Know your role

BY SEAN BAILEY

When David Burnett thinks of the Oak Ridges Moraine, three things come to mind: Beautiful soil to produce great vegetables, plenty of plants and abundant drinking water.

Burnett is the manager of provincial regional policy at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). The authority is funded in part by the city of Toronto and his job is to co-ordinate the nine conservation authorities that have watersheds on the moraine.

Toronto plays a large role in the surrounding ecosystem including the Oak Ridges Moraine. Through ever-expanding population and transport to and from the city -urban sprawl - pollutants and other waste from people damage the fragile moraine. To combat the sprawl, some urban planners suggest intensification, which makes use of undeveloped land within the city.

“Our living city policies and our new strategic plan ... promotes ... sustainable communities,” Burnett said, “which would certainly promote intensification, especially intensification that would promote transit densities.”

Susannah Bunce, a York University faculty member, is pursuing her PhD on intensification and sustainability on Toronto’s waterfront. She believes intensification can build new communities, which would be mixed-use land. This would incorporate residential, commercial and light industry.

She believes intensification can benefit both the city and environmental needs. The city would approve of intensifying its downtown core because they could make money from the increase of property taxes and in turn keep putting pressure to develop moraine lands into residential.

“It’s often considered by advocates of intensification a win-win situation,” Bunce said. “You can raise property taxes and save the environment at the same time. Since amalgamation, the city of Toronto has been cash strapped in terms of their municipal budget. A lot of their budget comes from the property tax base because of provincial cutbacks.”

Bunce points to different types of city intensification. One example is laneway housing, which makes use of space in alleyways that currently service garages.

A laneway residence can be built directly over that structure or the land can be creatively adapted to make an entirely new structure from scratch. She doesn’t believe, however, the laneway option is a cost-effective one to potential buyers.

“They’re actually quite expensive buildings because of the materials,” she said. “And because they tend to be constructed by architects who either build them for themselves or build them to sell or hire people to design to build them, they tend to have a higher overhead so they’re quite costly.”

Bunce pointed to an example in the area where she lives. Near the intersection of College and Bathurst Streets a recent laneway project was built for $400,000 and later sold for $800,000.
She says other opportunities such as in-fill housing, makes use of buildings such as former mechanic garages, townhouse complexes or low-rise condominiums, to create better, more affordable housing options.

Sonia Dong is program director of Citizens Environment Watch, a group that raises community awareness of the Oak Ridges Moraine. She agrees with the push for greater density within Toronto’s core as well.

“It would definitely increase every person’s ecological footprint,” she said. “If you were to intensify and have all the infrastructure and resources in a contained space it’s a lot better. It would also curb urban sprawl and that’s also an advantage.”

She points to examples such as low-rise apartments along the harbourfront or townhome complexes throughout suburbs such as Scarborough, on land formerly used for industrial purposes.

Dong says people who aren’t living directly in the vicinity of the moraine are uneducated when it comes to knowing what the moraine does for them.

At the CEW they go around to areas such as the GTA and educate people “to understand that the head waters of a lot of the big rivers like the Don River and the Humber River and the Rouge, they come from the Moraine,” she said.

She works to inform people about how moving out to area can damage the ecosystem if the land is not treated properly.

“We need a solid terrestrial natural heritage system which is the streams, rivers, forests and the wetlands to provide the foundation for a high quality of life within the urban Greater Toronto Area,” he said.

The politics of postering

BY LIZ DEWDNEY

Laden with 500 posters, a tub of glue and a paintbrush, Jamie Gillis rides his bike across Queen Street. Every so often he stops at a street pole, holds a poster up to it, slathers it with glue, pastes it to the pole and moves on.

Though there are people at City Hall who would like to see postering banned, Gillis says it is his right. In fact, he points out, there is a 1993 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that a complete ban on postering is an infringement on the freedom of expression, as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

One time a bylaw enforcement officer tried to give him a ticket while he was showing a new employee the ropes, Gillis says, he informed the officer of the Supreme Court ruling.

“I told him I had every right to be doing this,” Gillis said. “In the end he walked away and I didn’t get a ticket.”

Gillis is a nine-year veteran of the billeting industry in Toronto. His company, Dr. Jamie’s Events, serves five customers at any given time. Customers such as the University of Toronto and the Rolling Stones come to him, as well as local Toronto musicians and landscapers.

Postering is part of the Toronto landscape. Lost dog owners, piano teachers and up and coming musicians all use posters to get their message out. Companies such as Dr. Jamie’s splay hundreds of posters across construction site walls, changing the white wash to a battery of colours and images. Some hail postering as free speech and free expression, while others see them as an eyesore.

A bylaw was proposed at Toronto City Hall in 2001 that would have severely restricted a posterer’s abilities. After much public debate a new version of the bylaw was introduced in 2005. This past summer a rewritten version was presented and passed.

If Coun. Rob Ford had his choice, he would never see another flyer stuck to public property again, either homemade or commercial.

“It’s destroying public property,” he said. “All posters do is pollute this beautiful city we live in.”

Ford points to posters glued over other posters as being a big problem. In some cases, he says, posters can be four or five layers thick. It also bothers him that the posters often get ripped off by passersby and thrown onto the ground, becoming litter.

Gillis admits that people, who are irresponsible in the way they display their notices, are a problem. He points to those that have placed posters on the windows of private businesses, which, he says, gets the businesses to lobby city hall for tougher regulations. Overall though, Gillis believes that postering is a necessity in Toronto.

“If you look at the small businesses or at the people who lose their cats,” he said, “for them it certainly is important to get their message out.”

Coun. Adam Giambrone believes the bylaw council put in place this summer is a viable solution, because it allows small community posters on a limited number of poles, but bans blanket and corporation postering.

“We’ve all seen examples of postering gone awry,” he said. “But it’s just not practical to ban all forms of postering.”

Ford admits a total ban would be difficult to enforce. He says names are often not included on posters, making it difficult to hand out fines. But he believes that through public education programs and enforcement officers the city could be free of posters once and for all.

“If we start making exceptions for some,” he said, “then where does it end?

