Park People’s Executive Director, Erika Nikolai, has been honoured with the Distinguished Individual Award from World Urban Parks—an international recognition that celebrates her leadership and the growing national movement Park People has helped build here in Canada.
Why are events in parks important? How do grants fit into Park People’s larger goals for creating change in city parks?
The emerging stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund provides up to $5,000 to grassroots and registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature, foster ecological stewardship, and restore urban parks and green spaces.
The scaling stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund offers up to $20,000 to registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature while fostering ecological stewardship and restoring urban parks.
Learn more about green social prescribing, an evolving practice that encourages individuals to reestablish connections with nature and one another to enhance their mental, physical, and social wellbeing.
A reflection on the BEING BLACK IN PUBLIC Survey Report, exploring how Black communities experience parks and public spaces, and what fosters joy and belonging.
How do we build a healthier, greener, more joyful Toronto? We start at the park. Discover how communities across the city have transformed their green spaces over the past fifteen years. Then roll up your sleeves and help shape what comes next.
By donating to Park People, you’ll support vibrant parks for everyone.
It takes a village to make a park look beautiful! While picking up garbage might not seem like an appealing activity at first, people enjoy cleanups because they get to see the tangible results of their efforts and feel more connected to their local park.As our Earth Day webinar made clear, cleanup events are a great way to inspire a collective love and commitment to your park among your neighbours—one that can have lasting effects on your community and on the environment.Here’s a 5-step plan to make your park clean-up a great community event.
Your municipality is an incredible resource for your park group to engage in your cleanup activities, and on an ongoing basis. They can help you plan and promote your event and access resources that you may need to get started.Begin by contacting your park supervisor about your plans to organize a cleanup, especially if this is your first park event. Your park supervisor can tell you what permits you might need, explain waste disposal protocols, and possibly connect you with other park enthusiasts who can join in the cleanup effort.Many municipalities also host city-wide cleanup days that new community park groups can join. Taking part in coordinated cleanup day will allow your group to access many resources that may not otherwise be available to you, like garbage bags and gloves. Plus, the city’s promotional reach will help you reach new people. Ask your park supervisor about any upcoming city-wide cleanup days.
It’s not just cities who help coordinate cleanups. For example, The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is a conservation partnership by Ocean Wise and WWF-Canada. They offer support to anyone who’d like to coordinate a shoreline cleanup (if your park connects to water in any way—a creek, stream, marsh, or even storm drains—this includes you!).Do some research to see what other organizations, networks, or events might be relevant to your park, and who might want to partner up with you on your event. Your neighbourhood is likely full of non-profit groups, community organizations and individuals, all of whom could lend a hand to your clean up and bring new communities of interest to your park events. For example, you could approach a local bike co-op to offer tune-ups for cyclists at your event, or invite an environmental organization to help educate people on the steps they can take to reduce their waste footprint.Finally, consider approaching a local business to sponsor your event by offering small rewards like reusable water bottles, gift cards, or other prizes for participants.
Start your event plan with a walk through of the park space: how accessible is the environment? Are there paved paths for people to walk on, or mostly uneven terrain? Are there washrooms or water fountains open for participants to use? Approximately how much garbage is there currently, and how many volunteers might it take to clean it thoroughly? Take notes during your walkthrough and talk through your findings with your team. What information is important to pass along to your participants?Next, you may wish to use an online tool, such as Evenbrite or Google Forms, to promote your event, manage volunteers, collect RSVPs, and provide pre-event instructions such as weather updates, accessibility information, and guidance on suitable event attire (long pants and closed-toes shoes are best!). When you’re ready to launch, use social media, local bulletin boards, email newsletters, and word-of-mouth to promote your event. Ask your neighbors about their recommendations for good places to promote the event, such as any local Facebook groups. You may also want to invite journalists from a community newspaper or local bloggers/social media influencers to cover the event.
