By Hedy Korbee
Imagine for a moment that you could design a brand new park in the heart of Birch Cliff.
What would it look like?
That was the challenge facing about fifty local residents who turned out for a visioning exercise to provide input to the City of Toronto on the new 4.7 acre park slated for the Quarry, north of Gerrard St. and east of Victoria Park.
The T-shaped park will be located in the middle of the 19-acre mid-rise/retail development planned by Build Toronto on the western portion of the Quarry.
It’s being constructed and planned separately from the controversial high-rise development proposed by The Conservatory Group on the eastern parcel of land.
Brainstorming event
The community consultation on March 18th at Malvern Collegiate was a roll-up-the-sleeves round table event where residents could brainstorm in small groups and share ideas for creative use of the space.
While there were suggestions for the usual amenities like a farmer’s market, splash pad and tennis courts, it wasn’t long before a single theme began to resonate with the group: keep it as natural as possible.
Birch Cliff resident Ian Harvey, who said he walks his dogs in the Quarry every day, reminded the meeting that the park will be small and advised against over-thinking and making the space too ornamental.
Quarry Lands, Gerrard and Victoria Park
“Maintain it in its natural state,” said Harvey. “It’s the most wonderful area to walk through whether you walk through with your dog or with your kid. There’s red tailed hawks there, there’s deer, there’s coyotes, there’s rabbits, there’s foxes.”
Building on Harvey’s momentum, the next group skipped over some of their ideas for development, saying they weren’t taking the size of the park into account.
They proposed a natural ice skating trail that would meander throughout the property and allow for four-season use, as well as lawn bowling and tennis courts in order to encourage use of the park by seniors.
Participants were divided into brainstorm groups, which reported back to the meeting
Incorporate Quarry’s heritage
Reporting for the next group, Lorraine Chung suggested the park could include murals depicting the history of the area and that the Quarry’s heritage could be incorporated into the signage and play structures through the use of rocks and logs.
The loudest applause of the evening was reserved for Birch Cliff resident Bernadette Warren, who wasn’t part of a group but has done studies on the Quarry and wanted to make a case that the park should remain naturalized.
A piece of the country in the city
Warren told the meeting she feels privileged to live in a city where a piece of the country is just a five-minute walk from home.
“Not everyone has a cottage,” said Warren. “Not everyone can get away every weekend camping or whatever. So to be able to go to an unstructured environment, climb and tree, walk through tall grass, hear the birds, it’s incredible. To me that’s what I believe it should be.
Warren also said that the Quarry is an example of natural generation where the existing plants and grasses are slowly detoxifying the land and removing the harmful substances that were buried there when it was an unregulated dump site. “You have to respect that process,” she said.
Evergreen Brick Works
Consultation facilitated by Evergreen
The meeting was organized by Build Toronto at the urging of the advocacy group Concerned Citizens of Quarry Lands Development, (CCQLD) which thought it important that the community should have input into the park.
Build has contracted Evergreen to handle the community engagement process.
Evergreen is a national non-profit organization that inspires action to green cities and is probably best known in Toronto for the redevelopment of the Don Valley Brick Works.
Stewart Chisholm, Director of Partner Services and Evergreen City Works, described their role as “harvesting ideas from the community” in order to share and provide guidance to Build Toronto and ultimate the City of Toronto.
“How does it become our outdoor living room that we can relate to and feel a strong sense of connection to? If we can get a sense of that tonight, that would be success,” said Chisholm.
Chisholm said Evergreen will summarize the meeting in a report to Build Toronto that will be circulated in the community.