Recently announced plans for a new Bathurst-Finch community space will provide necessary resources to currently underserviced North York residents.

“I think it’s going to mean a lot,” said Julie Callaghan, program director of New Heights Community Health Centres. “I think it’s going to make a big difference.”

The joint venture between New Heights and United Way Toronto seeks to construct a new 7,000-square-foot facility on land leased from the Toronto District School Board at Northview Heights Secondary School. Callaghan said the centre will bring together eight or nine agencies, offering settlement, mental health and employment services catering to the area’s high population of seniors and newcomers.

The addition of the centre will also help alleviate strain on existing community centres, including the Antibes Community Centre, which Callaghan said is overused. “There are lots of groups that would like to get space and can’t because that place is just full up all the time,” she said. Denise Andrea Campbell, the city’s acting director of community resources, said she was hopeful a partnership could exist between the city-run Antibes and the new hub to co-ordinate services and programming. Lorraine Duff, director of community resources at United Way, said that the hub — one of eight planned in the city — will bring lacking services to the rapidly growing area.

“We noticed that in many of the priority neighbourhoods there wasn’t a lot of services available for people living in those communities,” she said. “They just haven’t kept up with the growth of those communities.” Three million dollars has currently been committed to the project, supplied in equal portion by United Way Toronto and the federal and provincial governments as part of the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund. Callaghan said she is hopeful for a fall 2011 completion date.