City hall has made a conditional offer to buy the former Sherwood Forest Public School and its five-acre playground.
Neighbours say the $1.25 million sale price is well worth it to prevent a private developer from destroying the green space.
"What's nice about this area here, is that there's a lot of shade in the summer," says John McTaggart.
"I wish people could be here on a spring or summer day and see how much activity there is here," says Naadia Bacchus.
But city staff determined in December that there was no municipal need to buy the propery for the sake of greenspace.
From a taxpayer's perspective, you've paid more than a $1 million to buy a property you already own, just to shift control from the public school board to city hall.
So what does the city plan to do with the property?
"We will look at what the options are with regards to re-using, re-purposing the land or whether we might be looking at new things," says Mayor Joe Fontana.
For now, those concepts remain a closed door matter for city council.
But real estate documents show the sale is conditional on a zoning change to create a combination of parkland and residences that could range from single family homes to stacked townhouses.
The Orchard Park/Sherwood Forest Ratepayers Association isn't concerned that the city must now find a private developer to partner with, and rejects suggestions city hall is real estate speculating with taxpayer money.
"There is not that much speculation in this site. Our neighbourhood is a very desirable place. So I don't think there will be any concerns with someone from the development industry being interested," says Sandy Levin.
The city had only a brief period to buy the property before it went on the open market.
"What we do with it now, we have a number of options. One thing is for sure we are not going to sell it for less than we paid for it," says Fontana.
The city will hold a public workshop to discuss options for the site in early April.
