Celebrating a passion for parks
400 people gather to applaud cool ideas coming to life in Toronto’s green spaces
Birds do it. Bees do it.
And the people who are most passionate about Toronto’s green spaces want you to do it, too — play, eat and meet in the GTA’s nearly 1,600 parks.
Toronto Park People’s Park Summit drew more than 400 park staff, volunteers, councillors and members of the public to what was billed “Canada’s largest celebration of parks” on Saturday. Nearly110 volunteer park groups representing every ward in the GTA form the Park People’s alliance.
The fifth annual summit was held at the Daniels Spectrum, across from Regent Park, which this year will offer a bake oven and a greenhouse (for veggies and fresh herbs) to enhance existing communal gardening plots soon to be readied for planting.
What were they celebrating? Cool neighbourhood ideas come to life.
Like a shipping container-turnedcafe that serves snacks and espresso in McCormick Park. Mandarin translation services provided to community gardeners as they tend their plants in Chester Le Park. Sipping cider from freshly crushed apples — squashed from a borrowed press — with neighbours in Orchard Park. And who knew the Toronto Urban Fishing Ambassadors will help you learn to cast a line, even in the heart of the city?
There were also complaints. Permit fees to use public spaces, slow-moving city bureaucrats and a lack of communication with parks staff were listed as impediments to some people accessing parks.
Janie Romoff, Toronto general manager of Parks, Forestry and Recreation, said she values the alliance “nudging us to do the right thing and grow our services in a positive direction.”
“I look at this group, Park People, and generally, the kinds of dialogues like this can only advance what we all believe in and the passion that we have for parks,” she said.
“I always find it reassuring how much we actually agree on. I think we all want the same thing, which is residents using parks to the best way possible and in the way that meets the needs that they have.”
But Romoff defended her department’s listening skills. “Community consultation, however you define it, is primary to all the work that we do,” she said. “So there isn’t a capital project that goes forward without input from the community. I think what’s happened with groups like Park People is it has given us a platform to pursue some of that consultation, which is really helpful. I’m constantly impressed at the passion Torontonians have for their parks.”
The Regent Park School of Music kicked off the afternoon with a strings performance. The summit also featured a three-person panel: Malcolm Bromley, who heads parks and recreation in Vancouver; Ali Shaver, who helped found the Park Avenue Community Oven in Dartmouth, N.S., and Kevin Hunter, of Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Conservancy.