Finally, it’s time to prepare your supplies. You’ll want to consider offering:
Set up a check-in station before your event begins to welcome volunteers, distribute supplies, and provide safety briefings on what to do if they come across hazardous materials. Make sure you also use this welcome opportunity to collect information from the people who arrive: have them sign up for your park groups newsletter and chat with them about how they use the park and their vision for their shared space.Depending on how many participants you have and how large your park is, it’s best to divide volunteers into small groups assigned to specific areas during the cleanup. If possible, ensure that each group has a representative from your park group to offer support and answer questions as you clean. When you’re finished with your cleanup, separate recyclables, compostables, and landfill waste at the end of the cleanup.Finally, remember to make it fun throughout! Play music, organize a scavenger hunt, or create challenges like “Who can collect the most candy wrappers/pop cans/red-coloured items/whatever!”
When the cleanup is finished, it’s time to celebrate all that you’ve achieved! Take a group photo of your volunteers, and count the weight of the trash collected or the size of the areas cleaned to motivate your participants and promote future events.In the days following your event, be sure to email your volunteers, partners, sponsors, and the City to thank them for their participation, ask for their input to improve future events, and remind them to stay in touch with your park group—especially if they want to help you organize the next cleanup!
Our city and our ravines were shaped by past extreme weather events. Looking ahead, our ravines can help us be more climate-resilient. But first, we need to protect them.
In this webinar, David MacLeod, Senior Environmental Specialist with the City of Toronto, and Carbon Conversations TO explore how these natural spaces can mitigate climate impacts and the steps we must take to protect them.
The webinar is held in English; French subtitles are available.
Explore the relationship between public space, race, and systems of oppression in the public realm.
This webinar was inspired by urbanist and placemaker Jay Pitter.
It is held in English; French subtitles are available.
Gil (Guillermo) Penalosa is passionate about creating cities for all people; vibrant cities and healthy communities for everyone regardless of…
Tamika L. Butler is a national expert and speaker on issues related to building environment, equity, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion,…
Proudly Franco-Albertan, Chúk’s passion lies in the interactions between culture, health and the environment. Outside of this work with Future…
Zahra is a public interest designer and strategist focused on shifting power to people who are typically underrepresented in institutions…
Park People is excited to launch the 2024 Canadian City Parks Report, our sixth annual edition highlighting the most significant trends, issues, and practices shaping Canada’s city parks.
Watch our special launch webinar to explore our findings:
The webinar features an engaging discussion on the future of city parks, with guest speakers from the City of Victoria and Greenspace Alliance. They share opportunities and challenges in their work around collaborations and partnerships, across city departments, communities, non-profits, and more.
Adri Stark is specialized in research and policy at Park People, and co-author of the annual Canadian City Parks Report.…
Joy is the Manager of Research and Partnerships at Park People and facilitates national research and network engagement that supports…
Julia is the Food Systems Coordinator for the City of Victoria. She comes to the role after over 15 years…
Nicole DesRoches, born in Ottawa and living in Chelsea Québec, part of the National Capital Region, therefore living within the…
Today, Park People launches the sixth Canadian City Parks Report–and the final iteration of this report in its current form, Bridging the Gap: How the park sector can meet today’s complex challenges through partnerships and collaboration.
Last year, we dove deep into the minds of park managers across the country, interviewing over 44 senior parks staff across 30 municipalities about the trends and challenges in the industry. One of the key insights from that process was a need to find collaboration sweet spots to achieve our many collective parks goals.
This year’s report expands on that insight by showcasing collaborative examples from across the country and through collecting data from 35 Canadian municipalities, over 2,500 residents of Canadian cities, as well as interviews with park staff and professionals.
Through that process we found six key insights related to collaborations and partnerships:
In this report you’ll find:
How does the City of Victoria’s Get Growing Victoria program take a food justice approach to provide gardening supplies to communities at risk of food insecurity, including those experiencing houselessness, Indigenous and racialized communities, seniors, and youth.
How Toronto is transforming future park spaces into temporary public areas through partnerships, letting residents enjoy them now while planning for long-term park development.
How partnerships across city departments and with local community groups helped the City of Charlottetown recover from Hurricane Fiona’s devastating winds.
How Mississauga is expanding parkland in a growing neighborhood to meet future demand through a cooperative, long-term property purchase plan.
How a temporary plaza in Montreal’s Parc Marcelin-Wilson was created to offer a gathering space for youth, with design improvements informed by Metalude’s insights through direct observations and youth engagement.
How an agreement between the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and Metro Vancouver Regional Parks provides a path for shared cultural planning.
How can municipalities move from awareness to action? A conversation with Jay Pitter about Black people’s experiences in parks and public spaces.
How Waterfront Toronto is raising the bar on inclusivity through their Waterfront Accessibility Design Guidelines.
How Nature Canada is building a web of partners at all scales to help Canada achieve its biodiversity conservation goals.
Park People launches the fifth annual Canadian City Parks Report, Surfacing Solutions: How Addressing Conflict and Reframing Challenges as Opportunities Can Create More Equitable and Sustainable Parks.
Over the past five years of the Canadian City Parks Report, our goal has always been to tell a story—the story of where city parks are going and where they need to go.
This year, we took an even deeper approach to gathering these stories. We sat down for interviews with 44 senior parks staff across 30 municipalities, who generously shared with us the challenges they are facing, the projects and people inspiring them, and their vision for the future of city parks.
In the report, we weave together the themes we heard from those conversations with the data we gathered from our surveys of 35 municipalities and over 2000 residents of Canadian cities.
Dive into the pdf to read about our key insights on trends and challenges in city parks:
As cities struggle to find and pay for new park space to meet growth needs, some argue that a shift towards focusing on quality is part of the solution.
Discover Vancouver’s ambitious parks and recreation master plan, using innovative mapping to guide equity-led parkland investment.
Brampton leads the way with its Eco Park Strategy, a citywide initiative focused on naturalization projects that preserve and enhance natural and cultural heritage.
How the City of North Vancouver is working to better engage equity-deserving groups in its longstanding Park Stewards program, including people who are underhoused, newcomers, and at-risk youth.
The Montreal’s Darlington Ecological Corridor bridges urban and natural spaces while addressing both ecological restoration and social needs through meaningful partnerships.
A look into the logistics of collaborative governance in a large urban park with Meewasin Valley Authority in Saskatoon.
Learn more about the District of Saanich’s collaborative approach to tackling conflict over off-leash dog parks.
How cities are navigating the benefits and challenges of privately owned public spaces (POPS) through creative policies and guidelines on design, stewardship, and public programming.
Restoring the Don River’s natural flow, Toronto’s renaturalization project enhances biodiversity, mitigates flooding, and reconnects the city with its waterways.
Public washrooms are a park necessity.. Discover Edmonton’s approach to creating safe, inclusive public washrooms.
Bill 23: A conversation with Michelle Dobbie, Manager Park and Natural Heritage Planning, City of Richmond Hill.
Happy reading!
This case study is part of the 2024 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.
Designing for inclusivity and accessibility is top of mind for many municipalities. From our surveys, 78% of municipalities indicated that universal accessible design is a high priority in their work. And while many municipalities look to provincial accessibility guidelines to meet basic standards, our 2022 public survey revealed that 10% of city residents say that insufficient accessibility features discourage them from visiting and enjoying city parks. This suggests that parks are still not working for everyone.
Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government agency, noticed gaps in existing provincial and municipal accessibility guidelines when designing new public spaces, specifically spaces around water. Some of these gaps include standards around the design of boat launches, boardwalks, beaches and water entry points.
Waterfront Toronto knew that in order to create truly accessible public spaces they needed to learn from, listen to and involve the people who understand accessibility challenges and opportunities the best – people living with disabilities.
