The closer we live together, the more spaces we need to stretch out

PROMOTION
CITYof PARKS
The closer we live together, the more spaces we need to
stretch out. As Toronto’s densification dilemma grows,
a park renaissance is in full bloom
The People’s
Parks
P.�6
How Toronto
Stacks Up
P.�10
Parks of the
Future
P.�15
Serious
Recreationists
P.�20
CITYof
PARKS
Getting dirty means getting
your hands in the dirt to get
things done. It’s what inspired
me to found Evergreen over
20 years ago. And it’s how
we’re building healthier cities.
Because dirty is doing.
Dirty is green. Dirty is good.
Geoff Cape,
CEO and Founder of Evergreen.
Get dirty for your city at
evergreen.ca
PUBLISHER
David L. Hamilton
EDITORS Pat Lynch, Maryam Sanati
ART DIRECTOR Una Janicijevic
PHOTO EDITOR Anna Lisa Sang
COPY EDITOR Heidi Ebert
RESEARCHER Amanda Panacci
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Matthew Hague, Dave Harvey,
David Topping, Nathan Whitlock
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
AND ILLUSTRATORS
Anna Härlin, Hudson Hayden, Reynard Li,
Eamon Mac Mahon, Emma McIntyre,
Eiko Ojala
ADVERTISING
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Lindsay Wells
CREATIVE MARKETING
DESIGNER Amy Eaton
ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER,
SALES AND MARKETING
ASSOCIATE Jessika J. Fink
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Maria Mendes
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Jennifer Shute
INTRODUCTION
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Kathleen Roach
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
PREPRESS COORDINATOR
Jonathan Gault
This year, more than ever, we’re loving our parks and we’re missing our trees
CONSUMER MARKETING
VICE-PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND
PRODUCTION Darlene Storey
NEWSSTAND DIRECTOR
Annie Gabrielian (on leave)
ST. JOSEPH MEDIA
CHAIRMAN Tony Gagliano
PRESIDENT Douglas Knight
GENERAL MANAGER AND
VICE-PRESIDENT, FINANCE Karl Percy
VICE-PRESIDENT, DIGITAL Ken Hunt
VICE-PRESIDENT, RESEARCH
Clarence Poirier
Sponsors
CONTACT US
Supporters
An agency of the Government of Ontario.
Relève du gouvernement de l’Ontario.
111 QUEEN ST. E., STE. 320,
TORONTO, ON M5C 1S2
GENERAL INFORMATION 416-364-3333
CLASSIFIEDS 416-364-3333, EXT. 3050,
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on the cover: illustration by eiko ojala.
this page: photograph by eamon mac mahon
INTERIM NEWSSTAND
MANAGER Rui Costa
CONSUMER MARKETING
MANAGER Paula Annibale
CONSUMER MARKETING
MANAGER, WEB Larry Wyatt
IT TOOK A NASTY ICE STORM to make us remember
that we have trees—millions of them clean our
air, conserve energy, cool the climate and beautify
our neighbourhoods. After the spring thaw, what
remained of them resembled a ragtag group of
survivors. Hulking trunks still lie flat in our
woods and ravines; maybe they will forever. The
ice storm left us with a tree clean-up tab estimated
at $75 million, along with the stark realization that
Torontonians need arborists and specialists to
pre-emptively prune our canopy. Even with city
trees, we can’t rely on the stretched budget of
the parks and forestry department to make that
happen. Preventing calamity will depend on new
ideas, private-public partnerships and engaged
neighbours banding together with a plan, street
by street, block by block.
The same principles hold true for our parks.
As Dave Harvey, founder of Toronto Park People,
points out in his essay on page 6, the city is struggling to fund maintenance of our existing green
spaces. At the same time, Toronto needs more
parks to accommodate the spiking population.
The good news is that we’re building new spaces
and revamping older ones with more private funding and citizen volunteers involved in the process.
For the many Torontonians who support parks
in this city, this is not a chore but an opportunity,
a chance for the city to be at its best—resourceful,
entrepreneurial and collaborative.
We thank our partners for generously supporting a new era for Toronto parks
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 3
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE
Gardeners come together
at Panorama Park
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE
area are given access to carpools to get to the nearest
Bales Park engages this range of people and skill sets
halal markets.
in a variety of activities, from a park clean-up and tree
In the park itself, the multicultural presence is
mulching to a summer arts festival and a fall harvest
deeply felt. “There are a half-dozen nationalities
festival that offers free health and dental screenings.
represented in the garden,” says Sarosh Anwar, a
Friends of Earl Bales Park is also supported by the
food security engagement worker with ACS. “They’ve
Bathurst-Finch Action for Neighbourhood Change.
contributed to a biodiverse place, with people from
Further east, in Scarborough’s Steeles-L’Amoreaux
Afghan, Pakistani, Chinese, Vietnamese and Caribbean
neighbourhood, TD Park Builders provides funding
backgrounds bringing their food heritages with them.”
for Friends of Chester Le Park, a group made up of
“You see the most interesting plants and
community gardeners as well as resident park users.
vegetables—Afghan leeks, for instance,” Anwar
Friends of Chester Le Park is also supported by
continues. “We also see the sharing of food skills and
Agincourt Community Services (ACS), a community
different ways of using different
organization that helps activate
parts of a plant. The process
educational opportunities,
strengthens everyone’s skill base
gardening workshops and
and creates a stronger food security
strategies to aid food sustainability.
plan for the city.”
