Rouge Park centre to get own spot
Conservationists praise move to relocate planned site from zoo parking lot
Parks Canada has decided to build a new interpretive centre for the Rouge National Urban Park in the park instead of in the Toronto Zoo’s main parking lot.
The federal agency reconsidered an earlier choice to combine its spot for welcoming park visitors in Scarborough with one serving a similar function for the zoo.
Conservationists and members of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) board said the new location east of Meadowvale Road is a big improvement.
Putting the building, also intended as a showcase for the national park system, in the 1,000-space main lot “was just a mistake on so many levels,” TRCA board member Glenn De Baeremaeker told the authority’s Feb. 22 meeting.
“You would look out at a vista of a sea of automobiles,” instead of the park’s natural scenery, said De Baeremaeker, a former Scarborough councillor, adding park visitors would compete in summer for parking with zoo visitors.
Pauline Browes, president of Friends of Rouge National Urban Park and a former Scarborough MP, said the new site is close to trails and good for student visits. Groups presented over 50 reasons why it was better, she said.
Though the exact location hasn’t been finalized, the interpretive or welcome centre is one of the last issues to resolve before an updated agreement between the TRCA, zoo and City of Toronto sees the zoo property shrink from 710 acres to 519.
The original agreement in 1978 let the zoo operate on TRCA lands. For the update, the TRCA looked at the zoo’s boundaries and the land it was actually using, said Mike Fenning, the authority’s associate director of property and risk management.
The planned transfer of about 150 acres of zoo land to Parks Canada isn’t thought to affect the zoo’s future plans.
The zoo will also receive some land in the park, north of Finch Ave., where it can grow browse for animals and breed them.
Planned over many years — and delayed by a dispute between the federal and provin- cial governments over environmental protections for the federal park — the updated agreement hasn’t been signed, “but we’re really close now,” Fenning said this month.
The city will keep ownership of the re-naturalized former Beare Road landfill near the zoo, including a roadway opposite the main zoo entrance, but will manage the whole area as a park.
Pearse House, known as the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre, will remain where it is, east of Meadowvale Road, and near the future interpretive centre.
The national urban park announced in 2012 was first of its kind, and replaced an informally managed Rouge Park which began on provincial, TRCA and city land in Scarborough in 1995.
The TRCA is still working to transfer 5,600 acres of its land in the park to Parks Canada.
“You would look out at a vista of a sea of automobiles.” GLENN DE BAEREMAEKER FORMER SCARBOROUGH COUNCILLOR