Waterfront Toronto assembled an advisory committee made up of individuals with professional and technical expertise, most of whom are people living with disabilities, to guide the development of their new design guidelines. The guidelines aim to go above and beyond existing requirements and ensure waterfront settings can be enjoyed by all. Notable requirements include standards that all beaches must have accessible pathways into the water and boat launches for adapted canoes and kayaks must be provided.
The process of including community members with lived experience in an advisory committee is not a novel engagement practice. But what really sets this work apart is that the guidelines incorporated a permanent mechanism to include those with lived experience in all future projects.
The advisory committee emphasized the guiding principle of “nothing about us without us”, and the idea that no single voice speaks for the entire disability community. The committee members also highlighted the importance of implementation.
One of the ways Waterfront Toronto addressed this was to create a permanent accessibility committee that reviews all future public realm projects and will advise on future updates to the guidelines. This follow-on committee, known as the Accessibility Advisory Committee, is made up of individuals with professional expertise, advocates and caregivers, most of whom identify as a person with a disability, who receive an honorarium for their time. When composing the committee, Waterfront Toronto sought people with a range of disabilities and experiences to try and represent the diversity of accessibility needs.
For any new parks or public space projects, the Accessibility Advisory Committee is engaged at least twice in the process. The committee provides feedback within the early stages of the design phase to flag any accessibility concerns and again once the construction is complete, with additional opportunities for input as needed. This “roll through” of complete projects identifies any potential areas for improvement. This feedback will be implemented as amendments to the guidelines and applied to future projects, but Waterfront Toronto has also committed to accommodating the feedback at the site when a retrofit or repair is needed.
The guidelines set out a new standard for inclusively designed public spaces by filling gaps and going above and beyond current requirements, and proactively seeking out those with lived experience to guide projects on a long-term basis.
Enhancing accessibility to blue spaces ensures that everyone has access to the restorative power of nature. And while the implementation of the new guidelines ensures that people with disabilities can participate in these public spaces, accessibly designed spaces are good for everyone.
“We know that to create a vibrant waterfront that belongs to everyone, we must have a strong commitment to accessibility in everything we make and do. With the support of the Accessibility Advisory Committee we are making accessibility another area of true design excellence.”
Pina Mallozzi, Senior Vice President, Design at Waterfront Toronto
Further Reading
A typical neighbourhood park often contains slides and swings for younger kids and benches for adults to gather, but what about teenagers? What does play look like for them and what park designs are needed to support that?
This is something that Stephanie Watt thinks a lot about. Watt is a co-founder and co-director, along with Margaret Fraser, of Metalude–a public space consulting firm that specializes in engaging with youth up to age 18 to promote public participation, playable public spaces, and child-friendly cities.
Youth are very aware of their “minority” status in public spaces, Watt said, and aren’t often invited to participate in conversations about park design. They sometimes feel like they fall into a gap in public spaces where playgrounds may be designed for younger kids and other park amenities are designed with adults in mind. It’s not about designing literal play structures and objects, but about instilling a sense of playfulness in the space itself, she said.
Take the example of a plaza built in Parc Marcelin-Wilson in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough of Montreal. The park is situated near two large high schools and a public survey and conversations with the schools revealed a need to have a “meeting place for young people,” David Sauvé, Development Officer for the Department of Culture, Sports, Recreation, and Social Development in Anhuntsic-Cartierville said. So the borough decided to test a temporary “plaza” structure in the park, also near a bus stop, meant to be a hang-out spot for youth. The structure included multiple seating areas to accommodate flexible socializing.
Metalude was brought in to better understand the use of the structure. They did this through direct observation of plaza use, semi-structured interviews with youth at the plaza as well as in other parts of the park and even at a shopping mall across the street where youth sometimes go to eat lunch. In the end they ended up collecting observational data from about 500 users and interviewed approximately 50 youth about their experiences.
