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This case study is part of the 2021 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
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Climate change is all encompassing. It impacts how we grow food, how we get around, and how we build our homes. Our city parks are no different.
As we outline elsewhere in this report, there are many ways parks help mitigate and adapt to climate change. For example, park vegetation can help pull carbon from the air, reduce temperatures during heat waves, and soak up excess rainfall to avoid floods during extreme weather events.
But climate change also places stress on our green spaces, increasing the chances they will be damaged during a storm and altering the growing climate of plants. Indeed, 84% of cities said that protecting against climate change and extreme weather damage was a challenge.
Ensuring parks can provide important climate resilience benefits means making changes to how we plan, design, and maintain green spaces so they adapt and thrive in a changing climate. These changes ripple across everything from how we plan park systems to the aesthetics of park landscapes to the equipment used to cut the grass.
More and more Canadian cities are planning for climate change adaptation—whether through new climate action plans, climate actions embedded in park system master plans, or both. This year, 72% of cities reported having a climate action plan in place, an increase from last year due both to the inclusion of new cities in the 2021 report and a slew of new climate action plans approved in 2020.
Some of this planning work is in its early stages. For example, while almost all Canadian park system master plans reference climate change, many of the recommendations are for further work to create guidelines that can better integrate climate resiliency standards into park planning.
This doesn’t mean that cities aren’t building climate-resilient parks, but that they may be one-off projects—like a rain garden installed in a park to help reduce flood risk—rather than formalized changes to how all parks are designed and redeveloped.
That is beginning to change, however.
Consider Mississauga’s new Climate Change Action Plan, which calls for integrating climate change considerations into park development standards. The city’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that the city was already doing this work on a park-by-park basis, but “some things that were championed by an individual [city staff person] may lose momentum and attention if that individual leaves or takes a different role.” Standardizing climate resilient planning in parks will help institutionalize practices and ensure continuity.
Holistic plans that formalize practices across an entire city can also help cement a new way of doing things and build partnerships between different city departments like parks, transportation, and water.
Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy, for example, coordinates green infrastructure improvements—like rain gardens, bioswales, and retention areas—across streets, parks, and developments to meet a goal of capturing 90% of rainfall. In reporting on why the strategy was so important, park staff noted that “without comprehensive policy, green infrastructure projects have mainly been staff-led pilot initiatives…rather than an integral part of city capital programs.”
Similarly, Kitchener approved a citywide policy that directs all private and public development to mitigate stormwater runoff by capturing the first 12.5 mm of rainfall where it falls, rather than allowing it to run into underground pipes. This attention to managing rainfall is shown in innovative practices at the recently completed RBJ Schlegel Park, which manages all rainfall onsite and reuses water from the splash pad for park irrigation.
Lastly, in Brampton, the recently approved Eco Park Strategy helps guide the development of a resilient, connected park system, grounded in values such as naturalization, ecological integrity, and recognizing social and cultural value. The city is developing an EcoPark toolkit that will provide guidelines for both city park development and community members, such as adopt-a-park groups, on how to implement the strategy’s goals in specific projects. The city is already putting the plan into practice, using an Eco Park lens to re-naturalize the concrete banks of the Jefferson, Jordan & Jayfield channel.
Depending on where you are and the time of year, climate change in Canada is bringing warmer, wetter, and drier conditions. This impacts the types of plants and trees best suited for parks, necessitating a shift to more climate-resilient species and opening the door in some cities for species that wouldn’t have grown there otherwise.
Edmonton’s climate adaptation plan, for example, notes that by 2050, the city’s growing season length could increase by 22 days, which will shift what plantings grow best. While Regina park staff indicated that a changing climate has created an opportunity to plant new tree species.
These shifts will alter the landscape of our parks in different ways. For example, displays of native wildflowers instead of annuals in park gardens. But it also means changes to one of the most ubiquitous landscapes found in parks: the lawn.
Manicured lawns aren’t going away—they’re key for sports and lounging around—but cities are moving towards naturalizing some of these spaces, shifting them to so-called “low mow meadows.”
Moving away from a grass monoculture can boost biodiversity and increase the climate benefits of parks. For example, studies have shown a diversity of plants helps keep spaces cooler than a grass lawn. And as Edmonton city staff noted, “increased naturalization results in less need for mowing,” which reduces emissions from trimming equipment. To increase this practice, Edmonton city staff said they have adjusted the city’s landscape standards to focus on naturalization opportunities “in unprogrammed, low use spaces or spaces where there is environmental benefit to naturalize” Similarly, in Brampton, the city’s 2019 Landscape Development Guidelines promote climate-resilient plantings and include planting density requirements for parks.
Shifting to more naturalized landscapes requires engaging the public, addressing expectations about aesthetics and concerns about wildlife.
“We’ve created an expectation that there will be tight mown grass and formalized flower gardens,” Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said. The Park Board, however, is transitioning more spaces to low-mow meadows. A recently approved pilot will see 37 hectares in 18 city parks converted to more naturally managed landscapes.
“It is difficult to manage change for people who are used to a different aesthetic,” Townsend said. “For some, it’s unkempt and messy in comparison, but that’s what naturally managed areas look like.”
Simple signs may help. Townsend said the Park Board will create pathways through some of the meadows, placing signage that welcomes people to use them. Similarly, in Toronto’s Meadoway—a project that is naturalizing a 16km hydro corridor—the Toronto Region Conservation Authority installed signs to educate people about the new meadows and why they may look different than other park landscapes.
Managing expectations also extends to parks that are continually damaged in increasingly strong storms, such as Vancouver’s beloved Stanley Park seawall.
“The first reaction is to just fix what has been quote unquote broken,” Townsend said, adding that “the public expectation is pretty much [that] you’ll find a way to keep those cedars growing, or find a way to keep the ponds full and keep repairing that wall.”
It’s a challenge to think long-term as opposed to “putting a patch on what has been damaged,” he said. He argued, however, that it’s important to strike a balance between forward-thinking actions to create more climate-resilient parks and appreciating public expectations for well-loved park spaces.
The question becomes whether the city fortifies itself against sea level rise or accepts that some parks will flood at times and design them to accommodate, Townsend said.One way Vancouver is tackling this is by inviting the public into a conversation about the impacts of sea level rise through a program called Sea2City that brings attention to how waterfront parks may be impacted. The program includes elements like installing signs calling attention to future high water marks in waterfront parks, and a “Conversations in Canoes” video series with a range of experts.
Despite the major challenge climate change poses, it’s not all about city-led actions. As we pointed out in last year’s Canadian City Parks Report, local actions in small spaces can have far-reaching impacts.
As Nature Canada’s Policy Manager Michael Polanyi argued, neighbourhood-based projects can be “proof of concept,” using success stories to pave the way for larger projects and policy change across the city.
“Initiatives to plant trees in parks or start community gardens or distribute rain barrels in a neighbourhood or try and restore a small wetland—I think those are important in terms of engaging people, in terms of raising awareness, in terms of showing support and energy behind local initiatives which get politicians excited and on board,” he said.
Neighbourhood-level projects also highlight changes needed to reduce barriers that exist in a city in promoting more resilient practices. “When residents try to do something at the local level, you [notice] barriers—whether it’s lack of funding or a ridiculous permit system you have to go through or a by-law that’s in the way.” Polanyi said.
Polanyi also pointed out that “cities are often the modelers of wider change.” For example, local advocates were critical to the enactment of pesticide bans, which started at the municipal level and then moved up to provincial laws.
“Often working at the neighbourhood level, getting something happening at the city level, is the way that change happens,” he said.
As Canadians spent more time outdoors during the pandemic, the benefits of parks were clear. They helped us de-stress, stay active, and connect safely with others. But parks are critical for tackling another looming urban crisis: climate change.
Parks provide a number of climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits, such as cleaning the air, protecting against flooding, and regulating local temperatures. As climate change brings heavier storms and hotter weather, parks become even more important.
However, urban green spaces–and thus their benefits–are not equally distributed.
If you live in a neighbourhood with plentiful parks and trees then you also likely live in a neighbourhood that is whiter and higher income. Multiple studies show that lower income, racialized communities have fewer green spaces, making these communities more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Sherry Yano, formerly of the David Suzuki Foundation, argued that these communities are also often located closer to more polluted and disaster prone areas. This reality, described as environmental racism, is documented in recent Canadian research:
In response to inequities like these, Canadian advocates have called for centring justice in climate action. These calls follow a long history of the environmental justice movement, which works to redress environmental harms and ensure both negative and positive environmental impacts are equitably distributed.
This movement also includes city parks. We spoke with experts about what taking a justice approach looks like at the scale of the urban park, allowing more people to share in the climate resilience benefits of green space.
While a new federal bill seeks to address environmental racism in Canada, a 2020 study found that “environmental justice indicators are not yet routinely incorporated into policy decision-making at the local, provincial or federal level.” The gap goes deeper: “Even in cases where consideration of equity dimensions is encouraged in planning, guidance on how to measure and monitor those dimensions can be limited.”
This finding reflects our review of Canadian climate change and park system plans. While plans mention equity as a general principle, few carry this forward into policy and even fewer specifically acknowledge racial inequities.
Some cities, however, have begun to step forward:
By taking an equity-based approach to park development, and particularly focusing on communities that may be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, these plans, if implemented, work towards cities that allow more residents to share in the climate resilience benefits of green spaces.
When we talk about green space inequities, we often point out which neighbourhoods have fewer parks. But, as Setha Low has written, distributional justice is only one aspect of environmental justice in parks. We must also examine whether decision-making processes are fair (procedural justice) and whether people are treated respectfully (interactional justice).
This means asking questions such as:
These questions of process, power, and respect can have a profound impact on a city’s ability to address inequities.
As Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said, “it helps to have a master plan policy that recognizes inequity,” like Vancouver’s Initiative Zones, but it “doesn’t immediately change where the loud voices come from.”
In our survey, just 34% of Canadians said they felt they had the ability to influence what went on in their parks.
Reforming how and who we engage is no small matter. The distributional inequities we see today are the result of decision-making power imbalances, Sherry Yano argued, privileging some voices over others. “If you keep reinforcing the same systems, you are reinforcing the way we got to these problems.”
We can start by providing opportunities for a range of people in affected communities to be meaningfully involved in influencing outcomes, rather than positioning engagement solely as a way to seek feedback.
Canadian placemaker Jay Pitter has said that “if the community engagement process hasn’t served the larger purpose of building bridges across difference and fostering new relationships, then it hasn’t served the community.” She suggested smaller gatherings and walking workshops as ways to create opportunities for dialogue.
Larissa Crawford, Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led Indigenous and Black-owned social enterprise advancing climate justice, advocated for engaging with diverse youth and giving them decision-making power. “These young minds are required to think of sustainability in a way that older generations and even my generation didn’t have to,” she said.
Diversity is not just about race and identity, Crawford added, but about bringing in diverse experiences. This means not prioritizing people based on academic or professional credentials, but widening our scope to value the contributions of people with different lived experiences, including Indigenous land stewardship practices.
“When we only value one way of knowing, and one kind of experience in these environmental spaces, then we’re having conversations with ourselves,” she said.
Parks provide social infrastructure and can strengthen support networks during times of need. We’ve seen this play out with COVID-19, where 71% of Canadians in our survey said parks were critical to their sense of social connection during the pandemic.
Experts say these social connections are also critical when it comes to climate change.
Florence Lecour-Cyr is the Agente de programmation, planification et recherche at CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. She argued that the connections people create in parks can act as social support networks, especially for people who are more vulnerable, such as older adults or people with less mobility.
As one study pointed out, the social connections afforded by parks “may be a lifeline [for isolated individuals] in extreme temperatures.” Having a neighbour check in during a heat wave or having a place to stay when the power goes out can, in some circumstances, be the difference between life and death.
It’s important, especially in relation to climate change, for cities to measure social connections, argued Anne Pelletier, Service environnement urbain et saines habitudes de vie, Direction régionale de santé publique du CIUSSS du Centre-Sud de Montréal. But she acknowledged that it’s “not a phenomenon that is easy to capture.” Some initiatives have sprung up, such as the U.S.-based Reimagining the Civic Commons project’s measurement framework, and the Toronto Foundation’s Social Capital Study.
Complex challenges like climate change defy the compartmentalized ways in which we often approach problems and in which cities divide up work.
“There’s such a focus on siloes of learning. The mechanics, or the policy, or the science” Sheila Boudreau a landscape architect and Founder of SpruceLab said. “I think cities need to break out of siloed departments,” creating cross-disciplinary working groups.
If we don’t think holistically and broadly about climate change, Boudreau added, then “we’re going to fail in our efforts.” A narrow environmental focus in a project may foster short-term gains, but it may not work long-term or address the social needs of a community.
For example, Boudreau spoke about how confronting discrimination is critical in promoting access to the climate change benefits of parks. If someone feels unwelcome accessing a newly created green space–for example because of a fear of discrimination based on race or because they are an unhoused park user–then they aren’t able to reap its benefits of air quality and cooler temperatures.
The potential for green gentrification is another example of why thinking across disciplines is necessary when pursuing green space projects. Green gentrification occurs when investments in green spaces in lower income neighborhoods result in property value increases, which can displace the residents the investments were meant to benefit.
While new green spaces bring climate-resilience and social benefits, they can also spark concern. For example, a green laneway built in Montreal’s Saint-Henri neighborhood to help mitigate heat caused concern among activists that rising rents could push out local residents. Similar conversations have played out in Vancouver related to a proposed downtown waterfront park nearby the lower-income Downtown Eastside.
Florence Lecour-Cyr said that for green space investments to curb the gentrification process they must coincide with social and housing policies that target affordability. Anne Pelletier argued that involving local communities in the planning and animation of parks will make it possible to create spaces that foster a sense of belonging–a point also made by the National Recreation and Parks Association in their briefing on equitable park development.
Indigenous ways of knowing and approaches to land stewardship have important lessons for thinking about climate change, but are not often reflected in city policies.
Participants at Toronto’s Indigenous Climate Action Summit argued for a more holistic approach that recognizes spiritual and justice concerns. “If the city does not account for and address colonization in its policies it will keep repeating the same problematic behaviours,” the session notes stated. For example, rather than simply quantitative indicators (e.g., counting species), participants suggested measuring success against wider questions, such as whether we are being good ancestors.
“When we aren’t acknowledging how significant a role Indigenous peoples need to play in [conversations about climate change], we cannot produce the most effective and the most reliable outcomes,” said Larissa Crawford.
She pointed towards successful co-management regimes at the national park level between Parks Canada and Indigenous Nations. “Those are some of the most innovative park management regimes I’ve encountered and that are being recognized, especially for their ability to assess environmental health in a completely new way.”
The importance of Indigenous land stewardship practices was highlighted by a 2019 University of British Columbia study which found biodiversity was highest on Indigenous-managed lands—finding a 40% greater number of unique species.
Crawford argued this process must start by acknowledging the harm that’s been caused, and the history of Indigenous land dispossession behind the establishment of parks–a history that is often hidden from view.
Only once we’ve taken the time to acknowledge that harm, can “we seek to establish concrete and meaningful relationships with those original caregivers,” Crawford said.
“Not only are we going to be working towards the spirit of restorative relationships,” she said. “But we’re also going to tap into the plethora of expertise that Indigenous peoples have, especially with regards to the land and its sustainability, and the ecosystem and our roles as humans in that ecosystem.”
A retaining wall is a piece of infrastructure, but what about a waterfront park?
In recognition of the climate resilience benefits of green spaces, such as flood protection, many Canadian cities are moving more towards nature-based solutions that view parks as key pieces of green infrastructure.
According to researchers, nature-based solutions are “actions which are inspired by, supported by, or copied from nature” and include “enhancing, restoring, creating, and designing new ecological networks characterized by multi-functionality and connectivity.”
In other words, instead of pipes or concrete walls, we can build parks that mimic or enhance natural processes, like how a pond protects against flooding by holding water. These spaces then provide both climate resilience benefits and create space for recreation and natural habitat–something a pipe can’t do.
In order to position urban natural spaces as infrastructure, some Canadian researchers argue we must first understand the value these natural spaces provide to a functioning, resilient city in the face of climate change. This includes putting a financial value on the services a green space provides, such as the amount of carbon it absorbs or how it helps manage stormwater.
Not doing so risks reducing economic incentives for green space preservation or enhancement and undervaluing these spaces relative to other land uses, like roads, the authors of a Montreal-based study argue. To “curb this problem,” they say, we can “demonstrate the real economic contribution of natural capital to the wellbeing of communities and to consider the cost of erosion of these amenities.”
Some Canadian cities are hoping to do just that. New climate change plans in Calgary, Guelph, and Edmonton call for natural asset valuation studies. And the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to “helping municipalities count nature,” has launched a new project with 22 Canadian municipalities, including Charlottetown, Kelowna, Surrey, Langley Township, Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Halifax.
The project includes working with cities to undertake an inventory of natural assets, which includes their location and condition. Doing so can help cities better plan for climate resilience by protecting and enhancing natural assets, such as woodlands, creeks, and other green spaces. As MNAI states: “natural assets can provide the same level of service as many engineered assets, and often at a much lower cost to the balance sheet and to the environment.”
This has caught the attention of advocates, such as Nature Canada Policy Manager Michael Polanyi. He sees this work as a way to better incorporate considerations for the services natural spaces provide into planning.
Making it clear “how reliant we are on the hidden services that are provided by nature does seem to be an impetus for changing approaches to decision-making,” Polanyi said. “Councillors and decision-makers are so focused on the economic side of things. Unless that’s made visible, it’s hard to make the case for investing in protection.”
Some independent studies have worked to make some of these hidden services visible–at least in financial terms. A 2014 TD Economics report on the value of urban forests in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver, found financial savings in air quality, stormwater management, energy (heating and cooling costs), and carbon sequestration. This ranged from $2 in benefits for everyone $1 spent on trees in Montreal up to $13 in benefits in Halifax. A similar report focused on Toronto, found trees provide $80 million in benefits per year to Torontonians, which works out to about $125 per resident.
Cities are now working towards this type of evaluation themselves, expanding the calculations beyond trees to take into account the full spectrum of green spaces.
Mississauga’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that a 2016 Insurance Bureau of Canada study looking at climatic events was a “catalyst” for the city’s climate change work. “It really painted a clearer picture of what’s going to happen if we don’t start being more intentional and considering these things more holistically.”
That study found the cost of one extreme ice storm event could cause up to $38 million in damages in Mississauga.
Mississauga then commissioned a climate risk assessment of three parks. While the process is usually used to evaluate hard infrastructure, such as bridges, Barry said the city wanted to include natural infrastructure to better understand the risk to the city’s green spaces. The study found the highest threats were from flooding, ice storms, heat, and wind–the last of which Barry said can do an enormous amount of damage to tree canopies.
However, assigning value to natural spaces such as stormwater facilities, parks, and even sports fields, can be a fraught process.
“It’s very difficult to think about natural assets strictly from a financial lens because…it doesn’t account for all the other benefits and services that asset provides,” Barry said. “If you’re saying I spent $400 on this tree, so therefore the replacement value of this tree is $400, that’s a real simplification and that’s kind of problematic.”
For example, Barry said the city’s not sure how cultural value will be included, but hopes it will be a consideration when the city gets to the valuation stage.