Sky park

BY SEAN PEARCE

In the depths of the urban jungle it can be difficult to find a tranquil piece of green space amid the sprawl sometimes, but at one downtown location nature abounds. In the spring and summer green plants flourish, flowers blossom and weary urbanites happily eat their lunches on wooden picnic tables free from the hustle and bustle below. Welcome to 401 Richmond’s rooftop garden.

Erin MacKeen, communications representative for 401 Richmond Ltd., says that her building’s green roof has been a great attraction for both tenants and the community.

“401 Richmond’s green roof is open to the public during business hours,” MacKeen said. “It’s used primarily by tenants, but people in the surrounding neighbourhood also go up there to eat lunch and congregate.”

MacKeen said that many of the businesses housed within 401 Richmond use the green roof for events also.

“Some of our tenants hold meetings and special functions up there,” she said. “And it’s not just great in terms of a public space improvement or as a place for people to meet, but there also a variety of environmental applications we support as well.”

The green roof located at 401 Richmond could only be the beginning of a new trend. Steven Peck is the founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, an organization committed to advancing green roof programs around the world. Peck believes that green roofs enhance the quality of life for urban dwellers.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to generate a higher quality of life in Toronto by using roof space as both publicly accessible and privately accessible recreational space,” Peck said.

Peck explains that not all green roofs need to be accessible either. Those that are inaccessible can be host to wildlife and just help to add some colourful contrast.

“There can be green roofs that are not accessible, but provide a lot of amenity value for those looking down upon them,” he said. “There are different dimensions to this thing in terms of the values; there’s an aesthetic dimension and an accessibility dimension.”

One of the numerous other buildings around the city now sporting the green roof look is Jackman Avenue Public School. The school’s principal, Terry Walsh, says although the rooftop is inaccessible it’s still a popular sight for students, staff and parents.

“(The green roof) was something championed by a community group of parents and the kids, too,” Walsh said. “It was nothing, but a black asphalt roof before.”

Walsh says that in general people really enjoy being able to look down from the third floor of the school and see a lush carpet of green.

Still, Toronto’s experience with green roofs is in its infancy. Some green roofs in other cities are already host to a whole assortment of different activities. Chicago’s award-winning Millennium Park, which sits atop an underground parking garage, boasts acres of trees, trails and numerous cultural attractions. Peck says the possibilities are endless.

“We’ve got green roofs that are everything from lawn bowling fields to product showrooms,” Peck said. “There’s a huge spectrum out there and so there’s a great opportunity to intensify (green roofs) in Toronto.”

Despite the benefits, Toronto has a long way to go before it sees a Millennium Park of its own.
Jane Welsh, project manager in the city planning department, identified some important obstacles to be overcome before sky-high parks become feasible.

“Toronto’s parks and recreation department doesn’t want to take them on as park land when they’re up in the air like on top of a building and the reason is many are not publicly accessible,” Welsh said.

Welsh cited another problem, there is seldom enough growing medium to allow for tree growth. Toronto has, however, been very encouraging of green roofs, because they still enhance the public space in visible ways.

“If you think of a park as an opportunity for a view of green then it’s wide open, because everyone in surrounding buildings can see it,” she said. “In other word’s it’s a chance to see a park in the sky.”

Even if it isn’t exactly possible to play softball on the top of a high-rise just yet Welsh doesn’t rule out anything in the future.

Peck likes what he sees, so far, but he is also looking ahead to the future.

“Green space becomes a real premium as more people live in the city,” Peck says. “Why not have a plan to create the equivalent of a High Park on the roofs of the city over the next 10 to 15 years?”

Living at home in a foreign land . . .

BY SEAN BAILEY

When Peter Hui stands at the corner of Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue, he imagines it could be a small part of Hong Kong. He sees the throng of people and Toronto’s oldest and largest Chinatown.

“It’s a compact version of a Chinese city,” Hui said.

Hui, president of the Toronto Chinese Business Association, says the city of Toronto’s Chinatown visually represents a microcosm of a city in China. Normally there is a district for food, clothing and entertainment, but in Toronto everything is situated in one neighbourhood.
Toronto is home to three Chinatowns, with more popping up outside of the city’s boundaries in neighbouring Markham and Richmond Hill. Scarborough is home to a Chinatown in the Agincourt neighbourhood and there is another Chinatown in East York. However, the original or “old” Chinatown is located downtown.

Peter Chiu, the program manager of the Toronto Chinese Community Services Association, says the need to stick together within a community is the Chinese way.

“It doesn’t matter what country it is,” he said. “You can find Chinatown in pretty much every country in every big city. It’s the culture of Chinese people.”

While walking down Spadina Avenue, Chiu says he sees a sea of Chinese people, interspersed with tourists.

“In terms of the setting it’s not necessarily all Chinese,” he said, “but with all the signs and all the billboards you wouldn’t mistake it for any other area.”

Chiu is right in saying Chinatown is not in fact all Chinese. There are many different cultures within the neighbourhood. It is home to people from Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia as well as Viet Nam.

The City of Toronto actively promoted the building of these immigrant communities. Martin Silva, who took over the spot of councillor for Trinity-Spadina, says the city has a history of making the transition for new immigrants – such as Italians, Portuguese and Chinese – as accommodating as possible and cultural communities are beneficial to achieving that goal.
“An effort has been made to allow people that come to the city from the various parts of the world to somehow maintain their connection to their visual and to their cultural (identity) in their (home) city,” Silva said.

In particular, the city encourages merchants to sell their products to passersby along the street. The streets become very crowded with neighbourhood residents and tourists alike vying for food or bootlegged DVDs they may not find in any other part of the city. The traffic increases the population density, which gives the impression of an actual Chinese marketplace.
Silva says the city respects the way the merchants conduct their activities, but they must also look at safety issues that may arise from reduced sidewalk space.

“It’s always been a compromise,” he said. “If the inspectors are too strict on the enforcement, the community rebels. If we don’t enforce at all, people are forced to walk on the road and finding that perfect balance is more of a science.”

Hui says he hasn’t noticed a problem with market space in the area. He says the sidewalks are large enough to fill the needs of the merchants. The only problem he agrees with is overcrowding, but mainly during peak times of business on the weekends.

The crowding aside, Silva still promotes the area as a great tourist destination, ranking it with the Eaton Centre and the CN Tower. He says people come to the area for the great atmosphere as well as the culture of Toronto’s old Chinatown.