As part of this, the ACS
This corner of Toronto, like
recently facilitated a park visit by
so many others, has generated
Grade 9 science students from
an impact beyond the local
Mary Ward School in which the
community. The garden plots are
students helped transform two
one achievement. Building a new
disused plots into demonstration
future for the city’s green spaces
gardening plots.
and their users is another—entirely
The food emphasis has
possible—success.
broad wings: one related project
revolves around “food mapping”—
identifying sources of food that’s
To learn more about bringing TD
Earl Bales volunteers
important to the community. For
Park Builders to your community,
participate in a park clean-up
example, Muslim newcomers to the
visit parkpeople.ca.
A community hike through
Earl Bales Park
A GROWING TREND
The TD Park Builders Program is founded on the idea that
well-used green spaces create strong communities. Here’s
how the plan is changing Toronto, one park at a time
At Panorama Park in the Etobicoke neighbourhood of
Rexdale, a group of engaged residents is bringing about
a transformation.
Their ideas are taking over not just the park itself
but other people who live in the densely populated
community. They’re bringing together novices and
experts alike to bond over gardening, learn about the
temperament and heartiness of certain seedlings, and
trade tips on novel uses for vegetables and plants.
Their collective spirit is powerful, like blades of grass
sprouting from the grey city concrete.
With the support of TD Park Builders, an initiative
of the not-for-profit organization Toronto Park People
funded by TD, the Panorama Community Garden Group
has been able to use a planting and harvesting program
to bring a group of new immigrants into the park.
The emphasis is on cultivating a sense of belonging
for Rexdale’s cultural communities—South Asian, West
Indian, Arab and Latin American. Each family or team
of participants tends a five-by-ten-foot plot in the
garden, which they can plant with their pick of fruits
and vegetables. Eleanor Jimenez, a 30-year resident of
the neighbourhood and one of the volunteer leaders on
the project, attests to the magnetic pull of gardening.
Plant a tree. Grow a communit .
“People who come out are meeting their neighbours
for the very first time, even after 15 years of living
here,” she says.
Through local organizations like the Rexdale
Community Health Centre and Rexdale Action for
Neighbourhood Change, the Panorama group has
helped residents address their needs and spread the
word through planting projects with school kids. The
TD Park Builders Program is designed to help the group
with community events—from a summer barbecue and
community planting to a fall walk with a naturalist. The
program also supports buying new garden tools and
making small capital improvements to the space.
Across town, near the intersection of Sheppard and
Bathurst, a group called the Friends of Earl Bales Park
is working on a similar project with support from TD
Park Builders. Angelita Buado, a local accountant and
participant in the park program, is part of the Filipino
community in the area. She became engaged with the
Friends project through volunteering for her church.
“Earle Bales is a very large park, and we’re a wideranging community here in Ward 10,” she says, “We’re a
mix of educational backgrounds, rich and not rich, new
immigrants and long-time residents.” Friends of Earl
TD brings people together
for tree planting.
Together, through the TD Friends of the Environment
Foundation, we’ve planted over 86,000 trees in
North America since 2010. Our efforts help create more
green spaces in communities for ever one to enjo .
See what else we’re doing for the planet at td.com/environment
®
The TD logo and other trade-marks are the property of The T
ESSAY
THE
PEOPLE’S
PARKS
What’s the one way to create
a world-renowned park system?
Let Torontonians help run the show
LAST FALL, hundreds of Torontonians lined up to bake naan in the
first tandoor oven to open in a park in North America. It was an
inspiring day, a vision of how the city’s parks should be.
The ribbon cutting took place at the newly revived R. V. Burgess
Park in Thorncliffe Park, a tower neighbourhood of 30,000 residents,
most of them recent arrivals from South Asia. The crowd came from
all walks of life. Kids swung through the playground under the trees,
and darted in and out of the park’s splash pad. The oven—the brainchild of the volunteers behind the Thorncliffe Park Women’s
Committee—had literally brought people together.
The event was also a symbolic passing of the torch. Twenty years
earlier, Toronto activist Jutta Mason helped install a bread oven near
her home, at Dufferin Grove Park, sparking a host of community-led
activities that transformed the park from a blight into a neighbourhood asset. Now, at R. V. Burgess Park, it was Sabina Ali’s turn. As
chair of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee, Ali has rallied an
effort to change the underused and derelict green space into a community hub. This year, she won the Jane Jacobs Prize in recognition
of her efforts. (Jutta Mason won the prize in 2001.)
Because of people like Ali, the future of our city and especially its
parks is looking promising. In fact, I’d say Toronto is on its way to
having one of the most exciting and dynamic park systems on the continent. I believe this not just because I run Toronto Park People, an
photographs: corktown common by hudson hayden; thorncliffe park by toronto
park people; high park by emma mcintyre; christie pits by carlos osorio/getstock
BY DAVE HARVEY
organization dedicated to making this happen. The stars are
aligning—this city is on the cusp of a park renaissance.
Frank Bruni of the New York Times wrote of “the role of the park
not just as a compensatory blast of nature, quiet, calm and oxygen
in a city with too little of all of them, but also as a jointly savoured
event, a common currency, something possessed by everyone but
owned by no one.”
Parks are where we all mix. They are where we experience the diversity of Toronto. They are equalizers: there is no charge for anyone to
enter. Everyone has the same right to enjoy the common space, with the
inherent social obligation that you have to make your enjoyment of the
park work with everyone else’s. The dog walker, the Frisbee player and
the picnicker are all equal in this democratic relationship.
Perhaps that’s why the Aga Khan has been so focused on building
parks around the world, from Cairo to Kabul to Delhi and now
Toronto. In parks, he recently said, “people from all ages, from different backgrounds, come together.” A park “is a space of immense
social gathering. That’s part of civil society. It’s getting people to talk
to other people informally in these environments.”
In Toronto, the environments amount to more than 1,600 parks
across 8,000 hectares or 13 per cent of city land. We use these spaces
a lot. Half of all Torontonians visit a park at least once a week, and
365,000 use a park every day. We also spend resources on them that
seem, on the surface anyway, considerable: the City of Toronto operates our parks with 2,600 full-time staff and another 1,744 part-time
seasonal workers. In 2013, the parks, forestry and recreation division
spent $139 million on operations and around $70 million on improvements, repairs and new parks.
But as the city grows, our resources are being stretched too thin.
People are demanding more parks, with better, multi-use designs
and a variety of programs to suit many needs. By 2031, the population of Toronto will increase by 500,000 to 3.1 million. More
Torontonians than ever are living in densely situated apartments
and condos. They depend on parks for recreation, fresh air and other,
ever-evolving uses. In fact, we’re using parks very differently than
we used to. City parks are now meeting places, play spaces, music
venues, movie theatres and farmers’ markets. The demands on our
parks have never been greater.
The question is, are Toronto’s parks good enough to meet the needs
of the people? Four years ago, I wrote a paper for the Metcalf Foundation called “Fertile Ground for New Thinking,” in which I argued that
despite the city’s investment in funding and staff, Toronto’s parks
were languishing in neglect and the system was in dire need of
change. As a city, we’d unilaterally taken our parks for granted. After
the paper was published, I founded the advocacy group Toronto Park
People, and in the years since, I’ve seen elements of our park system
and a culture in our parks department that can still leave me feeling
negative and frustrated.
Toronto’s biggest parks challenge is maintenance. The backlog in
much-needed repairs amounts to about $309 million. That figure will
grow to roughly $359 million by 2018 if additional resources are not
found. Too many drinking fountains don’t work, flowerbeds go without weeding, benches are broken, and trails are riven with heaves and
cracks. Toronto’s increasing population will add to the toll.
We’ve proven that we can build great, world-class parks—in some
of the most unlikely locations, like an underpass near the waterfront,
site of the aptly named Underpass Park. But we don’t have the capacity to maintain our newest park spaces. When I look at a fantastic
new site like Corktown Common in the West Don Lands, I have the
terrible premonition that within a few years’ time, its gorgeous
CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP
LEFT: THE SPLASH PAD AT CORKTOWN
COMMON, SABINA ALI AT THE COMMUNAL
OVEN IN R.�V. BURGESS PARK, HIGH PARK
IN BLOOM, A SCREENING AT CHRISTIE PITS
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 7
PHOTO COURTEST OF Victoria MacPhail
Special advertiSing feature
Giving Bees the Five-Star Treatment
Bees pollinate more than 80 per cent of our fruits and vegetables.
For that, they deserve a luxury vacation
To help reverse this trend, Burt’s Bees has
teamed up with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
We’re designing and constructing five sustainable
bee hotels across Canada—four in Toronto and
one in Guelph—enlisting architectural help
from Sustainable.TO Architecture and Building,
and educational resources from the Pollinator
Partnership Canada.
The first bee hotel will open
its doors in early June on the
rooftop terrace of the Fairmont
Royal York in downtown Toronto.
All of the bee hotels aim to
replicate the natural nesting
sites of solitary pollinator bees.
Wood, soil and pith-filled holes
provide the ideal environment
for bees to breed, lay eggs and
seek protection from predators.
The host of the project’s first-ever bee hotel,
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, has a long history of
supporting honeybees, with hives at more than 20
of its luxury properties around the world, including
the Fairmont Royal York.
Burt’s Bees uses honey and beeswax in 95 per cent
of their products. It seems only natural for them to
give back to hardworking Canadian bees with the
Wild for Bees program, a three-year-old initiative
to increase the number of bee nesting sites and to
spark conversation about bee health. This year’s Wild
for Bees kicks off on June 1 with the release of Burt’s
Bees Hydrating Lip Balm with Coconut and Pear.
For more information on Fairmont Hotels &
Resorts, see fairmont.com. For more on Wild
for Bees or to learn how you can build your own
bee hotel at home, visit burtsbees.ca.
photograph by hudson hayden
Bees are the most effective pollinators of our
ecosystem, but for decades, the numbers of these
unsung heroes have been in steady decline across
North America.
wildflower plantings and spectacular playgrounds
will fall into disrepair. The incredible new water
fountain in Sherbourne Common, also close to the
lake, was shut down for most of last summer even
though the park was only two years old.
This is not the fault of city staff—they just don’t
have the resources to maintain state-of-the-art
parks that great cities should be able to support.
The lack of maintenance resources means the city
may push back against park proposals that put
forward innovative designs. They’re more likely
to endorse new parks that are easier to sustain—
grass, some benches, a few trees.
My biggest criticism is that our parks department is still in the habit of saying “no” to many
community-driven projects, volunteers and private funding. As much as the new tandoor oven
in R. V. Burgess Park is a success story, it’s also a
study in patience. It took two years to secure the
city’s permission to install the oven, and Sabina
Ali’s group had to sign an incredibly complex
eight-page lease to seal the deal.
That said, overall, things are getting better.
In the last four years, there’s been a boom in
hands-on park activism. We’ve gone from 40
Friends of the Park volunteer groups in the city
to more than 100. These people are stepping up to
animate their parks while defending programs and
facilities that are responsive to community needs.
City councillors are embracing volunteer park
groups, facilitating their development and helping
make their ideas a reality.
It’s astounding what these groups can achieve
with next to no money. In Orchard Park near
Dundas and Kingston Road, volunteers have
pressed apples for cider. In Dallington Park at
Sheppard and Leslie, they worked with TIFF
to hold a movie screening. Five hundred people
attended the new food fair in Rexdale’s Panorama
Park. Thousands of residents and more than
2,000 lighted pumpkins fill up Sorauren Park
on the night after Halloween.
There’s an influx of financial support, too.
TD Bank, for instance, is funding new ways to
engage low-income communities in their parks.
The W. Garfield Weston Foundation is funding
a 35-hectare butterfly meadow in a once-barren
hydro corridor in Scarborough.
This progress is commendable, but we need to do
more. To begin with, the city needs to transform the
parks department from an asset-management business to a community-engagement business. This
entails supporting volunteers by waiving burdensome permit and insurance fees every time there’s
a community-building event in the park. The city
needs to move from a culture of “no” to a culture of
“yes,” encouraging new ideas and partnerships.
As one volunteer in R. V. Burgess Park told me,
“We don’t necessarily need the city’s money and
staff. We just need permission.”
NEW IDEAS: THE SKATE AND BIKE RAMPS
IN BRAMPTON’S CHINGUACOUSY PARK
Last summer, seven concrete Ping-Pong tables
were installed in parks around the city (an idea
that took a decade of persuading to realize). What
about mini-trampolines in parks like they have in
Copenhagen and Berlin? What about a wave of
kids’ adventure playgrounds?
We need to capitalize on creative funding ideas
and the idea of park conservancies. In Winnipeg,
the Assiniboine Park Conservancy has raised
$121 million from corporations, individuals and government. We can do the same to support targeted
park improvements—at Allan Gardens, for instance,
or to maintain the new waterfront parks.
The city should also use food as a tool to engage
people in parks. We need more community gardens
in hydro corridors, more fruit groves in parks, and
a widespread program of concessions and markets.
We should also get creative to serve growing
neighbourhoods. Approximately 50,000 condo units
have been built in the downtown core since 2000,
with at least another 60,000 in the pipeline. Because
new park space is extremely expensive, we need to
make better use of our existing ones, encourage projects that foster linked greenway systems and integrate as much as possible—like incorporating school
grounds into our communities as parks instead
of school boards selling off their green spaces.
Our parks are a reflection of our value system
as a city, and we are, in this regard, a work in
progress. The businessman and philanthropist
Alan Broadbent once said, “You can tell what a city
thinks about itself from looking at the way it looks
after its parks. Parks, principal among public
spaces, are a telling face to the world.”
Toronto is not where it should be yet. But with
some creativity, we’ll get there.
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 9
LINCOLN PARK
Size: 492 hectares
Opened: 1860
TORONTO
Until the late
1860s, Lincoln Park
was a cemetery—
even though it’s
on the shores of
Chicago’s main
water source and
COOL BEANS
the city was in the
Millennium Park
midst of a cholera
was partly designed epidemic. Wisely,
by Toronto-born
the public voted to
starchitect
remove the dead.
Frank Gehry.
ROUGE PARK
Size: 1,061 hectares
Opened: 1995
BIGGEST CHANGE
The lakeshore,
thanks in large
part to Waterfront
Toronto, which has
helped open six
parks—four of
them downtown—
with another three
in the works.
THINK HIGH PARK
IS BIG? At 142
hectares, it’s only
one-seventh the
size of Rouge Park.
CENTENNIAL PARK
Size: 215 hectares
Opened: 1967
Parkland:
8,047 hectares
or 13 per cent of
the city
31 m
Three biggest
parks:
Rouge Park,
Morningside Park,,
Centennial Park
Parkland:
3,853
hectares or
10.5 per cent
of the city
Parkland per
resident
PARC-NATURE
DU CAP-SAINTJACQUES
Size: 303 hectares
Opened: 1980
THE BIG APPLE
CONNECTION
The man behind
New York’s Central
Park, Frederick
Law Olmsted,
designed Mount
Royal Park.
10 CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION
STANLEY PARK
Size: 391 hectares
Opened: 1888
22 m
2
HASTINGS PARK
Size: 62 hectares
Opened: 1889
Before it was widened,
the seawall was centre
stage in a fight between
cyclists and pedestrians.
Today, it extends 22 km
along the city’s waterfront.
12 m
QUEEN
ELIZABETH PARK
Size: 53 hectares
Opened: 1929
2
Three biggest parks:
Lincoln Park, Burnham
Park, Jackson Park
PARC-NATURE DE
LA POINTE-AUXPRAIRIES
Size: 249 hectares
Opened: 1980
Parc Jean-Drapeau is
made up of two islands—
Île Ste. Hélène and Île
Notre-Dame—the latter
of which was built in the
1960s, providing the city
with a venue to host
Expo 67.
CALLING KERMIT
Vancouver aims to be the greenest
city in the world by 2020. How?
In part, by planting trees: they’re
shooting for 150,000 by the end
of the decade.
PELHAM
BAY PARK
Size: 1,119 hectares
Opened: 1888
VAN CORTLANDT
PARK
Size: 464 hectares
Opened: 1888
CALL THE COPS
Although Central
Park is only New
York City’s fifthlargest park, it’s
well-trafficked
enough—with about
40 million visitors
a year—to have its
own police precinct.
PARC
JEAN-DRAPEAU
Size: 259 hectares
Opened: 1874
M O NTR E A L
Parkland per
resident:
Parkland:
3,407 hectares or
6 per cent of the city
BY DAVID TOPPING | ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANNA HÄRLIN
2
Parkland:
1,305
hectares or
11 per cent
of the city
Parkland per
resident:
VANCOUVER
Population:
2.7 million
Who’s got the biggest parks? Who’s got the most green per resident?
(Sorry, Vancouver.) A look at how Toronto’s park system stacks up
23 m
Three biggest
parks:
Stanley
Park,
Hastings
Park, Queen
Elizabeth
Park
2
BY THE NUMBERS
Three biggest
parks:
Parc-Nature du
Cap-SaintJacques, Parc
Jean-Drapeau,
Parc-Nature de la
Pointe-aux-Prairies
JACKSON PARK
Size: 220
hectares
Opened: 1893
Parkland per
resident:
Turf Wars
Population:
1.6 million
BURNHAM PARK
Size: 246 hectares
Opened: 1920
GO
IC A
Population:
2.6 million
CH
MORNINGSIDE PARK
Size: 218 hectares
Opened: 1968
Thanks to a
$143.7-million
federal funding
bump, Rouge
is set to become
Canada’s first
national urban
park.
Population:
603,502
Acquiring the
land that became
Pelham Bay Park
didn’t come
without a fight—
some 28
landowners had
estates there, all
of which the city
of New York seized
under eminent
domain laws.
NE W
YORK
Population:
8.2 million
THE GREENBELT
Size: 720 hectares
Opened: 1965
Parkland:
12,075 hectares
or 15 per cent
of the city
Three biggest parks:
Pelham Bay Park,
The Greenbelt,
Van Cortlandt Park
Parkland per
resident:
15 m
2
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 11
Special advertiSing feature
Regent PaRk’s
Big Reveal
At the heart of the city’s revitalization project
is a new and innovative park created for the
community, by the community. Toronto hasn’t seen
anything like it
It’s been a decade since the launch of the Regent
Park Revitalization. The groundbreaking renewal plan,
initiated by Toronto Community Housing (TCH), has
changed every notion Torontonians have ever had
about a social housing project. Today, the 69-acre
neighbourhood has opened up to the city grid, with
replacement housing operated by TCH co-existing with
new condo towers built by The Daniels Corporation,
TCH’s development partner for the Revitalization.
DESIGN
PROSPECT
PARKS
Sure, New York’s got the High Line.
But in Toronto, ambitious planners are
designing green spaces to rival the best.
Take a peek at four of the most promising
places to escape the concrete jungle
BY MATTHEW HAGUE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EIKO OJALA
Now, to join the bustling Daniels Spectrum—a 60,000
square foot cultural hub—and a state-of-the-art Aquatic
Centre, comes Regent Park’s Big Park.
ST.
Regent Park officially opens on June 21. Festivities will
include a dynamic music and dance program led by
the dance group Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie in
collaboration with the Regent Park School of Music and
other local organizations. A highlight of the festivities
will be a performance by the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra. “We’re celebrating the diversity of the
community and what the community will become,” says
co-founder and artistic co-director Bill Coleman. The
park will be filled with live music, everything from samba
to classical, creating what Coleman calls “a world of
sound.” There will be dancing in the streets—literally—
fitting for one of the finest parks ever to open in this city.
GE
Regent Park is a multi-use
community gathering place with
lush grounds, play structures and
hands-on gardening programs
A key objective is for the park to be a neighbourhood
hub for healthy, sustainable food. With support from the
W. George Weston Foundation, residents will animate
urban agriculture projects using the park’s fruit trees,
gardens, greenhouse and community bake oven. “We
envision a vibrant, welcoming space where community
members can learn and share new skills, improve their
physical and mental health, form friendships, and get
involved,” says Liz Curran, Community Food Centre
Manager at the Christian Resource Centre (one of the
leaders behind the Regent Park Food Partnership).
Green Thumbs Growing Kids—an organization that
introduces local children to urban farming—will host
working field trips to the park’s greenhouse, engaging
hundreds of kids from across the city.
YON
The six-acre city park is the Revitalization’s most joyful
space yet: a playground, dog park, splash pad, outdoor
photography gallery and nimble every-space. Toronto
Community Housing and The Daniels Corporation
responded to the community’s interest in the park and
worked with the City of Toronto to organize a series of
community consultations. The result is a place created
for the community, by the community.
T.
RS
O
BLO
GARRISON
POINT
LOWER
DON TRAIL
MOUTH OF
THE CREEK
PARK
ONTARIO
PLACE PARK
THERE ARE A LOT OF REASONS why Toronto is one of the world’s
best cities. We have a booming housing market, a zillion top-tier
restaurants (Momofuku now delivers!) and World Pride is coming
this summer (the nudity on Yonge Street will be more diverse than
ever). But until recently, our parks were like our sports teams—mostly
popular, but never quite performing up to their potential. Sure, we had
lots of them—over 1,600 gardens, playgrounds and trails cover close
to 13 per cent of the city’s total surface—but none were particularly
outstanding. Nothing comparable, anyway, to New York City’s
High Line or Chicago’s Millennium Park. Then, a few years ago,
we got some funky urban beaches along the waterfront. We got
wavedecks by the lake. We even got Underpass Park, which managed
to turn the underside of Eastern Avenue into a whimsical skate park
and play space for kids. And the future only looks better. New highrise proposals, a surging population and the 2015 Pan Am Games
have spurred the city, developers and a clutch of talented landscape
architects to reimagine our green spaces for the years to come. There
will be new ways to connect to our water, our history and the city at
large. Here, four of our most promising future parks.
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 15
ONTARIO
PLACE
PARK
TO STANLEY PARK
WHAT
Approximately three hectares of
parkland on the edge of Ontario
Place’s east island, with a trail
almost a kilometre in length.
WHEN
Construction is scheduled
to start in summer 2014 and
be completed in time for the
Pan Am Games in 2015.
ROMANTIC
GARDEN
WHO
The project is a collaboration
between the Ontario government, Waterfront Toronto and
Infrastructure Ontario. The
acclaimed Rotterdam-based
landscape architecture firm
West 8 (which is responsible
for the wavedecks at the foot
of Spadina, Simcoe, Rees and
Parliament streets), along with
Toronto’s LandInc, is overseeing the design.
TO FORT YORK
GARRISON PARK
WHAT
A 1.6-hectare, wedge-shaped park
at the tip of Garrison Point, the
new, master-planned community
just east of Liberty Village.
WHEN
It should be completed by 2017.
WHO
Development firms Diamond
Corp and Cityzen/Fernbrook
are co-constructing a series
of five high-rise condos (which,
in total, will have almost
1,700 units) on the site. To give
residents access to green space,
they’ve hired Montreal-based
landscape architect Claude
Cormier (the quirky mind behind
Sugar Beach and HTO Park).
BEST FEATURE
The view. The grassy, tree-lined
prow of the park is nestled
16 CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION
between the GO train’s
Georgetown and Lakeshore
rail lines as they merge heading
toward Union. Although that
makes the park somewhat of
a post-industrial peninsula, it
also creates a clear, uninterrupted
vista along the rail corridor,
framing the heart of the city.
also connects well to the
surrounding urban amenities.
A serpentine walkway will
squiggle through the space,
connecting to two pedestrian
bridges that span the rail lines—
one in the north that links to
Stanley Park and one in the
south that links to Fort York.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FIT
BIGGEST OBSTACLE
Because the park is part of a
condo development, the residents
of the new towers only have to
walk out of their lobbies to enjoy
the rolling lawns. Easy access
to the park is particularly
important for the community
because Garrison Point will have
a higher than normal proportion
of two- and three-bedroom
units—the area is largely geared
toward families with young kids
who have outgrown their smaller
units elsewhere. The proposal
Although it’s a private development, a lot of the key features
depend on (uncertain) public
funding. The Fort York and
Stanley Park bridges are being
built by Metrolinx. They were
supposed to be finished
by 2012, but were put on hold for
years due to budget concerns.
Garrison Park was also originally proposed with a public
pool, but the plan is up in the air
while the city decides whether to
commit to the operating costs.
BEST FEATURE
Romance. Toronto doesn’t have
many public spaces to put someone in the mood. The CN Tower
might be suggestive, but it isn’t
exactly heart-melting. The eastern edge of Ontario Place will
have an area specifically dedicated to swooning (aptly called
the Romantic Garden). Smooth
hunks of granite will protrude
from rounded mounds of grass,
giving couples semi-secluded
dunes to nestle behind, with
views south over Lake Ontario
that will make for amazing sunset picnics.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FIT
Right now, the park feels like an
orphan. Although it will connect
to the Martin Goodman Trail,
few people live within easy
walking distance. And it’s surrounded by the postmodern
wasteland that is Ontario Place,
most of which has been shuttered since 2012 (the Molson
Amphitheatre, Echo Beach and a
sea of pay parking lots excepted).
It’s a good start at revitalization
(the design is lovely, including an
epic entryway with giant granite
walls), but more needs to be done
to make the overall area a destination again.
BIGGEST OBSTACLE
Considering that the Pan Am
Games are about a year away,
and the park still doesn’t have
a finished design (the third in a
series of public consultations just
wrapped up this past March), the
possibility of construction actually being complete by July 2015
seems as likely as Rob Ford
entering rehab.
