I am most concerned about the plans to tear down the existing Dufferin Park clubhouse, rink and bake ovens. I'm also really surprised that I've never been approached while in the park - at a park bench, or at the Thursday market, for my (and fellow park users' ) views about whether or not we want new facilities. Nor was I aware of discussion or suggestions about replacing the existing facilities. So where - or who - did this proposal come from? And why? Some time ago, I saw signs inviting park users to go to a site (with a complicated, non-intuitive site address) to find out about the 'revitalization'. This is not meaningful park-user consultation. I want to be approached by real people, have discussions, and be able to ask key questions when I'm already in the park.

I'm not aware of fundamental problems with the existing facilities. Are there problems which require everything to be torn out? If so, why is there no information about this in the park, where we can see them? I hear a lot of talk about scarce budgets. My priority is to see money spent wisely, and to use our existing city - and parks resources well - keep them in good repair, and make changes, as they are needed, and in response to the priorities of park users, staff, and friends. The environmental costs of demolishing sound buildings only to re-build them with new materials is unconscionable - and totally unacceptable to me.

And, I am not willing to pass on two or three rink seasons, and 2 or 3 years with no Thursday farmer's market, nor food in the park - to undertake what appears to be a totally unnecessary, costly, environmental irresponsible project. The Dufferin rink, market, food, and other programs I come across in the park are gems, and I'm not willing to see them disappear.

I'm most concerned about the rising costs of managing Dufferin Grove, and I want to see a local conservancy take on the running of this park. I'd like to know more about the plans for how this would work.

We believe that Dufferin Grove Park can continue to be a unique public space which fosters simple yet personal activities created by citizens and supported by staff.

We believe that the "revitalization" the city is planning will shut down the park for 2 years, during which time, much of what has taken our community 20 years to build, can be lost.

We persist in trying to make the park work better, just like others before us have. One example is the work David Crombie and Karen Pitre put in to save the TDSB pools, by the simple suggestion of reducing permit costs and increasing usage by people.

Dufferin Park has a simple recipe – allow people to use the park in the ways they want, allow them to give their gifts so that others can share, have staff that are happy to help, and the park will thrive.

We believe these things can happen only if there is a return to active partnership by long term/veteran staff and park users.

I agree that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I think that the city could save some money by instead of ripping everything apart considering the following:

- the rinkhouse is dark, small and grungy - a glassed extension/wall facing the green space with more seating would be welcome, perhaps including a covered area for the market
- bathroom upgrade
- in the main space, a more transitional type of seating, so that benches and chairs could be moved in and out
- ART, or a consideration for nicer materials (to hide the cinder block walls).

The current facilities in the park work pretty well. Yes, they are not all beautiful, but they are functional! To shut them down for several years is not revitalization, it is devitalization. The idea of a Conservancy is intriguing, and should be tried. Also worth noting is that with the reduction to 25 wards, our councillor (whomever that will be) will have less time to devote to individual park issues. So, it makes perfect sense to decentralize some of the decision making to the local level.

If there was true neighbourhood input on the “revitalization” project, then it certainly bypassed us, and we live just down the street from the park. The rink and building seem in solid shape; certainly some upgrades would be welcomed, but a complete tear down seems unnecessary, a waste of funds and detrimental to a neighbourhood that relies on the facilities as a community hub year-round. We would like to know who made this decision and what public consultation was done. if the project is going to move ahead, it is imperative that park users have a voice and are represented. We support the idea of a conservancy for the park.

My comment for city hall is step back and watch all the good things that can happen when locals feel empowered.

Just the idea that the rink house and ice pads would be demolished and replaced in a 2 or 3 year process without an involved community consultation gives you an idea of what the outcome will be. The Rec Centre at Trinity Bellwoods was closed for about that amount of time to rebuild and the resulting building is so poorly thought out that many rooms sit empty while the main open space inside the front doors is filled with ping pong tables. It is great to see so many people interested in ping pong but it has a limiting effect on anyone going in who does not play that game.