Crystal carbuncle

BY SEAN PEARCE

Toronto is constantly evolving as a city and a prime example of this evolution is the Royal Ontario Museum. At the end of construction, the old architecture of the ROM will be melded with a new crystalline structure designed by Daniel Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. In the urban jungle our buildings make up most of the public viewing experience and Toronto takes great pride in this area. But not everyone is pleased with how things are changing.

Robert Brown, membership chair of The Annex Residents’ Association, isn’t impressed with the construction happening at the ROM. According to Brown, Annex residents were told the renovations would be in the same vein as I. M. Pei’s Pyramide du Louvre in Paris. The reality has been quite different.

“My personal view is that it is not what we were told it was originally going to look like,” Brown said. “It’s a much heavier construct than what was originally communicated to the public; this thing looks like a carbuncle.”

Brown also complains that, in his opinion, the more recent additions to Toronto’s architectural landscape, in areas such as the Annex, add little and often completely contradict what is already there.

“There’s no sense of consistency and they’re adding their own architectural vocabulary,” Brown said. “Look at the buildings that have been built in the last 10 years, they’re all just big glass buildings.”

Brown says beyond the fact that some new projects don’t fit the area they’re constructed in, building uniform glass towers across the city leads to a loss of identity for Toronto.

“If you just saw pictures of them and you were asked to identify where they were located you would say, ‘Those could be from anywhere in the city or Hong Kong or Minneapolis or wherever,’” he said. “You’ve got to add something to the overall architectural texture of the city rather than another glass tower.”

In Brown’s opinion, more must be done to preserve the look of an area, such as the Annex, even if that only means keeping a building’s street level face familiar.

James Brown is an architect with the firm Brown and Storey. He sees a real lack of vision in the city and believes the things that are changing are happening too minutely to really matter.

“I don’t think (the city is) doing enough planning and I don’t think they are taking it seriously enough,” Brown said. “You have to do it on a large scale.”

Brown said that many European cities are vastly outpacing Toronto in terms of architectural achievement and cited two examples in particular.

“We just came back from Portugal and Spain and these places are reinventing themselves,” he said. “They’re really thinking long-term.”

Another issue that Brown mentions is the increasing inconsistency in new buildings across the city.

“I don’t think there are any rules anymore,” Brown said. “When you look at the city it’s built kind of like a big fractal puzzle.”

Architect James Brown agrees with Robert Brown that balancing the past and the future is important. He says that buildings are extremely important in the creation of an urban environment.

“You have to try to find a balance and a total overall environment solution when you’re designing these things,” Brown said. “It’s not just about how the buildings look.”

Myron Boyko, senior urban designer with the City of Toronto, said that deciding what does or doesn’t fit architecturally in a certain area is difficult because tastes are so subjective. Still, he thinks the city does its best to keep some uniformity where possible.

“It’s a very subjective issue first of all, as it really depends who the observer is,” Boyko said.
Boyko says that a good example of consistency in architecture is in the area around King Street and Spadina Avenue. In that case an actual plan was adopted.

“(The plan) was to try to preserve the character of that area so that when a developer goes in there, he can’t just tear things down and put in whatever he or she thinks is appropriate,” he said. “Generally we try to work with what’s there.”

As for the ROM, Boyko likes it, but he concedes it might not be for everyone.

“If you look at that building it’s like a clash of cultures and styles, yet I think that’s going to be a very great experience just walking around that building,” he said. “It’s not something you’d expect because it is totally off the wall.”

He adds that the Official Plan, the Toronto of the future, is almost completely uncharted in terms of its architecture. Boyko said the city isn’t sure how it will look.

“(The Official Plan) gives you an idea for where the city might be going, but there’s no real image of what the city is going to look like,” Boyko said. “You can get an impression of what it might be, but that will be based on a site-by-site basis.”

Sidewalk sale

BY D. LAXMIDAS MAKWANA

Toronto is holding a sidewalk sale and transit shelters, waste receptacles and multi-publication boxes are first up for bidders.

The Vibrant Streets project, part of Toronto’s Clean and Beautiful City initiative, opened its request for proposals process. The result will determine which service provider will manufacture and maintain new public furniture on the city’s pedestrian right-of-ways. The city’s contract for shelters with CBS Outdoor expires in 2007, while the city will replace litterbins in two years.

The criteria set out by the city call for private sector funding to design and create new elements to replace many of Toronto’s dilapidated furniture installations. Ultimately, all of Toronto’s neighbourhoods will feature similarly styled furniture, adding a cohesion that has been absent from community-based projects.

Coun. Janet Davis spoke against the dangers of outsourcing the Vibrant Streets project during a Works Committee meeting in June. She warned those in favour of the ad-covered furntiure.

“Wait ‘til you have children,” she said, “and your children are bombarded, daily, everywhere, in every media, to buy buy buy.”

Coun. Davis’s scathing assessment, along with input from other community stakeholders, such as business improvement areas and local activist groups, helped shape the project that will close bidding in January 2007.

Co-ordinator Andy Koropeski credits public consultations for ensuring Vibrant Streets offers a co-ordinated street furniture program that isn’t billboards disguised as benches. He challenges Davis’s suggestion of publicly funding the capital project, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

“It’s a lot of money in a very constrained budgetary environment,” Koropeski said. “What program would you increase, your revenue or taxes? Or would you cutback on another program to fund something like this?”

The city looks to install 2,900 benches with complimentary waste receptacles in East York, North York and Etobicoke. Half of the benches will display advertising. The number of new transit shelters that will be ordered is still being determined.

Early estimates indicate purchasing the furniture, including shelters, would cost $120 million amortized over 20 years. Over the same 20 years $140 million is necessary for maintenance and repairs.

With a mandate from city council to maintain or reduce the 18,000-square-metres (roughly one third of the Rogers Centre site) of street furniture advertising, Koropeski said designs need to be streamlined.

“You won’t see what you see now, a garbage can with advertising, next to a bus shelter with advertising, next to a bench with advertising,” he said. “There will be one ad permitted per location.”

In Vancouver a program similar to Vibrant Streets is in its fifth year of application. Of 900 bus shelters ordered by the city, 675 have advertisements. Additional benches, waste receptacles and bicycle racks ordered through the contract are advertisement free.

