access to the ravine through the vacant land.
 

“The CAMH board and leadership have worked very hard to find institutional use,” Wynne said, of the efforts made to accommodate the local community’s request.
 

The Brentcliffe Road building has been vacant since April 2008 when CAMH relocated its services to its Queen Street West and Ossington Avenue site.
 

They are trying to work out a deal with Homewood Health Centre to utilize some or all of the space. But Susan Pigott, spokesperson for CAMH, said they have yet to reach a deal regarding whether or not it will share the facility and run services from the site as well.
T

he centre also hopes to lease the other approximately six acres of the nine-acre property for institutional use on a long-term basis.
“The ideal tenant would be somebody who puts it to an institutional use, such as a long-term care facility or a retirement home,” Pigott said. But they haven’t found anyone yet.
“What we were trying to do with the Brentcliffe building was to have a short-term, I think it was a five- to 10-year lease,” she said.