The Toronto Parking Authority board has decided to shelve a plan to tear down rental housing on Eglinton Avenue in order to build a Green P lot in the neighbourhood.

During a meeting on Tuesday, the TPA board ordered a city review of the site’s potential for affordable housing before moving forward with the original proposal.

The decision comes in the wake of harsh criticism from housing advocates, who called the plan to build a surface parking lot “a waste of time and money.”

The city purchased 2204-2212 Eglinton Avenue West in 2013 and later bought a home at 601 Caledonia Road West in order to provide more parking to offset expected losses of on-street spots as a result of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT project.

Mayor John Tory was among those asking for the TPA to pump the brakes on the lot, which would have provided 24 spots at the corner of Eglinton Avenue West and Caledonia Road.

In a letter sent to the chair of the TPA board, Mayor John Tory voiced concerns about the plan, which was conceived before Tory took office.

"I’m glad they bought (the land). That was a good thing that they did because it now allows to have the option… to make sure whatever we do for parking on that site that it is below or above or somehow contained within a development that also contains a substantial amount of affordable housing if we can," Tory told reporters on Tuesday.

"It is one of those things it is just time to stop and reset."

Housing advocate Mark Richardson said that he too has requested that the board scrap plans for the lot.

“We have a housing crisis, we don't have a parking crisis,” Richardson said in an interview with CTV Toronto on Monday.

“Parking lots are fine, but a surface parking lot that is being created by tearing down existing housing is a total waste of time and money for the city.”

Richardson noted that the when factoring in the $850,000 contract to demolish the buildings and put in a parking lot and the millions spent on purchasing the properties, it would cost an estimated $120,000 per parking spot.

Speaking to CTV News Toronto, Beaches- East York Coun. Brad Bradford said the city will “take a look at the site and come up with something better.”

“When we have city assets, we need to be planning in the public’s interest and certainly sometimes that’s parking, but it’s also housing,” he said.

-With files from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson