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Custodians:
Notes on Ward 18 Advisory Council meeting, April 18, 2011 by Belinda Cole

Here are a few notes from the WARD 18 ADVISORY COUNCIL - INAUGURAL MEETING on Monday April 18th at the Bloor Gladstone Library.

I've flagged the issues that may be of particular interest to us with **.

1. Introductions

The meeting was very well attended - people from the Junction, the South Asian Women’s Association, the Clean Train Coalition, Brockton, Big on Bloor, Dig-in, Active 18, etc. Braden will send around the names and contact info for everyone.

2. Explanation of the Council

Ana has 3 goals - 1) to find out what is going on in the ward, 2) to pass along information about what is happening at City Hall and matters affecting the Ward, 3) to provide a forum for people in the ward to network

3. Community Calendar

Ana mentioned some upcoming dates on her community calendar.

The executive committee is seeking to limit the number of councillor newsletters to 2 per year, effective next year. Ana currently puts out 4 hard-copy newsletters each year. She finds it hard to understand why this micro-management is within Council’s purview - the councillors’ budget has already been cut, so why does it matter how a councillor chooses to spend this (Ana said that she chooses not to keep a constituency office so she can do other things)?

4. Development Issues and Updates

**Ward plan map

- Ana wants the Advisory Cte and other interested people to work together with city staff to come up with a Ward plan - to go back to Community Council next year. She wants to look at all the employment lands and other lands and think collectively about spots where people would like to see development in the ward, so that when she is approached by developers and others, she has a clear sense of what people do and don’t want.

- There was lots of talk by some well-informed people there about leaving room for some interesting pedestrian and bike ways and about how to mix employment with residential, design concerns, etc.

**West Triangle - 830 Lansdowne

There was lots of talk about the possibility of getting better landscaping, pedestrian walks and a bridge to connect Lappin to Cambell. Apparently, the developer Tom Follis (sp?) who owns the property is open to paying for the bridge so that employees could have lunch and use Campbell Park. Follis wants parking spots for 800 + employees, and is also talking about providing library space in the building.

Getting more space for the Perth library

Ana is also looking into the possibility of getting a donation of land for a “Irving/Ungerman” library. There is a working group with neighbours and people from the Perth library to talk about this.

243 Perth

Ana has asked the developers to talk to the neighbourhood people before putting in an application for a 3 or 4 storey condo, with underground parking, next to the church.

1183 Dufferin (at Millicent)

- Ana is not keen on the proposal for a 5 story development. The existing church has been designated as a heritage building

Perth

Castlepointe has applied for townhouses on Perth.

351 Wallace - former paint factory - townhouse proposal on these employment lands - city planning department agrees land should be residential **- Ana wants a space for youth here; developer agrees

11 Brock - application for townhouses

Kent school

- Ana has had the school designated as a heritage building.

- Ana and others want a public square where the tennis courts are now.

City-wide mapping pilot project

- Ana is working with Councillors Vaughan, Wong-Tam and others on a long-term mapping project. (I didn`t get all of the details).

5. Business and Economic Development

update from the Dundas BIA.

- Helder (last name?) said that there will be 6 new parkettes, many of which are part of the existing sidewalks. All of this happened very fast - construction will start in May and go through the summer. Jennifer Siphyr (sp?) from Brockton didn’t like the fact that the Brockton residents didn’t know anything about this - and that this will be another year of construction on Dundas. Ana said that having the Advisory Committee will help to get the information out and avoid this kind of lack of information.

Theatre Centre

- Carnegie library will be the new home for the centre.

Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art

- will have a building at Lisgar & Queen

**New park at West Queen

- a working group is working with consultants on the design
- they are looking at having rotating public art in park
- this would not be run as a city park - I talked briefly to Franco Riboni, and told him I would contact him for more information about this. It may be interesting to our conservancy work.

6. Parks and Youth

- Ricarda from 900 Dufferin St. said that the Youth centre in Dufferin Mall isn’t closing, it is just going to consider young people’s comments about what is/isn’t working over the next few months and re-open in September. Meanwhile, they are still responding to youth who come in with problems.

- Ana and I talked briefly about the conservancy. People seemed pretty interested.

- I raised the issues of our new park supervisor, and the hold on partnership agreements until the Recreation Service Plan is finished.

7. Safety Concerns

One thing I didn’t get a chance to ask about are 2 “safety walks” on May 5 & 12 - I wonder what these are.


Content last modified on June 08, 2011, at 02:41 AM EST