Kitchener beefs up neighbourhood grants
A total of $60,000 will be available for up to 15 ‘placemaking’ projects
KITCHENER — The city has beefed up its grants to encourage “placemaking,” offering six times as much money as it did last year to encourage people to liven up their neighbourhoods.
As part of its new neighbourhood strategy, Kitchener in 2016 gave out nine $1,000 grants to groups for temporary placemaking efforts, including a pop-up beach party, a soccer tournament with live music and a food truck, a pollinator garden and a historical map workshop.
The basic idea is that placemaking brings a neighbourhood to life by turning everyday spaces into destinations and gathering places where people want to spend time.
This year, the city approved a much more elaborate grant scheme that would hand out up to 15 different grants totalling $60,000. The grants vary from $1,000 or less for temporary events such as a pop-up lemonade stand or a community information board all the way to $20,000 for a permanent improvement such as public art, an intersection mural designed to slow traffic with a painting on the pavement, or a shade structure.
The city is funding placemaking because it believes residentled improvements and events have many benefits: they contribute to the city’s quality of life by encouraging fun things to happen; they create safer neighbourhoods by encouraging more people to gather in public spaces, and they can strengthen a sense of belonging as people contribute to their neighbourhood in a very specific way.
The city decided to go with different sizes of grant to encourage both large projects and also to allow smaller ventures for groups that may never have attempted a neighbourhood improvement project.
“For some people the idea of a $20,000 placemaking project is really exciting,” said Darren Kropf, who works in neighbourhood development at the city. “For some that’s daunting.”
“We really see it as a way for groups that are new to placemaking to start small, to do something easy. Maybe this year you could just do a temporary thing and maybe next year you can do something more permanent,” he said.
Three of the grants will have a special focus: a $10,000 economic development placemaking challenge that would see residents work with nearby businesses to make it easier for people to come to or linger in a business area; a $2,000 health grant for an idea that promotes healthy goals such as by exercise, walkable communities or more shade; and a $2,000 sustainability grant for an idea with an environmental focus such as encouraging waste reduction or improving water quality.
Each year, the city will designate a weekend as the city’s Placemaking Challenge Days, and encourage groups to apply for grants to host their activity, or to officially open a more permanent installation, on the specific weekend.
Having a specific weekend gives people a deadline to work toward, and will create a bit of a buzz. “Placemaking is still new for people,” Kropf said. “We’re hoping to really build momentum by encouraging a lot of groups, and to build some excitement.”
The Challenge Days will change each year, to encourage placemaking at different times of year. In 2018, the weekend will be at the end of July, while in 2019 it will happen at the end of September.
Although the city offered 10 grants last year and only got nine takers, city staff are confident they’ll be able to give away all 15 grants for 2018. “Last year we only had a couple of months to promote it,” Kropf said. If there aren’t enough applicants for a specific grant, the money would be used to fund other applications, he added.
The deadline for 2018 grants is Sept. 18 for the larger grants ($10,000 and $20,000), and April 9, 2018 for smaller grants. For more information go to kitchener.ca/ en/livinginkitchener/Neighbourhoods.asp.