The challenge of putting a financial value on green spaces is one that other cities are struggling with as well.
How do we put a value on the social impact of parks and the connections with our neighbours? What about the aesthetic appreciation of sun filtering through leaves? Or the relaxation we feel walking in an urban forest? Should those even be considered in financial terms at all or does reducing parks to economic terms risk flattening the more intangible, yet critically important, benefits of parks?
Indeed, the challenges of using financial terminology to describe nature’s value is addressed in Saskatoon’s new Green Strategy, which was released in 2020 alongside the city’s Natural Capital Asset Valuation study. The latter received funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program.
Saskatoon’s study detailed ecosystem services for valuation such as carbon sequestration, pollination, air quality and climate control, forage production, and mental and physical health. The study also included vulnerability assessments to key ecosystems, such as wetlands, grasslands, and forests.
While the valuation study also highlighted the cultural, heritage, and aesthetic importance of parks, it concluded that more work was required to acknowledge these values and that it was difficult to “express this value in financial terms.” One key learning was the importance of involving stakeholders who hold different views on the services ecosystems provide, such as cultural services, to inform the approach to the study.
City staff pointed out there is a “need to view nature and cultural spaces beyond their capital function,” adding that “many Indigenous worldviews see the land as sacred, and believe humans should not apply economic terminology to it. We shouldn’t lose sight of the intrinsic value of nature when applying an asset management approach.”
As climate change brings more droughts, floods, and other extreme weather, cities across Canada are embarking on a new phase of planning parks as networks of green infrastructure. This means engineering green spaces to enhance natural processes, such as designing parks as sponges to soak up excess rainwater and reduce flood risk.
These parks do triple duty by buffering the impacts of extreme weather, boosting biodiversity by increasing natural habitat, and providing places for people to gather and recreate. Canadians are supportive of these initiatives, with 92% of the nearly 3,500 Canadians we surveyed in April 2021 saying this type of climate-resilient infrastructure should be embedded into parks.
Whether converting streets to cool green oases, designing parks that celebrate water, or re-naturalizing the mouths of entire rivers, these eight Canadian projects point a way forward to more climate resilient cities.
Following two devastating floods in the Pointe-Gatineau and Lac-Beauchamp districts in 2017 and 2019, heavily impacted properties were ceded to the city and residents relocated. A master plan process* to revitalize the vacant lots was initiated in 2020 and led by the Conseil Régional de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable de l’Outaouais* with a working group, of which Park People was also a part.
Through this master plan, the city hoped, with community input, to redesign areas along the Ottawa river for better flood protection and community connection. Rather than proposing broad changes, the resulting plan lays out a toolbox approach at the lot level with a set of actions that can be implemented depending on a particular local context by either the city or community groups. This toolbox includes 25 typologies within five categories:
“One primary goal of the project was to elevate and inspire momentum so people take action,” said Manon Otto, from Mandaworks studio, the urban designer on the project. “We needed to harvest their energy and their interest for the project by providing a toolbox that is totally democratic.”
For more in depth analysis of this project, read Park People’s case study made possible by the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation.
Down on the shores of Toronto’s Lake Ontario, a massive park and new neighbourhood is taking shape.
Led by Waterfront Toronto in coordination with the City of Toronto, the Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection project will create new parks and natural habitat. It will also provide flood protection by re-naturalizing the mouth of the Don River and carving out a new island neighbourhood.
Waterfront Toronto Parks and Public Realm Project Director Shannon Baker said that the project is designed to withstand a regional flood, but also fluctuating lake levels. Michael van Valkenburgh Associates, the landscape architects, studied river mouths and wetlands along Lake Ontario to inform the design approach.
The goal is not to block water or prevent it from rising and ebbing, but “to accept it and just be resilient to it in the same way that a natural system would be,” Baker said. For example, vegetation was carefully selected for species that “can bend and flex and allow water to move through.”
Designing a new river mouth means taking into account the interconnectedness of different ecosystems. Waterfront Toronto Project Manager Pina Mallozzi said that they had to pay special attention to plantings in the wetland areas. Since the riverfront wetlands will need to deal with sediment and other detritus that float down the river, the plants had to be carefully chosen to ensure they can survive under those conditions.
“It’s a heavily engineered project but at the end of the day it will feel like a very big green natural park space and that will be the success of the project,” Mallozzi said.
The Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program is a “collaborative model for sustainable urban renewal and climate action that focuses on the neighbourhood scale,” Brampton city staff said. SNAP “focuses on empowering communities by engaging them on neighbourhood-based solutions and placemaking.”
The program works through partnerships, including the City of Brampton, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Credit Valley Conservation, the Region of Peel, and community-based organizations and businesses. Through these partnerships, SNAP takes into account both community needs and city resilience priorities to create a customized action plan that identifies projects, such as retrofits to existing spaces.
One such project, Upper Nine Pond, was identified through the County Court SNAP process and opened in 2020. The goal was to meet both resilience and community public space needs by redesigning the stormwater pond to enhance water quality and create “an attractive public space that includes a trail, seating, and natural features,” staff said.
Completed in 2020, this 17-hectare park manages 100% of stormwater onsite, including the ability to hold more water than from a 200 year flood. The park’s green infrastructure elements, including 9,000 square metres of rain gardens, were paid for through a $750,000 grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Climate Innovation Program funded by the Federal Government.
City staff noted the park also contains Ontario’s first double-use water system in the park’s splash pad, which will collect and treat water onsite and re-use it for irrigation–reducing the amount of water needed in the park.
Opened in 2019, the 3.5-hectare Saigon Park includes a major stormwater management facility through a central pond designed to provide water control for nearby neighbourhoods from a 100 year storm event. The pond and its naturalized plantings also improves aquatic habitat and water quality.
The park also contains a one-kilometre walking loop with fitness stations and uses public art to highlight the environment through a piece entitled “A Year in Weather” by artist Ferruccio Sardella.
According to the city’s public art collection website, “this work is a celebration of the storm-water management project at Saigon Park and represents the balance between weather, natural systems, and built environment.”
Winner of the 2021 Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Jury’s Award of Excellence for Large-Scale Public Landscapes, Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park transforms land that was once a gravel quarry along the Bow River into a 40-hectare park and stormwater treatment facility that addresses runoff from over 1,700 hectares of the surrounding area.
Dale Hodges Park traces “the journey of stormwater through a series of curated experiences, collaboratively designed with The City’s Parks, Water Resources and Public Art departments, emphasizing the flow of water through the landscape,” the CSLA website states, calling it “a new type of high-performance public space.”
