From the perspective of my…

From the perspective of my involvement with Friends of St James Park, Toronto, a community organization working to improve the experience of nearby residents and visitors to the park, I support the Parks and Public Realm section of the TOCore plan. I will comment on a few areas that are within my personal experience that I think are important for the plan to address. 1) It is wonderful that the need for park improvements is understood and many parks are being revitalized (including St. James Park). Many, however, are being done at the same time, which means that they are all going to have the same design/aesthetics just by virtue of the trends and ideas put forth by current landscape designers. As well, they will all need to be redeveloped at the same time, 30 years down the road. We should be looking at better ways to distribute the timeframe of park development. 2) Park Maintenance - with more complicated and beautifully designed parks, they need constant maintenance and the funds to support that. The city has been cutting parks funding and staff - we are going in the wrong direction. 3) Coordination with other city departments and infrastructure projects is essential. The north sidewalk of Berczy park has been ripped up and filled in with asphalt weeks after the landscaped brick and stone had been laid down. 4) More aggressive in creating pedestrian ways on streets, either temporary or permanent, like Scott Street beside Berczy, Gould Street at Ryerson, Willcocks Street on UT campus - we need more of this, starting with Market Street beside the St. Lawrence Market. 5) Condos development should be mandated to create dog relief stations within their own envelope (like on a podium top or mezzanine level), this will reduce the use downtown parks as doggie toilets. Thank you.