Birchmount Community Centre Playground
By Hedy Korbee
The revitalization of Birch Cliff was the topic of discussion at a meeting on Oct. 16 between members of the new Birch Cliff Community Association and Ward 36 Councillor Gary Crawford, as well as key members of city staff.
The meeting was called by Councillor Crawford to discuss the community association’s goals to improve walkability in the neighbourhood, support local businesses, encourage responsible development and improve park space for young children.
The community association was established in June and half a dozen representatives attended the meeting, including founders Anna Dewar Gully and Polina Privis, who runs The Kingston Social.
Revitalization process so far
Victor Gottwald, a Scarborough district manager in the city’s planning department, led things off with a recap of the Kingston Road revitalization study undertaken from 2005 – 2010, explaining that a vision for re-urbanization and reinvestment in Birch Cliff was established that is still being implemented today.
Among other things, Kingston Rd., which used to be designated as a highway, was rezoned Commercial Residential (CR), which allows for a mix of residential and retail uses and reflects the vision of Kingston Road as a vibrant main street.
Old steel streetcar rails awaiting disposal
Overhaul of Kingston Rd.
This led to a complete overhaul of Kingston Road between Birchmount Rd. and Victoria Park Ave. in 2013/2014 in order to replace the water main, build new sanitary and storm sewers, rebuild the road, replace the sidewalks and add streetscaping features.
Gottwald explained that three key areas on Kingston Rd. near Birchmount, Warden and Victoria Park were designated for higher density development, where buildings ranging from two to eight storeys could be constructed and ground floor retail was a requirement.
“What you are seeing is that development is slowly moving west to east,” Gottwald said. “I think your community, whether you like it or not, is blessed with proximity and developers are now seeing Birch Cliff as an attractive place to come in and make applications to develop some of the land. As you move further east along Kingston Rd where we have done other similar avenue studies we’ve not been quite so successful so far as attracting development.”
Some of the challenges to revitalization cited by Gottwald include boarded-up storefronts, small parcels of land along Kingston Rd. and low residential density that makes it difficult for businesses to thrive.
Community Association says development “spontaneous”
Anna Dewar Gully, chair of the Birch Cliff Community association said she likes the revitalization plan because there seems to be a vision to turn the neighbourhood into a more walkable community, “except that I feel right now is that we’re sitting back and hoping that spontaneously a number of really great retail options or community anchors will materialize at the same time”.
“What we’re doing is not spontaneous,” responded Councillor Crawford. “In fact what Victor has been describing has been a long term plan and vision. What a lot of the community sometimes doesn’t see is the activity with developers, with people calling up calling my office. There’s a lot of dialogue with individuals who very keen to develop. We’ve seen some really amazing developers and two of them right now are about to dig ground.”
Crawford was referring to the new condo at Kingston Rd. and Blantyre Ave. by the development firm TAS DesignBuild as well as the new condo at Kingston Rd. and Audrey Ave. by Infinity Development Group. Both condos are replacing uglier stretches of Kingston Rd. and Crawford said he has been working very closely with the developers.
Artist’s rendering of TAS DesignBuild condo proposed for Kingston Rd. & Blantyre
Dewar Gully repeated her call for leadership and systemic planning, saying the demographic of Birch Cliff has fundamentally changed due to an influx of young families who are “ex-urbanites” (people who used to live in the centre of Toronto but can no longer afford to).
“I don’t think you need to wait for an organic process the way that we’ve been waiting for organic processes in these 
neighbourhoods over the last 30 years,” Dewar Gully said. “There is enough density that’s coming to Toronto on an annual basis that you can plan and organize and champion exactly those sorts of projects with multi-sectoral partnerships that bring people out in neighbourhoods. And I think that is something we should be doing in Birch Cliff.”
“Someone needs to actually think through how to create a reason to walk in the neighbourhood because we have these beautiful assets with the waterfront,” Dewar added. “And honestly there are people who live on the north side of Kingston who don’t even know the water is at the end of the street because of the way the neighbourhood is currently designed. It’s an absolute missed opportunity. I honestly think I think it could be one of the most walk-able neighbourhoods in the city If someone articulated a vision and put it out there for developers to come and play ball, you know, instead of it being iterative and let it come to us.”
Gail Ross: “You’re off the mark”
Crawford’s executive assistant, Gail Ross, took exception to Dewar Gully’s characterization of the Birch Cliff’s revitalization, speaking as a former business owner on Kingston Rd, the founder of the farmer’s market that ran at St. Nicholas Church for ten years and as a key participant in the 2005-2010 revitalization process.
“I’m there. I was there. And a lot of people were there,” Ross said. “I would say though that you’re off the mark by saying you’re not having a champion. The reason I came on to Gary’s team was because I wanted to see some of the visions that were in place come to fruition. And as a result we have a sped up process of the infrastructure work that was done in Birch Cliff. I think it’s important to see where we were and where we are now because we’ve come a great distance and we have a successful businesses as a result.”
Ross continued: “We have the interest of the developers because we have been pushing from our champion’s perspective. So I think you’re off the mark on that one. I understand where you’re coming from. However if we could minimize the politics of who you’re focussing on and focus on what we can do that we may not be doing, it would be a little more productive.”
“I don’t want to be disrespectful,” Dewar replied. I’m an advocate for a living so that’s the way I speak and the way I think. This is me being a respectful pusher. We’re here to help. That’s why we’re here. We want to be champions for that kind of engagement. It’s not a blame game.”
