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?”