The poor design of the Trinity Bellwoods rec centre pretty much guarantees that community initiatives like those in Dufferin Grove won’t happen. It is designed to isolate community users from each other in their particular activities, engaging rarely with others in the park doing other things. That is the exact opposite of community building, something Dufferin Grove does so well. Even the farmers’ market at Trinity Bellwoods is as far away from the rec centre as possible as though people interested in physical activity would not be interested good food. Forget about eating in Trinity Bellwoods, that is what restaurants are for. If the city has its way Dufferin Grove will end up like Trinity Bellwoods, a popular lawn with a physical activity/sports component. Forget about the community building.

I volunteered to be on the community reference group for this project. Even though in the two meetings that were held of this group, the general opinion was that we wanted to hear the rationale for all the disruption and change-- what are the broken things that we are fixing?-- we were never given access to this information, and the call for proposals went out unchanged by our feedback. I don't think anyone had the time to do this, plus it felt that the horse was already out of the barn at this stage.

The only real input we were offered was the opportunity to volunteer for what we were told would be two full weeks of volunteer time reviewing the submissions. I am extremely concerned that this project will only decrease the use of the facilities, both in the short- and long-term. What will happen when the bake ovens are torn down, the gardens ploughed up, the rink/skateboard park/bike polo facilities shut down for a couple of years. What will they look like afterward? Do we really need a skating oval in the park? A fenced-in dog run at the cost of the good times provided by the "toboggan hill" for little kids?

Having seen so many results of city-driven projects, I'm not at all confident that either the process or results will be good for the park. In the meantime, I have seen only attack and erosion on the great work that has been done in the park. This is not in the form of physical infrastructure, and it's not something a new building or rink can fix. It's the community volunteers and staff culture that said "yes" not "no" to exciting, fun, innovative, human initiatives. THe City has repeatedly demonstrated that they are more concerned with uniformity across all parks, even if it means a race to the bottom.

Dufferin Grove is not the same as when we leaned so heavily on all the great staff and programs when my son was small. I feel so sad that others are not having the opportunity to experience the difference having a park like this as your "third place" can make to your quality of life.

I don't know all the details about why the City is planning to do the rebuild at Dufferin Park, but when I look at what we are able to achieve (when the weather cooperates) at our extremely minimal, makeshift Pearen Park facility, it is difficult to justify a major expenditure to upgrade a well established facility that is already functioning effectively.

And a one- to two-year facility closure just looks like poor planning. With proper planning and timely budget approvals, the City should be able to schedule the work such that it is all done in the summer months. Back in the old City of Toronto, where I was Director of Budgets for the City Property Department which oversaw all major capital projects, the timing issue arose because no money could flow until the current year's capital budget was approved in the late spring. I would have expected that now, in the far larger amalgamated City, a more efficient process would enable more a user-sensitive approach.

I used to live at King & Dufferin in the early 80s. I worked on College near Kensington Market and walked home each day past Dufferin Grove Park. At the time I was struck by how beautiful the park was with its majestic trees--and how quiet. I never saw a person in it. Probably people walked through it on their way to somewhere else but it was never a destination.

How very different it is now, having evolved into a community park over the past three decades or so. This is where my son spent many an afternoon playing in the oversize sand pit, where I was able to bring raw bread dough from home and bake pita bread in the community-built brick oven, where I've watched innumerable performances by local theatre groups and internationally-renowned dancers, where I happily freeze every February enjoying the antics of fearless bicycle couriers in their Icycle races, where I come every week for the best farmers' market in the city--and I don't even live in the neighbourhood!

There is a real risk that all of this would end, possibly permanently, with the major changes being proposed to the rink house and surrounding area. What a tremendous loss that would be. "Improvements" to the park must be made in consultation with the community and with that community's needs in mind.