Grant Woff, a civil engineer working for Vancouver’s Streets Department advises Toronto’s planners to negotiate flexibility into the offer the city accepts after Vancouver’s program encountered difficulties.

He said that even with potential to expand the public furniture program in Vancouver, the contract does not account for contingencies that may arise. Woff’s main concern is that the furniture styles will be dated as communities’ aesthetic tastes evolve.

“The challenge is that it’s a 20-year contract and as time goes by the city changes,” he said.

Koropeski expects similar bids that cover a 20-year span because investors will begin to see a profit in the latter half of the contract.

Toronto’s community-business leaders are anxious for Vibrant Streets to remove clutter from their sidewalks. Briar de Lang, general manager for the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area, has already installed a multi-publication box on the corner of Bay and Bloor streets.

“You had Astral, Eucan, newspaper boxes, you had so many companies that had a state in public space,” she said. “Now with Vibrant Streets we are looking forward to cleaning up spaces in front of our retailers.”

The importance of being green

BY LIZ DEWDNEY

The green space and parkland in Regent Park is all but gone. According to former resident Tyrone MacLean-Wilson, the old swing sets he used as a child there have long since been torn down.

“Playgrounds are an important thing to have,” he says. “The population of Regent Park is mostly children.”

Though MacLean-Wilson moved out of the area about two years ago, he still lives nearby and is very active within the community. He’s worked with a local community group, Regent Park Focus for 10 years.

Regent Park is bordered by Shuter, Gerrard, River and Parliament Streets. The original, low income housing, development began in the late 1940s and was completed in the late 1950s. While it was supposed to be a bastion in modern urban design, it is widely viewed as a failure.

Because of this, Toronto Community Housing (TCHC), an arms length city organization that provides housing for low-income households, has started a revitalization of the area.

According to Eric Pedersen, urban design project manager for the south district of Toronto, the original Regent Park green space did not seem public.

“Though there was open space all around,” he said, “there was no defined public space.”

The open space to which Pedersen refers is encompassed by residential apartment buildings, making it hard for the general public to enter. With the revitalization plan, the buildings surrounding one of the larger green spaces will be torn down. This will triple the size of the space, located just south of Oak Street between Sackville and Sumach Streets.

Pedersen says that the redesigned park should serve the Regent Park community in a way similar to Trinity-Bellwoods Park in Toronto’s west end. While Trinity-Bellwoods Park has many recreational facilities, such as an indoor pool, outdoor tennis courts in the summer and skating rink in the winter, it’s the accessibility that Pedersen would like to see mimicked in the Regent Park revitalization.

“We’re hopeful that the park space will be like Trinity-Bellwoods,” he said, “where people can get multi-use facilities, but still have open access to enough undefined space to use as they like.”

Pedersen says the openness helps Trinity-Bellwoods Park work for residents. Park users can enter from all four directions, from Dundas Street on the north border, from Queen Street on the south and from side streets on the east and west.

According to Laurie Stephens, the director of stakeholder relations for the TCHC, the amenities that go into the redeveloped Regent Park space will be determined by the residents.

“The TCHC could sit around and decide what to put into that space,” she says, “but if we end up putting in a basketball court, but it turns out that what the residents really want is a BMX track, then that space will not get used.”

Stephens points out that the area in question is not slated for redevelopment until 2014. Though, depending on the progress of the project comes, it could be started much sooner.
For now a small, playground and basketball court, until now in a state of disrepair, has been refurbished. According to Stephens it is now very widely used.

MacLean-Wilson agrees that the new space is great and would like to see even more playgrounds put in.

“I still bring my little sisters to play in the area,” he said, “it would be nice for them to have somewhere to play.”

Bridging Toronto's Gardiner complex

BY SEAN PEARCE

The fate of Toronto’s venerable Gardiner Expressway has been the subject of many debates in city council over the last few years. Bold proposals have been presented as to what to do with Toronto’s grey concrete freeway and the engineer behind one of these proposals says that Toronto is finally ready to take the risk and decide.

Jose Gutierrez is a civil engineer who is trying to make his vision, the Toronto Waterfront Viaduct, a reality. The proposal calls for the Gardiner Expressway to be retro-fitted with a series of cables and an elevated sky-path that will feature a nice view, plant life and a pedestrian friendly walkway. Gutierrez hopes the Gardiner will therefore become less of a barrier to the waterfront and more of a gateway.

“Toronto used to be (cautious),” Gutierrez said. “Toronto in the new millennium is a lot more bold and ready for something more dramatic.”

Kristen Jenkins, communications representative for the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC), says that transforming the way the Gardiner looks doesn’t change the fact that it remains a physical and psychological divider between the city and its waterfront. Jenkins says the TWRC’s preferred proposal, to take down the section between Spadina Avenue and the Don Valley Parkway, will remove that obstacle from the public psyche.

“This option… is a much more practical solution to addressing the barrier effect of the Gardiner,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got this opportunity to do something with the Gardiner because the waterfront is going to happen and it’s going to be great.”

Jenkins expressed doubts that Toronto City Council would choose to transform the Gardiner. She said the plan the TWRC is favouring will likely prove a less costly venture. Jenkins also said that whatever is done with the expressway money will be the deciding factor, as is always the case.

“Council can’t be asked to decide on something where there are no options for funding,” Jenkins said. “I don’t think (the numerous Gardiner proposals) have ever gotten past the urban design and engineering stage and that’s what is happening now, but the city is looking at potential financing options.”

Gutierrez says that money needn’t determine the matter because, if Toronto is willing to make a daring choice, money will come from private sources.

“I envision a lot of private investments in this project and I foresee a big chunk, more than 50 per cent, of the money will come from the private sector,” he said.

Gutierrez adds that the first step will not be funding, but getting the politicians to realize they need a freeway along the lakeshore.

“The councillors first need to realize that the waterfront needs and expressway,” Gutierrez said. “Putting traffic on the surface routes with street lights is just going to choke the whole area up.”

William Allen lives in Toronto’s east end and often walks his dog along Lake Shore Boulevard East where the pillars of the Gardiner Expressway’s demolished eastern section still stand. He says the city should keep the freeway and that its uglier features can be transformed.