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 17
FORT
YORK
LOWER
DON
TRAIL
BATHURST STREET
WHAT
A 4.6-kilometre path, running
south from Pottery Road down
to Corktown Common, which
will be revitalized with new
entry points, pathways, art
features and bridges.
SANDBOX
WHEN
Construction is scheduled to
start in summer 2014, with parts
completed in time for the Pan
Am Games in 2015 (the new
access points are a priority) and
the rest phased in by 2020.
RIVERDALE
PARK
WHO
The City of Toronto along with
local architecture firm DTAH
(their other projects include the
Artscape Wychwood Barns and
the Evergreen Brick Works).
MOUTH OF THE
CREEK PARK
BEST FEATURE
Access. The Don Valley is, in
isolation, one of the city’s most
interesting, if underutilized,
green spaces. It’s like a scene
from Bambi with a highway
running through it. But until
now, access to the area has
been limited, with few points
of connection from the major
streets that bridge over the
valley. As part of this proposal,
a new series of stairs (including
one set each at Gerrard and
Dundas streets to complement
the existing one at Queen) and
pedestrian bridges (such as
one adjacent to Pottery Road,
which will mean visitors won’t
have to walk along the busy
thoroughfare) will allow people
to get into the valley easily.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FIT
Because of a spate of condo
developments both east and
west of the valley—including the
athletes’ village of the Pan Am
18 CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION
WHAT
A half-hectare park east of the
Bathurst Street bridge and west
of CityPlace.
WHEN
CORKTOWN
COMMON
Construction is scheduled to
start in 2016 and end in 2017.
WHO
The City of Toronto has retained
the design from the new Torontobased landscape architecture
firm Public Work (the studio is
also doing the redevelopment of
One Spadina Crescent).
Games and all the new low-rise
buildings in Corktown—the
population around the trail
is expected to swell by 80,000
over the next decade. Even the
simplest interventions in the
park, like resurfacing the
crumbling asphalt trails, will go
a long way toward providing all
those new residents with an
escape from their compact condos.
BIGGEST OBSTACLE
The new art features, access
points and bridges will all
require increased maintenance—
something the cash-strapped city
will have to budget carefully for.
BEST FEATURE
History. Right now, the site looks
terrible. It’s basically a flat patch
of dust in the shadow of the
Gardiner. Two centuries ago, it
was lush. It sat along the city’s
original shoreline and was
where Garrison Creek (now
buried underground) emptied
into Lake Ontario. The proposal
is to return the site to its original,
pre-urban ecology, with sevenmetre-tall promontories (like
a mini–Scarborough Bluffs)
surrounding sunken grasslands.
Some of the seating and play
elements will be made of found
archaeological artifacts, objects
excavated when the nearby
towers were going up. The
foundations of an old stone
house will edge a sandbox, for
example, and the moorings of
an old wharf will function as a
jungle gym for young kids.
completed, will be Canada’s
most densely populated
neighbourhood. (It already
has over 5,000 residential
units.) And Mouth of the Creek
will include an important,
pedestrian-friendly walkway
under the Bathurst Street bridge.
The link will grant CityPlace
residents easy access to a much
bigger patch of grass—the
expansive lawns of historic
Fort York—and help connect
the area to the city’s broader
walking, running and cycling
infrastructure.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FIT
The part of the park that slopes
down under the Bathurst Street
bridge will act like an upsidedown umbrella. When it rains, it
will fill up, so the designers hope
to use marsh grasses to absorb
the excess moisture.
Although on its own the park is
relatively small—a half hectare
is about the size of an American
football field—it’s a desperately
needed oasis for neighbouring
CityPlace, which, when
BIGGEST OBSTACLE
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 19
REBECCA LAMB
AT PLAY
SERIOUS
RECREATIONISTS
WILD FORAGER, BEEKEEPER AND A
CO-ORDINATOR AT EVERGREEN BRICK WORKS
What is the wild forage movement all about?
We’re trying to revive the art of storytelling
through plants and nature, and one way to create
interest in plants and nature is to give people
opportunities to engage with them. A lot of people
have no idea about the bounty of delicious, diverse
foods that are growing across the city. We try to
make it more enticing than handing someone a
two-inch-thick book about edible plants of North
America. Doing the reading is incredibly important, too, but the first step is getting people out into
the green space, getting them to realize it’s actually
there and making them utilize it.
Meet four Torontonians who use the city’s parks
for much more than just hanging out
BY NATHAN WHITLOCK | PHOTOGRAPHS BY REYNARD LI
ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN
OLYMPIC MEDAL–WINNING SPRINT KAYAKER
You do most of your training through our parks’
river system. What are your go-to routes?
You must encounter a lot of skepticism out there.
Some people have a misinformed idea that eating
things that grow outside in a park is very dirty or
unhealthy. Of course, many plants are affected by
pollutants, but there are lots of clean and accessible
spots in the city. Sometimes, passersby see us picking things in the trees. You can hear them saying,
“What the hell are they doing?” One out of five people who come by will stop and interact with someone in the foraging group. It helps bridge the gap.
I keep a kayak at the Toronto Argonauts Rowing
Club. From there I can paddle east to Ontario Place
or west and up the Humber River. If there’s enough
water, I can paddle almost to Bloor Street.