I think the Conservancy idea is a good idea, and from working with the Bentway I can definitely see the differences in how they operate vs. the parks department. I am sure you visited their ice path and observed how differently it operated and was activated with supporting activities. Having said that, I don't think they Parks department necessarily thinks that there is a huge problem with the way they operate the park and I am not sure they would be willing to give it up to another organization. At the very least you may get them to study the opportunity and implication of having a conservancy operate the park. This would require allocated staff and resources and would probably take a year or two.

Is there another option?? perhaps having a stronger parks friends group that works closer with the councillor and parks staff to make recommendations and improvements on the day to day activities at the park.

In terms of the renovation of the rink and clubhouse. Rink: its definitely nearing the end of its life, the skateboarding community is looking forward to having a nice new smooth surface to ride on. The ground is very rough and the newer polished surface at Scadding Court is much better for riding and more forgiving when you fall. Ideally we would only lose one season at which point the ramps could be moved somewhere else. Some of our members have been building ramps at Christie Pits and this year was the first full season and it has been succesful. Perhaps we could move the ramps to Christie or another rink in the interm. Ideally as part of the revitalization, we could get dedicated indoor storage space for the ramps, or a shipping container. Right now they are stored outside during the winter which is causing a lot of water damage and increasing the amount of maintenance required.

Clubhouse:

I feel like the clubhouse is a bit worn down and clustered inside, especially on busy nights. Whether it needs a full rebuild is a good question, but from my understanding the parks department feels like it is being used in a lot diverse ways than was originally intended and they would like to build a more modern facility that can accomodate all the different uses. I believe they also want to make it bigger as there will be a lot of new residents soon with all the condos.

. I think it is a useful question to ask as to whether is can be renovated instead but it seems like the decision has been made and the wheels are already in motion. So, the question is, do you fight that decision or work collaboratively with the parks department to make sure that the new building is functional and meets all of the communities needs.

Capital projects in general:

The money is already allocated and the consultant is already hired, so this is moving along, although slowly at the moment. If this project moves along as intended I think the key thing for the community is to be very closely involved in the design, but also to make sure the design stage moves along quickly so that tendering and construction can happen efficiently to minimize disruption of existing programs. I am currently working closely on 2 skateparks projects with budgets around 500,000$. They are both delayed and one of the main mistakes was that we did not get the tenders out at the right time.

For large capital projects, you have a numerous community meetings, then the designs are prepared, more community meetings, then detailed design packages are prepared and put out on the market. The tendering process is (I think) 7 months. Bids come in and the lowest bid is selected, then the construction schedule is set. Our tenders were put out late december, early january and closed in the spring time (bad time to close a tender). The general contractors already have their schedules set and they can bump the costs if the Parks Dept. really wants the projects done. We did not have budget flexibility so we had to repackage the tender and put it back out. They bids came back over budget and we had to ask for more money. Anyway, what I am getting at is you need to set timelines for each stage so that you can start construction at the ideal time, so for the ice rink, best time to start construction is in the spring so that the ice rink is done for the following season, to start in spring you need your tender package out 7 months earlier.

Hope this helps, I have learned a lot from the half dozen capital projects that I have been involved with and the numerous studies we have conducted with the parks department and motions that we have passed at council. I have also learned a lot from reading through a lot of the documentation that you have on the Dufferin Grove and Celos webpages. The parks department is a complicated beast with many departments that do not always coordinate well. I think the best approach is to find a balance between what the community wants ( and is willing to support) , what the parks department wants and what is the most realistic outcome keeping in mind how the parks department operates.

Hannah Sung, Sept.25, 2018

There are so many aspects of Dufferin Grove Park to love -- the year-round farmer's market, the skating rink, rinkhouse, Cob cafe, volunteer and community-run gardens, outdoor bake ovens and pizza parties for the children. It would be a real shame to close these things down for years in order to make changes, especially if they are changes the community doesn't deem necessary. Some real city leadership would let the community have a say in the stewardship of these park programs. This is an active and engaged community.