“If it’s safe to leave it up and it’s working the way it is why change it?” Allen said. “It is a little dirty underneath… but that can be brightened up in areas for pedestrians to cross under it.”

Allen also says that despite the demise of the Gardiner’s eastern section, he still feels separated from the waterfront because of the wide roadway and the noise.

“I don’t like crossing a huge, wide expanse of roads,” he said.

Allen said he likes the concept of the Toronto Waterfront Viaduct and doesn’t mind having the old Gardiner there, as long as an effort is made to beautify the Gardiner. In his opinion, improving the Gardiner doesn’t need to be a difficult or costly venture.

“(The Gardiner) needs lots of green space; it doesn’t have to be fancy green space, just lots of nice trees,” Allen said.

Grass roots take hold in downtown square

BY D. LAXMIDAS MAKWANA

Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington finds enjoying the finer things helps his creative process: Coffee with friends punctuated with a first-rate cigar in Yonge-Dundas Square.

On another occasion Warmington spotted Mayor David Miller mingling with passersby among the granite slabs dotted by water fountains. At that moment he realized the potential for the location to bring people together.

“I looked at Nathan Phillips Square and it certainly has its own history and importance to the city,” he said. “It just isn’t what Dundas Square’s become which is a real grass roots place.”

His vision of seeing the square filled with a sea of red-clad Canadians showing support for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan would come to be over the next seven days. For Warmington using Yonge-Dundas Square as the site of a rally was an organic conclusion.

In its infancy Yonge-Dundas Square has become the anchor point of the Yonge Street corridor that runs through Toronto’s downtown core. Three years after it was officially opened, Yonge-Dundas Square continues to define its identity as a meeting place within Toronto and against world-renowned public spaces such Times Square in New York City.

Taylor Raths, general manager of Yonge-Dundas Square, believes the space can live up to more than its moniker.

“We call ourselves the heart of the city and I really want us to be that,” he said. “Not just geographically, I want us to feel like it’s a spot that belongs to the people. And it does belong to them.”

To accomplish his goal Raths spearheads a number of events sponsored by the public and private sector. On weekends Yonge-Dundas Square is filled with vendors and shoppers active in the city’s artisan market. On weekday afternoons a concert series shares the space with corporate-sponsored events promoting new products or services. Raths hopes to find the right mix of event planning so the square becomes a meeting point in the city.

Still his efforts have yet to sway the public. With the plot of land surrounded by billboards and other advertisements, pedestrians pass by and see the square as another place to shop instead of stopping to enjoy its features.

“I think the general public doesn’t really understand the one acre of land (of) the square is the only public portion,” Raths said. “The billboards that surround us make us look like downtown Tokyo, but there really isn’t any association of the billboards that surround the square and the land itself.”

While Raths feels signage detracts from Yonge-Dundas Square, Times Square in New York City has built its identity around its bright lights.

Over 102 years Times Square has defined itself as a meeting place for citizens of the world. During the 1990s the square went through an intense regeneration evicting massage parlours, strip clubs and an unwanted criminal element. In turn multinational corporations moved in and lit up the sidewalk with billboards creating an environment advantageous to commerce and tourism.

Ellen Goldstein, vice-president of policy, planning and design for the Times Square Alliance, says the billboards are just a part of the experience.

“It such a unique visual experience when you come here,” Goldstein said. “We have a sense of constant entertainment, whether that means you’re coming here to go to the theatre or you’re here to see something on the street. It’s active 24 hours a day. There’s always something going on.”

Because of the activity Times Square has become a natural meeting place for New Yorkers.

“We had a wonderful thing happen during the World Cup,” Goldstein said. “It was Ghana versus Italy and there was a gathering of Ghanaians in the middle of Times Square watching on the big screen … When Ghana won people were hysterical. It was a completely organic gathering of people.”

Organic appeal is what Yonge-Dundas Square is attempting to provide to Torontonians.
When Joe Warmington filled Yonge-Dundas Square with his sea of red the spot took another step towards becoming a meeting place for the city.

“I think our rally was one of that place’s finest hours,” Warmington said. “I think it will be remembered as that.”

CultureClub

BY SEAN BAILEY

Toronto councillor Kyle Rae says, while walking through Yonge-Dundas Square, he finds himself looking up at the ads that surround it.

“I find that they add light, colour, movement, sometimes humour,” Rae said. “Unfortunately, some advertising tells us that we think we need. And that’s the part where I just turn off.”

He believes the ads are a part of the culture within the city and they belong in the square.

The advertising that surrounds Yonge-Dundas Square is reflective of what’s happening in cities such as New York with Times Square and London with Piccadilly Circus. Toronto planners believe the square can become a centre for culture and community gathering. However, one arts organization, based in Toronto, argues the square isn’t fulfilling its purpose.

“Many people view Dundas Square as a cultural space, as a cultural centre,” said Robin Sokoloski, community arts director for them.ca, a non-profit organization for the advancement and promotion of young urban artists. “Now it’s overwrought with media advertising.”

The site has proposed the Beautiful City Billboard Fee, which it says will beautify Toronto, create jobs for artists, promote community ownership and diversify community in public space. The proposal, currently under review by the city, wants to impose a billboard advertising fee of $6 per square foot of space. This money will then subsidize local artists.

Allan High, vice-president of marketing at Clear Channel Outdoor, says he is opposed to such a change.

“Why billboards?” High asked. “What gives an artist a right to say ‘I’m going to take control of someone’s business and put an artificial tax on there for my benefit’? It’s not that we don’t support the individual’s right to display their product, it’s using our product and taxing us when no one else is getting taxed.”

Sokoloski disagrees with High. She says those advertising in a public space have a duty to those around them. They have to make sure there is a fair balance between having billboards, public art and green space.

Rae says there is a divide between advertisers and artists when there shouldn’t be. He believes the two groups are of the same mold.

“I’m just getting tired of this attitude that there’s artists and then there’s advertisers and I think they’ve come from the same place,” he said.

Rae also believes Yonge-Dundas Square is a perfect fit for billboard advertisements. He says it could work in no other place in the city such as residential neighbourhood or commercial strips.