Kingston Rd. and Audrey Ave. now
Artist’s rendering of condo coming to Kingston Rd. and Audrey Ave., courtesy Infinity Development Group
Councillor Crawford offered to introduce the community association to the developers interested in Birch Cliff saying, “We’ve looked at the corporate philosophy of what they’re trying to do. They want to do exactly what you’re saying. Let’s start working more together. Instead of saying this isn’t happening and that isn’t happening, I think we need to start working more closely together, the advocacy aspect of it needs to be more cohesive.”
Dewar Gully responded: “You’ve got to define a problem before you can solve it. Our job as a community association at the moment is to solve a problem in our neighbourhood. If you want to be part of the solution to the problems we’ve defined in the neighbourhood, listen we would love to work with you. But our job first is to understand what’s going on in the neighbourhood. And your job is to figure out how you can be a champion and help solve them. I’m sure you’re irritated with us for pushing and that’s fine, but we’re going to keep pushing because we really, really care. We really want to see it improve. And if you care too maybe we can be a team.”
Birch Cliff Public School playground
Parks for young children in Birch Cliff
Crawford then steered the meeting to the issue of parks and playgrounds in Birch Cliff because that is a critical concern of the community association. Specifically, the association is pushing for programmed play space for children under the age of four.
Dewar Gully said there are many young families such as her own who have moved into Birch Cliff recently and most of them are forced to drive to Blantyre Park because the school playground at Birch Cliff Public School is inadequate
“You can’t use the park when school is in session There’s no swings. There’s no water. It’s not meant to be used out of school hours. It’s not insured and it’s not designated as a community park,” Dewar Gully said. She added that her four year old has just started to be able to use that park in a way that’s appropriate and there’s nothing for her younger child, who is nine months old, to do.
Nancy Lowes, a Scarborough district parks manager, explained that the department is responsible for maintenance of playgrounds, identifying new capital expenditures for parks and working with the TRCA and the City’s of Toronto’s partnership office.
“This group here has the ability to help us identify projects that are needed in the community. This is a really good resource for us so that we can start to identify low-hanging-fruit type projects that we can do within our group. What do we have to push out to capital so they’re identified in our capital list,” Lowes said.
Birchmount Community Centre playground
The community association has identified the small park next to Birchmount Community Centre as a play area that could be upgraded to meet the needs of young families.
Dewar Gully asked Crawford if advocacy pushes a neighbourhood goal farther up on the list. Crawford responded that advocacy is great but said it’s important for elected officials to focus on communities in the greatest need.
“We also have to look at those communities that can’t advocate,” Crawford said. “Do they deserve an improvement more than a community that advocates? When I was a school board trustee we would put a park where it’s needed. Not where the community was yelling the loudest.”
Gail Ross told the meeting that in many parts of the ward Birch Cliff is viewed as a “have” community. “It’s funny because I so appreciate activism but we have other parts of the ward who say,”why is Birch Cliff getting everything?” There’s been so much change there, there is so much going on,” Ross said.
Dewar responded by saying there is a “very, very serious” need for programmed green space for young children because Birch Cliff is under resourced compared to neighbouring communities.
Crawford assured her there is a willingness on his part to tackle the issue play space but said it’s not going to happen in 2016.
In an interview after the meeting Dewar Gully told Birch Cliff News it was helpful to get information about the bureaucratic process and reiterated that it is the community association’s goal to work in partnership with Councillor Crawford’s office.
She also said it’s important for neighbourhoods like Birch Cliff to come up with “grand ideas” to create a better sense of community.
“I believe strongly that if you want to live in a better community you have to set audacious goals for that community and you have to champion those goals. That doesn’t mean we won’t refine them, that we won’t and understand where we have to compromise, but we’re going to start with audacious goals and work back from there rather than starting with restraint.
The next meeting of the Birch Cliff Community Association is Thurs. Oct. 29 at 7pm at the Kingston Social, 1427 Kingston Road, just west of Warden. Everyone is welcome.
Anna Dewar Gully clearly has a political agenda. Perhaps she want to run for council and needs to have some sort of “track record”? I don’t know, but I find her concerns about “her community” disingenuous. She is focussed on her own self interest. The most bizarre thing is that she wants us to believe that she has something new to add to the conversation. Long term residents of the BirchCliff community (and I mean more than 5 years, Ms. Dewar) who’ve lived in the community their entire lives have done the heavy lifting for her. The disrespectful tone of this “activist” who “pushes” for change only alienates people, it does not draw them together.
That’s quite the statement to make Frank, do you know Anna? Do you know this for a fact? Or ate you just another guy hiding behind an alias on the Internet assuming that any woman with a voice looking for neighborhood improvement has an agenda of some sort. Not everyone is interred in power that seeks change. What’s your agenda frank? And why have you pin pointed Anna all the members of the birchcliif village community association have the same directive. Frankly if you’ve got all this past experience rather than bashing others for tyring to pick up where you left off getting off your computer and help out. Maybe that would help you feel included. Have a nice day and don’t forget to smile!
Frank, I can assure you that Anna Dewar Gully has no political agenda. She is someone who cares about her community and is dedicated to working with her neighbors to ensure that BirchCliff reflects a collective vision and attains its true potential. A self-interested individual would not be such a passionate advocate for changes, such as improved park space and neighborhood walkability, that benefit the entire community. Someone who, as you say, “alienates people” would not have revived the BirchCliff Community Association to allow concerned community members to voice concerns and together develop effective strategies for change. I’m sure the group would encourage lifetime BirchCliffers, such as yourself, to join the conversation……in person.