Montreal is transforming McGill Avenue in the heart of downtown from a paved street to a naturalized landscape through a design chosen through an open competition. The winning design best met the city’s objectives of expanding green space, reducing the urban heat island effect from paved surfaces, and increasing resilience and biodiversity through a rich and diverse plant selection.
The winning concept aims to reinvent the Avenue as a series of small, natural, and comfortable “living rooms,” linked by a long border bench and a furrow of water. The new space will offer users of the city centre a daily immersion in nature, in contrast with the built density of the surrounding downtown.
Increasing green space and tree canopy in a dense urban environment by redesigning a street to be more park-like will help the city adapt to climate change impacts, said Noémie Bélanger, planning advisor for the Sainte-Catherine and McGill College projects. But transforming a street into a more green environment is also challenging given the need to take into account a series of underground utilities that can limit the planting opportunities at the surface.
Successfully establishing a young forest in the middle of a city centre so that it becomes a functional support for biodiversity requires the involvement of experts capable of planning the growth of plant layers and their maintenance, which the city has also recognized as an opportunity to involve local community members and academic researchers. According to Bélanger, although planning practices have evolved towards more ecological approaches and cities are increasingly integrating these criteria in their design requirements, there are still opportunities for cities to develop tools to monitor and evaluate climate change challenges within city parks.
The St. George Rainway shows the potential of stream “daylighting,” whereby formerly buried streams are resurrected, but also the importance of community advocacy in raising new ideas. What began as a community vision more than a decade ago to restore a lost waterway in Vancouver’s Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood is now moving forward through a city public consultation process.
“St George Street was once home to the Statlew, also known as St George Creek,” the city’s project website states. “In the early 1900s, this historic creek was buried underground to make way for roads and houses. The St George Rainway aims to reimagine this historic waterway through implementing green rainwater infrastructure features that capture and clean rainwater from local streets and sidewalks.”
“The Rainway has potential to not only provide essential rainwater management services, but also create a unique blue-green corridor that provides enhanced public space, street improvements, and more greenery and biodiversity to the neighbourhood,” the city states.
The project follows other Vancouver stream daylighting projects such as through Tatlow and Volunteer Parks, which we covered in the 2020 Canadian City Parks Report.
This case study is part of the 2022 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
There’s something about the feeling of grass between toes. Or the sound of birds chirping. Or the smell of Earth after it rains. These sensory experiences cause us, often unconsciously, to stop for a moment to feel, to listen, to breathe deeply.
During the pandemic many city dwellers were drawn to parks and natural spaces. In our survey of over 3,000 residents of Canadian cities, 54% said they sought out naturalized parks most often—a jump from 34% in last year’s survey, highlighting the rising importance of contact with urban nature.
Even small spaces count: 71% of respondents said small naturalized spaces within a 10-minute walk of home, like a native plant garden or meadow, helped foster connection to nature. Just half of respondents said the same for traveling to larger natural spaces.
Overall, 87% of respondents reported strong nature connectedness—a finding that was fairly stable across race and income. However, nature connectedness levels grew with age, starting with 83% for 18 to 29 year olds and rising to 94% for those 65 and older.
How aware are we of our body and the Earth as we move through it? Do we know the tree species in our park? When was the last time we gave back to the places that give us so much?
These questions highlight the difference between spending time outdoors—a worthwhile and beneficial pursuit in itself—and feeling connected to our place in the natural world. To feel nature is a part of us, not apart from us is a trait that researchers term “nature connectedness.” As one report put it:
Nature connectedness refers to the degree to which individuals include nature as part of their identity through a sense of oneness between themselves and the natural world.
Another defined it as “an appreciation and value for all life that transcends any objective use of nature for humanity’s purposes.”
While this seems philosophical, nature connectedness has material impacts on the way we live our lives, how we feel, and our impact on the Earth—all of critical importance in an age of rising mental health challenges and climate change impacts.
Nature connectedness has been linked to in-the-moment hedonic well-being (feeling good), but also strongly associated with eudaemonic well-being (functioning well), which contributes to personal growth and long-term well-being.
People who report stronger nature connectedness are more likely to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviours. When we tune ourselves into the natural world, we feel more positive emotions, like vitality. We also ruminate less and act kinder and more generous to those around us—a finding that study attributed to nature’s ability to stimulate feelings of awe that allow us to engage in “unselfing,” or the practice of stepping outside of ourselves.
As an Associate Professor in the Trent University Department of Psychology who has led Canadian studies on nature connectedness, Dr. Lisa Nisbet thinks a lot about what it means to feel connected to nature.
We carry nature connectedness “around with us” like a “personality trait that’s fairly stable,” Dr. Nisbet said, distinguishing it from simply time spent outdoors. You can walk through a park every day to work, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you feel connected to that environment.
Nature connectedness can predict behaviour. Multiple studies have shown that people who report greater nature connectedness also spend more time outdoors and are willing to travel farther for nature experiences. In her own pandemic-focused research, Dr. Nisbet found that university students who reported high nature connectedness “were actually using nature more as a coping method than people that were disconnected from nature.”
For Dr. Nisbet, a huge opportunity lies in city parks and nature education. Many people just see a “green blur,” she said. “Oh, it’s a tree. But is it a red oak? Do we know anything about it and how it contributes to reducing climate change and improving soil quality and the kinds of critters that like to live in it? I think that richer understanding helps people develop a sense of connection.”
While this connection can be forged at any age, Dr. Nisbet stressed the importance of nature education for children. “If you learn about those things early and you learn about the plants and animals in your ecosystems, then you’re just going to be more aware of what’s out there and I think you have more empathy,” she said.
Well before researchers thought up the term “nature connectedness,” this worldview existed, and endures today, as the foundation of how many Indigenous Peoples view their relationship with the Earth as caretakers that practice “reverence, humility and reciprocity.”
Carolynne Crawley—a storyteller, forest therapy guide, and educator who runs Msit No’kmaq—shared that many people often overlook the importance of cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the Earth and other beings. “Oftentimes a relationship with the Earth isn’t prioritized as one would prioritize a relationship with a human loved one,” she pointed out.
A focus on reciprocity and viewing the Earth and other beings as kin is a common perspective of Indigenous Peoples. “The Elders in my life have shared with me that all life is sacred,” Crawley said.
And as people we have an individual and collective responsibility to be in a good relationship with the Earth, just as well as being in a good relationship with ourselves and each other.