According to a Pollara opinion poll, 66 per cent of Torontonians support the proposal to add a fee to billboard owners and 15 per cent are opposed.

“I think (Yonge-Dundas Square) is a unique situation,” High said. “It’s a vision that is based upon what they’ve done in New York in Times Square, but a much more controlled vision. (In New York) literally every-inch of every building, going up 10 or 12 stories, is a covered with form of sign. That’s not the desire in Toronto.”

Pleasant dreams

BY SEAN PEARCE

Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto is the tranquil final resting place of many famous Canadians. Amid the tall, ancient trees and quiet marble slabs lie former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, department store magnate Timothy Eaton and insulin discoverers Frederick Banting and Charles Best just to name a few. Yet, Mount Pleasant Cemetery is not just another graveyard. Its aged trees, spacious fields and many paths are also used by the living for jogging, cycling and appreciating the little bit of serene green amid so much grey. For a naturalist the cemetery is indeed a little slice of heaven.

Roger Powley is a member of the Toronto Field Naturalists. A few times each year his group organizes a trip to visit Mount Pleasant Cemetery and take in a little bit of the natural setting it provides. A big part of that is the arboretum located on the cemetery grounds.

“One of the reasons (we go there) is the arboretum,” Powley said. “They have trees from all over the world there, so if you want to learn about trees that’s the best place in the city to learn; it’s almost the best place in the country.”

According to Powley, another draw for the nature seeker is the possibility of spotting some wild animals. The cemetery itself is 200 acres and connects to other parks and natural areas as well. This gives wildlife plenty of space to roam and hide.

“I’ve seen coyotes and deer,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
When asked if any of the participants have been too scared to enter the cemetery Powley laughs.

“I know there’s some superstitious people who don’t like going into cemeteries, but it’s not that common,” Powley said.

Fear of the cemetery doesn’t seem to be keeping anyone away. The site has proven popular with hikers, runners and others who want a little taste of the outdoors. Several travel guides and websites list Mount Pleasant Cemetery as an ideal spot for avid cyclists. David Dunn, an engineer with Toronto’s Transportation Services Department, says, in the case of Mount Pleasant Cemetery, making it part of the city’s bike network just seemed to make sense.

“The bike plan was (initiated) by looking at existing routes and seeing how they would fit in with our grid network,” Dunn said. “In this case we saw trails already in use and made a logical connection.”

It might seem likely that given Mount Pleasant Cemetery’s primary role as a resting place for the deceased that concerns, either out of respect or superstition, might have been raised about its inclusion as part of the bike network. But, according to Dunn, he doesn’t recall any objections to the route.

“There might have been the odd comment,” Dunn said. “But off the top of my head I don’t recall.”

Rick Cowan, vice-president of marketing and communications with the Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries, says the cemetery welcomes the public to use its space as long as they remember to be respectful of those there to mourn their loved ones. It’s a difficult balance to maintain sometimes.

“It was always the opinion of the founders of Mount Pleasant Cemetery … that the cemetery should be a place for the living as well and we’ve always encouraged passive recreation at our cemeteries,” Cowan said.

Even though the cemetery still invites the public in, Cowan says the land is privately owned. Some people seem to forget this and show little respect or sympathy towards people mourning or attending funeral services.

“We’ve had situations where joggers are jogging through the cemetery and are talking rather loudly and they’ll forget there’s a graveside service going on at the time,” he said. “It’s quite disruptive emotionally and distressing when they’re there, at that time, basically running through (a family’s) service.”

Yet, noisy joggers aren’t the worst of it. Rollerblading is, in fact, banned at the cemetery. Cowan says the reason for the ban was because a person rollerblading along one of the cemetery paths collided with an elderly woman paying her respects, breaking her arm. The cemetary haseven been aproached by cyclists wanting to use its paths as racetracks.

“We’ve actually had people strolling with their buggies during the day holding up funeral processions,” he said. “They look at it like, ‘This is my place, my public space,’ but they forget that there are people mourning the loss of their loved ones.”

“It’s a really delicate balancing act we have to play, because we really want people to enjoy the cemetery,” Cowan said. “But we also want people to be respectful of those who are there to mourn.”

My home has no walls

BY D. LAXMIDAS MAKWANA

Waking up to the sounds of morning rush hour traffic on the Don Valley Parkway isn’t something Lester Labradore expected when he moved from his rent-controlled apartment in Ottawa to find work in Toronto.

Today, Labradore sleeps between two waterproof sleeping bags in a tent on the edge of the bustling roadway. He starts his day with a drink and then begins his daily trek to a liquor store near Broadview and Danforth Avenues where he panhandles in hopes of saving enough money to rent an apartment.

Labradore considers the square metre of sidewalk cement to the left of the store’s entrance his office. On a sunny day he’ll spend over 10 hours sitting on a weathered cushion while keeping a close eye on a maroon baseball cap for spare change passersby.

For Labradore, living and working in public areas north of Toronto’s heavily policed downtown core is his right as a citizen of the city.

“It’s a public sidewalk,” Labradore said. “If I’m not going out of my way to cause someone grief and make their day bad, then I have a right to a sidewalk just as much as they do.”

But Labradore knows the law says otherwise. Toronto’s six-year-old-Safe Streets Act requires police to arrest individuals panhandling near bank machines, bus shelters and other public areas. Critics of the bylaw say it is only enforced in the downtown core to maintain an appearance of prosperity without addressing homelessness.

John Clarke, director of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty see these clashing rights as the unresolved argument over accessibility to Toronto’s public space.

“There is an overwhelming argument of necessity,” he said. “If you find yourself homeless then you may need to sleep in a park, you may need to sleep in an intersection, you may need to sleep on a heating grate, you may need to stand on a street corner and ask for money.

Clarke believes when this happens when society has to accommodate the people who it has forced onto the street.

Toronto’s Advisory Committee On Homeless And Socially Isolated People attempts to find a balance between maintaining the city’s overall aesthetics while resolving the economic needs of panhandlers. Former city councillor Jane Pitfield is on record saying city council is supporting initiatives that do little to find homes for the homeless and clean up public spaces.

“There has been a complacency making the problem an industry when there needs to be change,” she said. “Panhandling has become far too common and people who normally come into Toronto complain about how aggressive panhandlers can be. So now our neighbours in the 905 area won’t travel into the downtown core.”

