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An Update from Jeff as Chair of the Parks Committee

7/20/2021

Hello Parks & Public Space Committee members,
Last month I met with Al Rezoski and Jane Law (from the City and Ryerson respectively) to re-start the Camden/Brant greening project that has essentially been paused since some of the GDNA Executive initially met with Al and Jane last year. Here is a general overview and summary of what we discussed:

The purpose of the project is to replace some or all of the current boulevard parking and on-street permit parking on Camden and on the east side of the Waterworks building with 'green infrastructure'. Note that all boulevard parking on Camden/Brant is on City property.
'Green Infrastructure' generally means container plantings of flowers, shrubs, trees etc. However it can also include bike posts/racks and maybe some other things.
In the short term we are not looking at ripping up pavement and planting stuff - instead the focus will be on containers/planters (high enough to be protected from dog pee) that can be quickly dropped into place - like on King St. or the bike lane dividers on parts of Richmond/Adelaide, Simcoe etc.
Who will pay for this stuff? The City has no dedicated funding allocated so it's up to us. Here are some options for obtaining the infrastructure e,g, containers, soil, plants:
- Provided for free by the City (e.g. through Transportation Services)
- Provided or funded by the Condo Corporations and businesses on Camden, like the Ace Hotel (probably not by the ones losing their parking though!)
- Provided or funded by the BIA, assuming the expansion into our area is successful.
- Provided or funded through grants/programs such as Healthy Communities, Neighbourhood Tree Giveaway Program etc.
Boulevard parking permits can be revoked with 1 month's notice. We will need to provide Councillor Cressy with a good case for revoking permits. Jane Law's excellent report (see attached) goes a long way in this regard but we will also need to present a plan for implementing the green infrastructure.
Public art is not green infrastructure but we could certainly take advantage of the City's public art initiatives such as StreetARToronto or CreateTO. Same with the (free but ugly) Astral Media street furniture.

What's Next?
I'm starting to look into sourcing planters (or funding for planters). Al provided a number of contacts at the City in this regard. I will also give Anthony a heads up, and check to see what Cressy's office would like to see in terms of documentation. Then we can start drafting the plan

Given that we have a number of members on Camden, it would be great if one or more of them would take the lead on the Camden-specific aspects, such as connecting with the condo boards or property managers and business on the street. I can focus on Brant Street, unless someone wants to take it on. If nobody from Camden wants to participate then we may just want to work on Brant for now. Once we have a reasonable plan we can provide it to Cressy's office and request revocation of the parking permits.

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