Too often the Earth is seen as a commodity to extract from, Crawley said. “I always invite people to think about our relationships with people. If you’re always giving, giving, giving, and someone’s taking, taking, taking without respect and gratitude, then there’s an imbalance there.” Addressing this can include picking up trash along a trail and being aware of our impact on other beings.
Practicing reciprocity can also extend to being more mindful of our language, which Crawley explores in her workshops. “I hear words that reference the Earth and the beings in a way that lacks respect and gratitude and love for those particular beings. And so in my workshops and webinars, we reflect and deconstruct those words.”
Take the word ‘dirt’. While many of us use this to describe Earth, Crawley asks whether it conveys respect for the soil and all it offers. While it may seem small, language can shape our ways of relating to things—it also signals value to those around us, including young children, she said.
Crawley recommended using all our senses and approaching the world with the curiosity of a child. “Hiking is a great activity,” she said. “But oftentimes it’s about getting from point A to point B,” whereas children will meander and explore.
Indeed, a study by Dr. Nisbet highlights the benefits of practicing mindfulness techniques in nature that focus your attention on sensory experiences. In our survey, 81% of respondents said hearing sounds from birds and rustling trees was important to feel connected to nature.
Much of Crawley’s work is guiding people to “return home to the relationship with the Earth” and creating space for people to slow down and notice the world around them. “I believe that relationship, that memory, is in our DNA,” she said. “There’s something called blood memory that I’ve heard Indigenous Elders speak about.”
“Throughout history people have been violently severed from that relationship at different times,” she said. “And yet we still see Indigenous Peoples in that relationship all around the Earth today.”
Crawley stressed that recognizing and honouring the role of Indigenous Peoples as the “inherent caretakers of these lands” should be at the basis of nature education and stewardship programs, adding that it’s paramount to build relationships with Indigenous Peoples and organizations doing this work already.
Cultivating greater nature connectedness can feel challenging in the day to day of urban living. As we’ve written before, there are multiple inequities in the access and enjoyment of urban green spaces, with ramifications for climate justice, equitable park development, and public health.
Being able to spend time in nature can be a privileged activity, Zamani Ra, Founder and Executive Director of the environmental non-profit CEED Canada, pointed out.
Ra stressed that it’s critical to take an anti-oppressive approach, accounting for the specific needs of a neighbourhood or individual, especially when working in racialized and lower-income communities. For people without backyards or the ability to travel outside the city, making time to access green spaces can be challenging, resulting in trade-offs in time spent with family, working or sleeping.
Ra said she found the concept of time poverty helpful in understanding whether people feel they have the time in their lives to do what they need to do, but also what they want to do.
For Ra, making the conscious decision to spend more time in nature for her own well-being, including going for long walks in a nearby ravine, meant working less, which meant less income. “It cost me something,” she said, noting she was living below the poverty line at the time. “I had to decide that the risk I was taking was actually going to be okay for the time being.”
But we don’t have to look far to find nature. In fact, we’re a walking, breathing, beating connection ourselves.
“Nature is a part of everything I do,” Ra said, adding that she brings an African-centred worldview into her work:
Whether I’m inside or outside of my apartment, it doesn’t matter” because we are nature ourselves…You are Earth, you are wind, water, and fire.
“Sometimes I find that people feel bad because they don’t have the ability to access these certain spaces,” Ra said, like large parks outside the city. In those instances, she reminds people that nature is all around and within us.
“I want to empower people with what we already have,” she said, even finding moments to connect with nature in our own homes by noticing the sun on your face or a breeze through a window. Starting small is a great place for people, Ra said. “And then because you’re aware of it now, you more than likely want to do more.”
Residents of Canadian cities are choosing to spend more of their time in nature. In our survey of over 3,000 people, 54% said they visited natural or “wild” parks most often—an increase from 34% last year. Cities are responding to this increased interest as well, with nearly 60% reporting that they already have or plan to expand nature stewardship opportunities due to high demand.
It’s clear that we’re drawn to nature as a way to feel good in mind, body, and soul, particularly during the challenging two years of a pandemic.
While spending time in nature may conjure images of wilderness trails, it doesn’t have to mean traveling to a large park. As we note in our other story on nature connection, feeling more connected to nature can mean different things to different people. It may mean sharing stories on a walk through a park with friends. Or paying more attention to the nature in and around our homes. Or it may be volunteering to plant trees or tend a garden in our own neighbourhood.
The examples below show how leaders from across the country have developed programs that help people connect with nature in different, but equally meaningful, ways.
When Tammy Harkey noticed other women in her community struggling with their mental health early in the pandemic, she decided to do something about it. Councillor Harkey is a proud member of the Musqueam Indian Band, grandmother and mother, and currently serves as the President of the Native Education College. An avid walker herself, Harkey organized the Musqueam Road Warriors, an Indigenous women’s walking group in Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Park.
The park holds special significance to the Musqueam Nation as part of their unceded traditional territories and a place once close to their village, she said, adding that as Indigenous Peoples, these are the places they should be turning to for personal wellness.
Feeling a connection to nature means feeling a connection to the land, but also to stories shared about the park and the plants and medicines found within it. “Now there’s an entire group that are sharing the stories and memories from their families,” Harkey said. “Really powerful stories. Things I’ve never heard.”
“The Aunts in our walking group really became the teachers,” she said, highlighting the importance of intergenerational learning. In the busyness of their lives before the pandemic, they had perhaps forgotten to take the time to listen to “the things they had to teach us and the messages and stories they had to convey,” Harkey said. But in the quiet of the forest, with the cedars around them, they could be more easily present.
The group is still going strong with about 60 women and girls of all ages who come out for walks in the park. Harkey said it was important the group centered women.
When you can stabilize women—the matriarchs in their families and communities—the whole family gets healthier and happier. And that’s a clear pattern we saw emerge from our group.
Many city residents sought out nature during the pandemic as a way to cope with anxiety, but for people with disabilities it isn’t always easy or possible to visit green spaces.
“Covid has been an explosion of stressors for people with significant levels of physical disability,” Kari Krogh, EcoWisdom Forest Preserve Co-Founder, said. “Going outside, even getting on public transit, and having a vulnerable body—having people cough on you—to get to a park,” was challenging. Not to mention the potential accessibility issues once you get there, she added.
That’s why she and Paul Gauthier, Executive Director of the Individualized Funding Resource Centre, started a group offering online accessible nature wellness programming.
People of all abilities are welcome and can join from a bed, window, or nearby park.
People with disabilities have much to gain from nature connection, and to contribute, but they need options for how and when to access public parks.