Labradore knows that he can’t work downtown so he avoids the area and its politics entirely.

“If you go downtown you can’t even sit there for five seconds and the cops are right on you,” he said. “You’ve got bicycle cops, you got cars and you’ve got foot. Up here on the Danforth they don’t bother you unless you bother someone else.”

Clarke said that focusing on the downtown core separates claims to public space economically rather than ethically.

“In practice that claim (to public space) is stratified according to people’s economic situation,” he said.

Clarke points out that a movie production filming downtown paralyzes the city’s main traffic arteries, which in turn negatively affects area businesses and pedestrians. Clarke says because the city stands to make a profit the production is portrayed as a benefit rather than a problem.

Meanwhile Labradore maintains his claim to the spot in front of the liquor store but tries not to bother people. He is mindful of the bylaw so he tolerates pedestrians crowding his panhandling space on a busy Saturday afternoon.

“Sometimes you get snotty remarks and sometimes you get something. Then sometimes you get nothing,” he said.

Litter in the city

BY LIZ DEWDNEY

On a crisp January day a Toronto bike courier was locking her bike up in Toronto’s Kensington Market. While she was doing this she saw a man throw a piece of garbage out his car window. She took offence. After walking over to the slow moving car she opened the door and threw the garbage back in. The man driving the car then got out and threw two large coffees at the courier. A screaming match ensued, which eventually escalated into a physical fight.While the courier, Leah Hollinsworth, admits that she may have gone overboard that day, she says she’ll never shy away from speaking her mind to litterers.

“I’ll always say something when I see people littering,” she said, “I take it personally.”

A local photographer caught much of the incident on camera; he posted the photos on multi-user blog called Citynoise. The story was quickly picked up by mainstream media and resulted in a heated debate about littering in Toronto.

Litter has always been a problem for major urban centres. McDonald’s wrappers, coffee cups, chewing gum and cigarette buts litter the streets despite street cleaners and garbage bins. Litter drastically changes the urban landscape and, according to Glen Stone public affairs manager with the Toronto Board of Trade, litter can even hurt a city’s economy.

“One little piece of litter is going to do damage,” he said. “It makes a city less attractive to tourists and businesses.”

Two years ago the Toronto Board of Trade partnered with the city, school boards and business improvement area to create a program called Can the Litter. Through educational and advertorial programs, Can the Litter hopes to help the city reduce the amount of litter on Toronto streets.

Geoff Rathbone currently works for the city as the director of policy and planning in the solid waste department, he has worked in solid waste management for over 20 years. He believes that litter has always been a problem for the city, but that it has become more prevalent since he’s been on the job.

“People’s consumption patterns have changed in the past 20 years,” he said. “The sheer availability of potential litter has increased.”

Rathbone also points out that municipal government has taken many initiatives in the past four years to try to curb litter. For example, the litter audit actually measures the amount of litter found on Toronto streets.

The first such audit was done in 2002 with another conducted every two years. The results show a decrease of 40 per cent in 2006 from the 2002 audit.

Rathbone credits the decrease to both city programs and private ones such as Can the Litter. He also says that the city plans to bring in many more programs in the future.

Eventually Rathbone would like to see a four-pronged approach to littering, three of which, prevention, education and cleaning are already in use. The fourth would be enforcement, i.e. ticketing people who are caught littering the streets. Though there technically is a $305 fine for littering in Toronto, offenders are rarely ticketed, Rathbone says, this city is not ready for a heavy ticketing blitz. For example, he says cigarette butts, which made up almost 15 per cent of the litter in the 2006 audit, are difficult to dispose of properly in public areas.

“We’ve pushed all the smokers outside,” he said. “It would be very unfair to ticket them unless we put in some public ashtrays.”

In the meantime, both Rathborn and Stone hope that citizens and community groups will help to make the streets of Toronto as clean as possible.

Though Rathborn wouldn’t necessarily encourage others to do what outspoken courier Hollinsworth did, he says he admires her conviction.

“You’ve got to respect her for standing up for the cleanliness of her neighborhood like that,” he said.

For her part, Hollinsworth continues to speak to people about littering whenever she sees it. She also teaches her eight-year-old son about littering. Every day when she picks him up from school, mother and son take a few minutes to pick up garbage they find on the schoolyard.

Though she doesn’t believe that the city or anyone else can change the behaviour of a litterer, she says that she doesn’t understand the behaviour in the first place.

“It seems like such a simple thing,” she said, “to just keep that piece of garbage in your pocket until you find a trash can, but people just throw it on the ground.”

Taking the tag off Toronto

BY SEAN BAILEY

For two months in the summer, student workers along a neighbourhood stretch in Toronto work to clean up and help beautify their city. Using a pressure washer and other cleaning materials, they spend from two minutes up to two days working to remove graffiti “tags.”

“It depends on the size, it depends upon the surface of the wall, whether it’s porous, non-porous, metal,” said Evonne Hassock, program director for Community Centre 55. “It depends upon how long the graffiti’s been there and If they use a lead or metal based paint. You could have one little piece, but because of the surface and the kind of spray that was used it could take an hour.”

The centre, established in 1976, is run by the community and is a government agency that receives $20,000 in administrative funding annually. These students work along the stretch of Toronto bounded by Victoria Park and Coxwell avenues and from Lake Ontario to the north city limits.

“We hope to remove all graffiti in our geographical area,” Hossack said. “It increases property values for homeowners and business owners. It’s visually more appealing and people can feel more proud of their community when it’s clean.”

Dr. Douglas Frayn, retired associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, says while there is both good and bad graffiti, in the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, he agrees if the graffiti is unwarranted, then it shouldn’t be allowed to remain.

“Anything that defaces private property is bad, even if it’s the Mona Lisa,” said Frayn, who has developed an interest in the message of graffitists. “It may be good art, but I think it’s up to the person who owns the property whether or not to decide what you want to put out there. Having said that, most graffitists know what they throw up isn’t forever anyways.”

Mayor David Miller, who heads Toronto’s Clean and Beautiful City campaign, which helps fund such programs, agrees with Hossack and Frayn and says unwarranted graffiti is detrimental.