Engaging with youth requires a different approach, Watt said. That means switching up what you may view as a “professional” engagement. For example, Watt said sometimes they listen to music with youth during their engagements–something that likely wouldn’t fly at a traditional town hall. You have to either keep things really fun or you have to make them really short, she said because youth often have lots of other demands on their time, from caring for siblings to sports practice to homework. It’s about learning how to “build 10 or 15 minute engagement moments that are rich,” Watt said.
The engagement was a learning moment for borough staff as well.
“They brought us back to what it was like to be a teenager in public space. Things we tend to forget when we become adults.”
David Sauvé, Development Officer for the Department of Culture, Sports, Recreation, and Social Development in Anhuntsic-Cartierville
The observational nature of the study allowed for the natural uses of the plaza to be uncovered, leading to potential design decisions about a permanent structure. For example, the importance of the social design of the seating, which was arranged in such a way that four to six people could sit and socialize in a circle rather than the typical park bench design, which forces everyone to face the same way in “a long line of strangers,” Watt said.
“The furniture allows for face-to-face [interactions] and the furniture that isn’t face-to-face was mostly used for waiting by people who were alone taking the bus.”
Stephanie Watt, Co-founder and co-director of Metalude
Another finding was how the use of one particular structure–a net installed on the plaza–was quite gendered. While boys called it a trampoline and jumped on it, girls called it a hammock. Watt said a design recommendation could be to create two different amenities, one that can accommodate jumping and one for relaxing.
You can plan for something, but it’s really important to get out there and see how people are using it. And then accommodate those usages–there isn’t a right or wrong usage.”
Cities are in dire need of new park space. Despite that need, however, sometimes funding challenges, environmental contamination, and ownership issues mean that sites slated to become parks won’t actually be designed and built in their final form for several years.
One of the key challenges of growing cities is acquiring new parkland to serve intensifying neighbourhoods when so much land has already been built on. In fact 69% of municipalities said acquiring new parkland was a major challenge for them in 2023. A long-term plan in Mississauga shows how a consistent, transparent approach to acquiring existing housing can lead to long-term gains in expanded parkland for a growing population.
Mississauga’s Cooksville neighbourhood, an area designated as an urban growth centre, is already deficient in parkland according to the City’s parks plan. While the City’s goal is 12 percent of land area for parks within urban growth centres, Cooksville was significantly below that target. With the future LRT and high-rise housing development coming to the area, growth will only continue to intensify, said Sharon Chapman, Manager of Parks and Culture Planning at the City of Mississauga.
The solution is a long-term plan by the City to acquire land within the Cooksville area to expand existing parkland so that it can accommodate more use and different activities. Council approved the plan in 2017, identifying 31 properties totalling 10ha to be acquired to assist in “achieving large cohesive areas of park with continuous trails systems.”
While expanding parkland is the primary goal, there is a second benefit of the expanded parkland–climate resilience. Some of the current houses in the area sit within a floodplain and could not be constructed today, which might make it more appealing to sell to the City, Chapman noted, since homes with a history of flooding are less marketable to buyers.
The project is not without controversy, however. Some homeowners have been upset at the plans to demolish housing in the area, saying that they don’t plan on selling to the City. Chapman said she thought some of the initial resistance from homeowners was due to misinformation as well as concern about change. The City made sure to clarify that it was proceeding on a “willing buyer-willing seller” basis only, meaning that expropriating properties is not part of the plan. Negotiations with owners willing to sell are based on reports prepared by accredited independent appraisers estimating the fair market value of the property.
“Our approach has been really a co-operative one with each individual homeowner. We have respected property owners who did not want to talk anymore about it.”
Sharon Chapman, Manager of Parks and Culture Planning at the City of Mississauga.
Commonly, park and housing advocates are pinned against each other as if urban residents need to pick between one or the other. Chapman acknowledged this and said that the City was aware “the project might be seen as removing housing stock,” but she noted it was only a few single-detached homes and not all 31 properties actually had houses on them. “We know that we are losing a small amount of single family homes and the area overall will grow immensely in terms of the new units that come in, so we need to keep the bigger picture in mind to make sure we have the right amount of parkland there.”