Kari Krogh, EcoWisdom Forest Preserve
The program comes from a place of passion for her and Gauthier and stems from their personal lived experience, Krogh said, adding that she acquired a severe disability and lived three years between four walls. “I was in constant severe pain and basically I was immobilized,” she said. “I would have loved a program like the one we’re offering.”
They designed their program to be as flexible as possible, using nature videos and prompts informed by forest medicine and neuroscience. Facilitators lead people in mindfulness-based nature exercises, inviting people to touch, smell, and visualize.
“So much has been out of our control with Covid.” Krogh said. “It allows people with disabilities to come together as peers to support one another.”
This comes across through the words of program participants. One remarked that their pain subsided and they “became relaxed, cheerful, hopeful.” Another said they were “learning to use nature as a free resource to build [their] resilience.”
Initially started with seed funding from Park People’s TD Park People grant program, Gauthier and Krogh obtained funding from the federal government’s Healthy Communities Initiative to expand their work by creating an accessible program to train others to lead nature wellness activities.
As well as being an organizer, Gauthier has himself been able to take away some of the positive benefits of nature connection. His own stress levels have been quite high during the pandemic in his work supporting people with disabilities, he said.
“Being able to stop, to be able to focus on myself and step away from the normal life troubles that I was facing—it’s allowed me to really look at healing for myself,” he said. “And to recognize that by doing that, I can do more for others down the road.”
Riffing off the idea of emotional intelligence, City of Saanich Parks Manager Eva Riccius said her team coined the term natural intelligence when tasked with devising a program to promote nature connection in Saanich. Whether you’re new to getting out in nature or a seasoned hiker, “there’s a place for everyone along the scale,” she said.
The program was designed to encourage people to connect with nature in ways that were accessible to them, whether that was identifying birds in their own yard or getting involved in nature restoration opportunities.
Recognizing the “zoom fatigue” many were experiencing, Saanich staff marketed the campaign as reducing screen time and promoting green time. They partnered with the local news station and newspaper to share stories, organized local hikes, ran a forest bathing session, and promoted various park experiences through a hub on their website.
The result was a dramatic increase in park use, beyond what they had already seen due to the pandemic. Riccius’s team used Google data to see how many people were using parks relative to a 2019 baseline. They found a 100% increase during the campaign—over and above the pandemic-induced bump in park use seen in neighbouring municipalities in Metro Vancouver.
The program provides suggestions for how people can practice reciprocity by thinking about ways to give back to nature, such as volunteering for stewardship activities. On this last point, Riccius said they’ve had so much interest they’ve had to pause their volunteer intake.
The program has spurred more ideas about long-term changes to the city’s parks as well, many of which Riccius said are currently grass, trees, and a playground. The city is looking to strategically naturalize parts of these parks through plantings and restoration projects, which can help reduce water use as well as provide habitat—something other cities like Vancouver, Kitchener, Mississauga, and Edmonton are also doing.
This case study is part of the 2023 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
It’s provincial legislation that amends the Planning Act, which governs how parkland is conveyed to municipalities, and the Development Charges Act, which governs how growth-related parkland and park facilities are funded. The bill has reduced the amount of parkland that municipalities will see conveyed, as well as the amount of funding to develop park amenities. It will also impact what types of parkland are acceptable in the future, subject to future regulations, including encumbered land and POPS (privately owned public space).
I think the province was hearing a lot of consternation from the development industry on different fees that are charged to build housing. There was a lot of advocacy from the housing industry showing how much these fees added to the cost of new housing. And also how certain municipalities were not spending their parkland reserves. I think that those two things together, combined with the provincial government’s desire to provide more housing quickly, is what led to those changes.
On the short term side, a lot of municipalities are looking at their capital plan and trying to figure out whether they can still afford those things. In the long-term, I would say that communities built post-Bill 23 will have less parkland than pre-Bill 23 communities, so there is likely to be a bit of an inequity over time.
It was mostly about knowledge-sharing and helping each other understand how we were anticipating advocating. Whether different municipalities were looking to advocate themselves or whether they were looking to advocate by way of other groups, like professional parks associations. There are now 12 participating municipalities represented by managers or senior park planners. People read things differently, so it was good to see how other people were understanding it and what they had heard from their sources.
We were focusing on council briefing notes and advocating messages through the Association of Municipalities in Ontario, Ontario Landscape Association, and the Ontario Professional Planners Institute who seemed to have a bit more of the ear of the government. There wasn’t much of a push to do a public campaign because the deadlines were just so quick.
They didn’t make changes to the reduced amount of parkland that municipalities will see conveyed or provided as cash-in-lieu, but they did claw back on developers providing encumbered land or POPS. That is now subject to future regulation, which hopefully will come with criteria such as land within walking distance of the site. And the proposal that developers would be able to suggest lands that are off site to be conveyed–that’s subject to future regulation as well. Those were some pretty good changes.
We also continue to hold monthly virtual forums when participants have questions or issues. Additionally, we email each other with issues that arise where we can learn from each other.
I think what makes progress is when a number of different groups with credibility on a specific matter are on the same message. So figure out the groups that are aligned with your position and then emphasize the same key messages and concerns. If you can get a sense of which groups are being listened to by the provincial government, then you have a chance of your message being heard a little bit louder than if you go it alone. Sometimes you’ll be successful and sometimes you won’t. But every small gain on the things we’re dealing with–the places where people play–is a gain that is useful.
Public washrooms are a park necessity. Indeed, in our public survey, year-round public washrooms were the top amenity respondents said they would like to see more of in parks. They are also an essential part of a human rights approach to park design—an increasingly important lens as many cities continue to grapple with a houselessness crisis.
But ensuring washrooms are accessible, safe, and well-maintained is a challenge for many cities.
In Edmonton, the city is tackling these challenges head-on through experimenting with creative approaches to enhance washroom provision, safety, and upkeep.
One of the city’s most successful initiatives is the washroom attendant program, which sees staff hired to monitor and maintain public washrooms in locations with significant safety concerns. Staff are hired in partnership with Hiregood, a local social enterprise that provides employment opportunities to those who have lived experience of houselessness and poverty and may face barriers in the job market.
First launched as a 3-month pilot in December 2019, the program has since expanded from 3 to 12 sites, employing approximately 100 full-time and part-time staff. While the first locations were in parks and public spaces, the attendant program now operates in select Edmonton libraries and transit stations as well.
“We had some washrooms that you’d be scared to go and use. But now, because you have folks monitoring and supervising the washroom, there’s been a remarkable improvement in terms of safety and cleanliness.”
