Lakeview

Lakeview is the south end of Oshawa, from the 401 corridor down to Lake Ontario. On the City's map it stretches from Oshawa Creek and Simcoe Street South east to Farewell Street and the harbour lands, and a wedge north of the 401 carries it up to Bloor Street East between Ritson and Wilson roads, where the Central Oshawa transportation hub is planned. Locals just say South Oshawa. The GM assembly complex off Park Road South lies across Simcoe in the Stevenson community, and the Second Marsh and the GM headquarters lands east of the harbour are mapped separately, so the eastern and western lines are roughly drawn.

Wartime Housing Limited built the first big wave of Lakeview during the Second World War, when the GM plants turned out military trucks, and those storey-and-a-half frame houses on Cedar Street, Wilson Road South, Chaleur Avenue and the side streets below Ritson still define the look: steep roofs, small footprints, 40 to 50 foot lots, many enlarged with dormers and rear additions. The 1950s and 1960s added brick bungalows along Cedar, Wentworth and Valley Drive and around the schools, and the late 1960s and 1970s brought semi-detached houses and back-splits east toward Farewell Street and Southmead Park, plus small townhouse rows and low-rise apartments near Wentworth Street East and Bloor Street East. Closest to the park, older cottages and postwar bungalows on Lakeview Park Avenue and Simcoe South stand a few minutes from the sand. Infill is starting: replacement two-storeys on wide wartime lots, new rows on former commercial parcels, and the mid-rise and mixed-use development the official plan directs to Harbour Road and the Simcoe South frontage.

Simcoe Street South is the spine. The 901 PULSE bus starts its run at Lakeview Park and heads north through downtown to the college and university, the 407 route on Ritson Road South and Colonel Sam Drive links the harbour end with downtown and the campus, and the 403 links Wentworth Street to Oshawa GO and the Oshawa Centre. Oshawa GO itself is about ten minutes west by car, at Bloor and Thornton; the station Metrolinx has proposed for the CP line near Simcoe and Ritson would sit on Lakeview's northern edge. The 401 on-ramps at Simcoe and Ritson are both close, and the Harbour Road truck traffic to the port uses Simcoe South and Farewell Street, which matters if you live on either. The Waterfront Trail follows the whole shoreline and the creek-side bike path climbs north from the park to downtown and beyond.

The public board's elementaries in Lakeview are Dr. C.F. Cannon on Cedar Street, Glen Street Public School and Lakewoods on Chaleur Avenue, feeding G.L. Roberts Collegiate on Chaleur, the DDSB high school for the south end. Catholic families attend Monsignor Philip Coffey on Oxford Street or, reportedly, Holy Cross near Simcoe South for elementary grades, and then Pereyma, the Catholic secondary school on Conant Street inside the community. French-language elementary schools, Antonine-Maillet for Viamonde and Corpus-Christi for MonAvenir, are in the west and central parts of the city, a bus ride away. Attendance areas are drawn and revised by each board, not by the neighbourhood, so check the mapping for the particular address. Durham College and Ontario Tech share a campus at the top of Simcoe, one 901 ride away, and Trent's campus sits beside the Civic complex near the GO station.

Lakeview Park is the centrepiece: a supervised beach in summer, a splash pad, picnic groves, the historic Jubilee Pavilion, the Oshawa Museum in the Henry, Robinson and Guy houses, and the Waterfront Trail running east past the harbour to the Second Marsh and Darlington Provincial Park. Southmead Park, Cordova Valley along the creek and the school fields serve the inland streets, and the South Oshawa Community Centre on Cedar Street has a pool, gym and arena space, with a library branch reportedly serving the area from the Jess Hann building on Wentworth Street West. Shopping is practical rather than pretty: grocery and pharmacy plazas on Simcoe Street South, Wentworth Street and Cedar, the big-box cluster near the Ritson interchange, and the Oshawa Centre ten minutes away. The port brings freighters, salt and steel piles and truck traffic, and the GM complex across Simcoe still runs shifts, so industrial noise and the lake breeze are both part of the setting.

Lakeview fits buyers after a lot and a beach they can walk to at the lowest cost of entry in the city, who like a plain house they can improve, and who do not mind industry as a neighbour. Trades families, GM and port workers, first-time buyers, cyclists who ride the Waterfront Trail and investors buying wartime houses to add units all fit. Anyone set on new construction, a homogeneous streetscape or a walk to downtown will be less happy, and certain blocks around Simcoe South and Bloor carry more social-service traffic and older rental stock. The lake side and the streets around the schools are the calmest.