CELOS notes on the City of Toronto's Dufferin Grove Park Northwest Corner "Revitalization" Project

History

City of Toronto project website

"Community Resource Group (CRG)" meeting #3, October 17, 2018

The meeting was held at the Dufferin Grove Rink clubhouse.

9 of the 11 people who had originally volunteered to be on this group were present, to represent the community. There was one City of Toronto capital projects staff, 3 City of Toronto recreation staff, and 1 assistant from City Councillor Ana Bailao's office. Also, 8 observers from the neighbourhood came to listen. Liz McHardy (consultant from Lura) gave a recap and then introduced Megan Torza and two of her colleagues, from DTAH, the company that has the contract to design the project and manage construction.

CELOS meeting minutes, and follow-up comments by meeting participants, are here.

Timing

In her presentation, DTAH architect Megan Torza said that absolutely no plans have been finalized for this project. The timing is now pushed to a summer mid-2020 construction start. Before then, she said, there will be 8 more CRG meetings, 4 public meetings, 4 pop-up park events, and 11 TWG (Technical Working Group) meetings (not public).

Budget

The capital projects staff mentioned a budget of $4 million for whatever is decided (the 2018 capital budget line item lists "Dufferin Grove New Community Centre," allocating $3.14 million for 2018, plus $694,747 to DTAH Architects Ltd. for "professional and technical design consulting services for a new community recreation clubhouse and park improvements at northwest corner of Dufferin Grove Park."

Some excerpts from the October 2017 meeting:

Megan Torza (DTAH): "There will be a lot more people moving into this area, so the need for this park to work for increasing numbers of people is a reality.”

Megan Torza: She said that DTAH is aiming for a kind of synergy of decision-making. None of the options are going to be perfect, i.e. satisfy everybody. This will be a “very fluid and iterative process…relying on a kind of consensus to be built.” DTAH hopes that the people who don’t like the end will at least see why it has to be that way.

CRG member: Having the rink's mechanical room in the middle of the rink house interrupts the flow of the building, it would be nice if it were put somewhere else.

CRG member: wants “visual connectivity,” says you have to start "blowing out" the walls of the rink house to make it more spacious, maybe relocate the rink away from the centre, along the edge by Dufferin St. Says there should be a “master plan” or a “context plan to provide some inspiration for future decisions” – says now everything is piecemeal.

Peter Didiano (Capital projects): Reminds the meeting that $4 million is not a lot of money.

Keith Storey, Ward 18 Rec supervisor: says that Rec is “always looking for trends and exploring new options.”

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