Samson Awopeju, Program Manager of the Public Washrooms Strategy at the City of Edmonton.
In addition to washroom maintenance, attendants are trained in de-escalation and equipped with harm reduction supplies. There have been fewer overdoses at sites with attendants, Awopeju noted, and in some locations the overall improvement in safety has been so marked that there is reduced police presence in the area.
Another unexpected benefit of the program was that Edmonton was able to keep its washrooms open during the early days of the pandemic, when many cities were shutting their doors.
These benefits have inspired Calgary to launch its own version modeled after Edmonton’s, with washroom attendants currently being piloted in two downtown parks.
In addition to making existing washrooms more inviting through the attendant program, the city is also testing creative approaches to expand washroom access across the city.
This year, Edmonton launched a new granting program for non-profits and businesses to expand washroom access. The $5000 grants, many of which were awarded to community leagues that operate park programming, can be used to install portable toilets or cover increased maintenance costs for businesses that open their washrooms to the broader public beyond paying customers.
“It’s just financially not possible to put washrooms everywhere. And in such locations, that’s where we want to encourage businesses or community organizations to help.”
All of these initiatives feed into the city’s forthcoming Public Washroom Strategy, set to be released in early 2024. The strategy will include demographic mapping to help identify areas in the city where washroom investments should be prioritized.
The goal, as Awopeju puts it, is “to make sure that everybody has access to washrooms, regardless of who you are.”
The Don River, which runs north-south through Toronto and ends at Lake Ontario, has a long and complicated history. As The Globe and Mail points out, the river has provided transportation and food for Indigenous Peoples, been a boon to beekeepers, used as an industrial and human waste dump, was once perfumed for a royal visit, caught on fire twice, and finally was partially filled in and straightened in the early late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the words of Jennifer Bonnell, York University professor and author of Reclaiming the Don: the Don is the “most-messed-with-river” in Canada.
Toronto isn’t alone in mistreating its waterways. Many Canadian cities went on a similar crusade of burying, channelizing or filling in streams, rivers, and marshes to make way for urban development. Nature was often viewed as a thing to be tamed, rather than a force to be understood and respected.
Our survey found that 17% of cities have projects, planned or completed, to “daylight” buried rivers by restoring them to the surface, such as Vancouver’s Tatlow and Volunteer Park Stream Restoration project. Other projects approach daylighting through public art, as in the case of Toronto’s Garrison Creek, including murals that celebrate the importance of water to Indigenous Peoples.
Toronto is currently deep into a years-long, billion dollar project to “un-mess” the Don River. Led by Waterfront Toronto in coordination with the City of Toronto, the Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection project, aims to restore natural habitat and safeguard adjacent areas from flooding at the same time.
Waterfront Toronto is designing with natural forces rather than against them in the Don Mouth Naturalization project. By re-introducing the river’s meandering path as it meets the lake, the project will slow the flow of water, while new riverbanks are designed specifically to flood, protecting new neighbourhoods that will be built up around them. In a major storm–more common due to climate change–the Don River could see “water equivalent to two-thirds of Niagara Falls” flow down its length.
As Waterfront Toronto Parks and Public Realm Project Director Shannon Baker told Park People in 2021, the goal is not to block water or prevent it from rising and ebbing, but “to accept it and just be resilient to it in the same way that a natural system would be.” For example, vegetation was carefully selected for species that “can bend and flex and allow water to move through.” The riverbank is divided up into different sections from upland forest at the top of bank down to submergent (underwater) marsh, each with their own planting palette.
The task is gargantuan–the largest urban construction project in the country. It has involved moving and cleaning tons of earth, shaping and stabilizing riverbanks using techniques like wood anchors and shale rock, and plantings to support a new river ecology and habitats. Finally park spaces will be created along the edges with various programming, including new trails, beaches, and areas for boat launches to allow for more interaction with the lake.
In the end, by placing the rivermouth back in its natural state, the hope is that all of this engineering will be invisible to anyone enjoying the newly created spaces. While the scale of this project is enormous, it still offers lessons for other cities looking to renaturalize and daylight formerly buried and channeled waterways, reconfiguring their relationship to water from one of control to one of mutual respect.
Canadian municipalities are feeling squeezed on parks. Years of tight operating budgets require parks departments to stretch already thin dollars further as pressures grow from higher use, while land has become much more expensive to acquire—if you can even find a suitable parcel anymore.
One tempting tool in the face of these challenges is privately-owned public spaces, more commonly known as POPS. These spaces are built through private development and remain privately owned and maintained—seemingly a win-win for cities finding it difficult to provide public space and pay for upkeep.
For years there has been pressure by developers for municipalities to accept POPS as satisfying parkland dedication requirements required for new developments—a policy that some municipalities have resisted.
One park planning manager pointed out that while POPS have their role in providing open space, they are not equivalent to public parkland and it’s important for cities to push developers for the conveyance of land for public parks.
To better guide the role of POPS, Toronto mapped over 170 locations and created POPS design guidelines and a signage strategy to ensure spaces were inviting and clearly labeled as public. Vancouver also mapped POPS locations in relation to downtown parks and public plazas as part of their Downtown Public Space Strategy. The Strategy contains actions including developing a policy framework for acquiring new POPS and ensuring spaces “are designed and programmed to be publicly-accessible and welcoming to all users.”
Some cities like Newmarket, Brampton and Vaughan allow for some level of credit for POPS towards parkland dedication. Vaughan, which recently concluded a study exploring parkland dedication policies, ultimately approved a by-law change to allow for 100% credit for POPS, subject to council approval.
Park managers are, however, cautious regarding POPS. If public space is about the creation of accessible, democratic and open spaces, one park manager argued, then privatizing space seems to be contradictory as it comes with “tangible or intangible restrictions” such as limitations on uses, active surveillance, and likely commercial intentions. Where they can be helpful and critical, he said, is in the creation of pedestrian connectivity through private developments or supporting, but not replacing, a publicly owned open space network.
In Brampton, the city allows a 50% credit for POPS.
“In dense areas, you’re not going to get a community or neighbourhood park, so you need a more collaborative approach with the owners of the land and the city.”
Jaskiran Kaur Bajwa, Brampton Park Planning Supervisor
But the city is still cautious about their use and is working on POPS guidelines. “POPS need to contribute to the community,” Brampton’s former Manager of Park Planning and Development Werner Kuemmling said.
They can’t just be an open space or thoroughfare. They have to be functionally used.” Some developers propose POPS as the leftover sites in their developments “and that’s not okay.
Werner Kuemmling, Brampton’s former Manager of Park Planning and Development