“Whether it’s graffiti art or anything else, if it’s not accepted by the owner, then it’s not acceptable (to the city),” Miller said. “And the vast majority of graffiti in the city is stuff that makes the neighbourhood feel rundown. It’s often neighbourhoods that feel rundown, that get to look more rundown.”

One aspect of the Clean and Beautiful campaign is the Graffiti Abatement Program, which removes graffiti with help from communities. One way to ensure theremoval of tagging occurs, is through a bylaw that requires businesses to remove graffiti from their premises within 72 hours. They pay for the removal themselves.

“That’s another problem,” Miller said. “Whether it’s tagging or art, and the vast majority of graffiti in the city is tagging, if the property owner hasn’t consented they have to bear the cost of taking it off and it’s not cheap.”

Even if businesses have to pay for the removal themselves with a donation of money or supplies, Hossack says she has received a lot of positive feedback from the community.

“They know that people care about their property and their businesses,” she said. “They feel a pride and it helps bring a community close.”

Who is Dave Meslin?

BY D. LAXMIDAS MAKWANA

Dave Meslin isn’t camera shy. He just refuses to be the only person in the picture.

For Meslin not a week goes when he isn’t contacted by a reporter asking for an opinion public space, or a photograph portraying him as the leader of one of Toronto’s most popular grassroots organizations.

Since founding the Toronto Public Space Committee, in 2001, Meslin has become the de facto poster boy for the public space movement. He is regularly quoted in both mainstream and alternative media.

Still he dodges analogies to predecessors such as urban planning icon Jane Jacobs.

“It’s better to have a multiplicity of voices,” Meslin said. “I feel it’s actually problematic when someone like Jane Jacobs is seen as the voice on an issue. (TPSC) has actually fought to prevent the media from picking who the voice is.”

He believes the public space movement is much like space itself, for everyone.
Boasting a staff of over 20 people, TPSC has nurtured a new set of public space advocates that continues to grow since the lobby group’s inception.

Meslin sees his role as an instigator not a leader. Once Meslin’s movements gain enough momentum to sustain themselves he’s quick to move on.

“My strength is starting things from scratch,” Meslin said. “It just seems like a better use of my skills and time to start something new rather than staying with a project that other people can carry on just as well, if not better.”

Toronto Star columnist Royson James is a self-described Meslin fan. Even after applauding Meslin’s City Idol project, which took average Torontonians and shaped them into municipal candidates for the 2006 election, James said the legitimacy of the public space movement goes beyond any individual.

“If it’s a real grassroots movement all it needs is the right catalyst to get it going,” James said. “The catalyst … is someone who can galvanize. It’s somebody who can touch the right chords, who can organize people, who can present their vision in a way that they can understand.”

Glenn Miller, chair of the Canadian Urban Institute leadership series, sees Meslin’s model of organization as set of traits being applied by other lobbyists around the city.

“It’s a willingness to invest in something you believe in for the greater good,” Miller said. “So there might be some short term rewards … but really (results are) seen where organizations can move things forward and leverage their assets.”

Meslin believes it’s the media that prefer to have a single voice for an issue. He thinks that mindset spreads lazy thinking, forcing people to rely on a sole source for information.

“What we try to do … is to say that it’s really bad when you can have 2.5 million people living in a city and everything you see visually in public space is coming from four or five marketing agencies,” he said.

Now Meslin focuses on empowering others to take action. Through his City Idol initiative he hoped to raise a new generation of leaders while sidestepping the spotlight himself.

“As an organizer it’s not for me to run for office or for me to become a spokesperson,” he said. “It’s for me to bring in other people. The real victory for the movement would be if 20 or 30 people are quoted on a regular basis.”

Parkdale square

BY LIZ DEWDNEY

In recent years, with the gentrification of Queen Street pushing ever west, money and business are changing the Parkdale neighbourhood. Some want to see the intersection of Queen Street West and Cowan Street designated as a meeting spot or town square. Cowan Street is a short street about three blocks east of Dufferin Street.

Paul Bedford, the former chief planner of Toronto, is a big supporter of public space and believes that the town square idea may help Parkdale restore its identity.

“Queen and King are coming back to life,” he says, “but Parkdale needs pride and identity. Any public space improvements could help with that.”

The intersection is home to the Masaryk-Cowan Community Centre and the Parkdale Public Library. Before Parkdale became part of Toronto in the late 1800s the corner housed Parkdale Town Hall two firehouses and a police station.

The plan to turn the intersection into a town square has been around for over 20 years. In the early 1980s the sidewalk at the north end of Cowan, where it intersects with Queen, was expanded by about five metres in the form of cobblestone. According to Devin Horne, co-ordinator of the Parkdale Business Improvement Area, this makes it the perfect intersection for a town square.

The World Peace Monument is the latest addition to the intersection. It was installed in the fall of 2005 and was a joint project of the Parkdale BIA and the city. It sits on the southeast corner of Queen and Cowan Streets, adjacent to the library, and is composed of a large metallic globe with sheets of copper for the oceans and large holes to for the continents. Inside there is a fountain, which sprays a continuous stream of water.

Horne sees the corner as being Parkdale’s Yonge-Dundas Square.

“We wanted the corner to be a focal point,” he says. “We want people to say, ‘Let’s go meet at the globe.’ ”

The monument has not been without controversy, however. Last spring residents, angered by the lack of benches around the monument, organized a protest. Kate Zankowicz is a Parkdale resident and used to write for a local newspaper the Parkdale Liberty. She organized the protest.

“Public space, in my mind, is created by public seating,” she said. “In order for the monument to truly inaugurate a town square, as they call it, it has to be a place where people can linger, relax and enjoy.”

After the protest a group of local artists installed an illegal park bench, which according to Zankowicz is very well used by the community.

Horn admits that he and many others use the rogue bench, he would like to see more go in.
Horne admits that he and many others use the rogue bench. He would like to see more additions, such as, community are installations, bike lockers and outdoor food vendors.

The problemwith adding more to the intersection is that the BIA extends well past Cowan Street and the businesses at the other end feel that money should now be spent on improvements on their end.

Horne says, however that even the biggest naysayers now support the monument.

“When it’s lit at night,” he says, “people who were dissenters have come back and said, ‘wow, that actually looks really great.’