Can it be a bit of a pain, having to share the road
with all kinds of other boats?
I’m currently waging a war against the Hippo Tour
boat-bus hybrid that brings tourists on a little lake
loop. The wake that thing puts off lasts for hours.
Don’t most foragers prefer to keep their harvests
on the down-low?
Should the city make more of its waterways
accessible to kayaks and canoes?
There are very talented foragers who never want
anyone to know where they’re sourcing their
morels or wild leeks, because they want to keep it
all for themselves. In our group, we think it’s a lot
more rewarding when you share your knowledge
with people.
Most of Toronto’s waterways are fully accessible,
but more public docks in parks would be good.
And I think we should start a racing canoe club on
the Humber River. So many kids who live close by
could be enjoying the river in canoes and kayaks.
Unmissable treasures we
found while exploring the
city’s park system
20 CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION
CASTLE
The Jamie
Bell Adventure
Playground in High
Park has awesome
turrets and twisty
slides.
What does the Toronto parks department think
of all this?
There’s a great boat racing course on Toronto Island
called the Allan A. Lamport Regatta Course, named
after Toronto’s second most infamous mayor. He
was a beauty: Toronto used to be a puritanical city
where the playgrounds got locked up on Sundays.
Lamport cut those locks off and opposed the “blue
laws” banning Sunday sports.
That’s a tricky one. I know people who work with
the city, and on a personal level, they’re excited
about wild edibles, and will point out things we
should remove or leave alone. But as far as the
actual rules go, we are not supposed to be foraging
in Toronto parks. That’s the law, and we respect
that. We’re not going in with garbage bags and
PETER PAN
Glenn Gould Park’s
whimsical 14-foot
sculpture is a copy
of one in London’s
Kensington
Gardens.
MEGA-SLIDE
Toronto’s best
playground slide
is a 15-foot drop,
built into the hill
at Corktown
Common.
DOG PATCH
The Brick Works’
off-leash canine
playground is a
woodland retreat
with lots of nooks
for exploring.
illustrations by anna härlin
THE 10
MOST AMAZING
THINGS IN
TORONTO PARKS
Are there hidden gems people don’t know about?
TRAIN RIDE
The railway theme
at Roundhouse
Park extends to the
mini–steam engine
you can ride in the
summertime.
VEGGIE PATCH
You can water the
plants at the
storybook-cute
Franklin Children’s
Garden on Centre
Island.
COOL ZONE
Misty Rose Garden
next door to the
Four Seasons
incorporates a fog
of fine cooling
mists.
hauling out personal harvests for people to take
home. It’s more of an outdoor classroom.
Can shortages happen if everyone gets out there
and starts picking?
Overharvesting is a real fear. So, in our group, we
focus a lot on invasive species, of which there are
dozens in the city. Garlic mustard grows rampant
in the Don Valley, and it makes a delicious pesto.
JAW-DROPPER
Bluffer’s Park
beach and gravel
hiking trail are set
against majestic
vistas of the
mighty bluff s.
SKATE PARK
Ashbridges Bay’s
smooth-as-silk
20,000-squarefoot park is built
using eco-friendly
concrete.
STONE ART
Guildwood Park in
Scarborough has a
stately collection
of dozens of stone
sculptures and
columns.
CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION 21
MICHELLE GRADISH
PRINCIPAL OF THE GRADALE ACADEMY
What exactly is the Gradale Academy?
We’re a private school with two locations, one
in the Evergreen Brick Works, and we follow the
Ontario curriculum, but we utilize the outdoors
a lot more than your typical school. Depending
on what we’re studying, we may say, “You know
what? We’re going to do our math or our science
program outside today.” As long as there’s learning
involved, we try to incorporate the outdoors.
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What kind of things do your students get to do?
In the winter, they toboggan and skate every week.
In the spring, it’s all about hiking and trails. We
give students tasks, like observing the different
kinds of birds. Then we come back into the classroom, look up the species and do a project on them.
Last year, we watched a beaver build its habitat.
How do the kids take to it?
Sold
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When the work is hands-on, it’s just incredible.
Think about if you were a child and had the
option to do the programming outdoors instead
of at your desk. It’s such a wonderful experience
for them.
EMILY RONDEL
BIRDER, STAFFER AT BIRD STUDIES CANADA
AND ADVOCATE OF “CITIZEN SCIENCE”
Where are the best places to go birding?
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This is a pretty wild city. On my Humber River list
alone, I have a hundred species of birds. Downsview Park is amazing for owls and raptors. The
best spot, though, is the Leslie Street Spit, which is
one of our most diverse areas for birds.
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What’s citizen science, and what does it have to
do with birding?
People love birds, they go out and look at them all
the time, so why not harness that interest to get a
lot of scientific data? We created a place online at
eBird.org where birders can document what they
see. If you want to see a snowy owl, for example,
the site will tell you where they’ve been seen in the
past week.
What does this crowdsourcing show?
That there are more birds—and more at risk—in
Toronto than many people thought. Close to 200 species have been documented. It’s not just pigeons and
starlings. Ruby-throated hummingbirds migrate
from the Gulf of Mexico to High Park each year.
22 CITY OF PARKS PROMOTION
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