To date, 19 properties have been acquired, creating over 8 ha of new parkland–just shy of the 10 ha goal. Demolition happens on a rolling basis so that houses don’t sit vacant and can be turned into parkland right away.
“We’re at a point now that the properties we have acquired are enough that we can now start moving forward with plans to redevelop the park.”
The City has moved now into public engagement for the parkland, which will include both natural and built features.
To address this challenge, Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division is collaborating with the City’s Economic Development and Cultural Division and external cultural and economic development organizations to provide and animate much-needed public space in the immediate term.
Toronto’s Director of Parks Planning, Paul Farish, said that rather than waiting sometimes years to go through a formal process that includes design and procurement–all while the space remains vacant–the City is “opening a public space that people can access and enjoy and even shape themselves at the front end.”
He added the City’s Economic Development and Culture Division has been a “very useful partner” because they bring “ideas and third parties who can introduce programming and run events” until Parks, Forestry and Recreation is ready to turn it into a fully operational park.
One example is a future park space at Front and Bathurst Streets where environmental contamination issues meant it would be several years before the City could turn the land into a public park. In the meantime, the City is working with Stackt Market, which has run a successful shipping container market–North America’s largest–and outdoor event space on the site since 2019. The partnership brings thousands of people to the space for free and ticketed events, provides space for local businesses in pop-up shops, includes food and drink options and prioritizes community programming.
“It’s a kind of quasi-public space,” said Farish, adding that it’s “important to be flexible and acknowledge that there’s different ways in which a property can achieve its objectives, including public space objectives.”
Parking lots represent another opportunity. Farish said that the City has plans to convert a number of parking lots to parkland over the next few years, but due to funding or other factors they are not going to become parks tomorrow.
“In the meantime, we need to get a little bit creative and bring in partners to animate them and make them as engaging as possible.”
Paul Farish, Toronto’s Director of Parks Planning
One challenge is that people may get attached to the interim uses so much that when it’s time to design the actual park, there is push back. “We’re conscious of it,” Farish said. In some places, the City is floating the idea of putting in a pickleball or basketball court in a parking lot–uses that could become entrenched in people’s minds even if they’re meant to be interim uses. “But you grapple with it,” he said. “It’s less of a concern because it’s still within the range of what was intended to be a public space with some sort of recreational or environmental benefit to the community.”
In Midtown Toronto, a city-owned parking lot is poised to become the largest park addition in the Yonge-Eglinton area in decades, providing much needed public space in the rapidly intensifying neighbourhood. There the City is installing pickleball and basketball courts as well as tables, seating, and other amenities as an immediate “phase one” approach in advance of full park design and construction.
In Toronto’s parkland-deficient Downtown, the City purchased one of the last undeveloped parking lots. As environmental work and park design processes take place, the site has been temporarily programmed as a popular restaurant patio. A known landmark in the city, the property was a part of a design competition that secured an innovative design and approved budget of $10 million.
At another site, along the waterfront, a recently closed parking garage at Spadina Pier is being planned for refurbishment as a site to host cultural and special events in the near term to showcase its potential as a future permanent park. Farish noted a number of local organizations that could serve as programming partners.
The first was a partnership with The Bentway–the park conservancy that operates a public space underneath a nearby elevated highway–to activate the site as part of Toronto’s 2023 Nuit Blanche. The Bentway’s installation (delivered in partnership with the City) helped to test and build awareness for the planned waterfront park, including art projections on the recently restored 100-year old Canada Malting silos.
“The phased approach helps City staff, residents and partners to develop the long-term vision for the park through temporary activations, fluid programming and on-the-ground experimentation”
Lessons are learned during this process about what works on a specific site that can inform future designs and operational needs for the park.
The approach also provides “flexibility in terms of partnership and operating models,” he said, “furthering the creativity and experimentation while maintaining an emphasis on the benefits of public space and publicly-owned lands.”