Ground 60 – Winter 2022 – Neighbours

Editor Glyn Bowerman

Photo Editor

Jasper Flores

OALA Editorial Board

Saira Abdulrehman

Chris Canning

Tracy Cook

Everett DeJong

Eric Gordon

Mark Hillmer

Helene Iardas

Eric Klaver

Sarah Manteuffel

Nadja Pausch (Chair)

Dalia Todary-Michael

Web Editor

Jennifer Foden

Social Media Manager

Jennifer Foden

Art Direction/Design

Noël Nanton/typotherapy www.typotherapy.com

Advertising Inquiries advertising@oala.ca 416.231.4181

Cover Woodlands Park, Hamilton, Ghost Landscapes exhibit. Photo by Sarah Sheehan. See page 12.

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published four times a year by Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

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ISSN: 0847-3080

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See www.groundmag.ca to download articles and share content on social media.

See www.groundmag.ca for a digital, searchable, archival database, listing all articles, authors, subjects, key words, etc. published in Ground over the years.

2022-2023 OALA Governing Council

President Steve Barnhart

Vice President Stefan Fediuk

Treasurer Cameron Smith Secretary Justin Whalen

Past President Jane Welsh Councillors Matthew Campbell Aaron Hirota Shawn Watters

Associate Councillor—Senior Jenny Trinh

Associate Councillor—Junior Layal Bitar

Lay Councillor Karen Liu

Appointed Educator University of Guelph Nadia Amoroso

Appointed Educator University of Toronto Elise Shelley

University of Guelph Student Representative Allison Neuhauser

University of Toronto Student Representative Emiley Switzer-Martell

OALA Staff

Executive Director Aina Budrevics

Registrar Ingrid Little

Coordinator Sherry Bagnato

Membership Services Administrator Angie Anselmo

About

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Letters to the editor, article proposals, and feedback are encouraged. For submission guidelines, contact Ground at magazine@oala.ca. Ground reserves the right to edit all submissions. The views expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of OALA and its Governing Council.

Upcoming Issues of Ground Ground 61 (Spring) Stayin’ Alive

Ground 62 (Summer)

Democracy

Deadline for editorial proposals February 10, 2023

Deadline for advertising space reservations: April 17, 2023

Ground 63 Messy

Deadline for editorial proposals July 17, 2023

Deadline for advertising space reservations: July 4, 2023

Erratum

In Ground 59, the Fall 2022 “Food” issue, on page 31, we erroneously said Alfred Bog was west of Ottawa. It is actually east of Ottawa. We regret the error.

About OALA

Ontario Association of Landscape Architects works to promote and advance the profession of landscape architecture and maintain standards of professional practice consistent with the public interest. OALA promotes public understanding of the profession and the advancement of the practice of landscape architecture. In support of the improvement and/or conservation of the natural, cultural, social and built environments, OALA undertakes activities including promotion to governments, professionals and developers of the standards and benefits of landscape architecture.

Advisory Panel

Advisory Panel Message and a Call to All for Contributions

In an effort to streamline the editorial process for Ground, and after much deliberation, the Editorial Board has decided to dissolve the Advisory Panel.

Ground would like to express heartfelt thanks to Panel members, past and present, for their contributions to over 50 issues of the magazine.

This was a difficult decision, but one we are confident will maintain the energy and imagination necessary for future issues.

What is needed most, at this time, is a robust and diverse Editorial Board and contributing writers. Anyone interested in joining is encouraged to email magazine@oala.ca, Subject Line: Volunteering.

You do not need to be an OALA member or landscape architect to contribute to either the Editorial Board or the magazine, and anyone who expresses interest will be seriously considered.

TO VIEW ADDITIONAL CONTENT RELATED TO GROUND ARTICLES, VISIT WWW.GROUNDMAG.CA.

MODERATED BY NADIA GALATI, OALA

BY EMILY AMON AND RENÉ FAN

TEXT

TEXT

BY MARK SCHOLLEN, OALA, FCSLA

MODERATED BY SARAH MACLEAN

BY SARAH SHEEHAN

TEXT

President’s Message

We have made some important inroads in developing a better relationship with our allied associations. In the Fall of 2022, I had an opportunity to meet the new executive director of Landscape Ontario and we have since enjoyed several discussions on how our two organizations may work together in increasing awareness of the value of landscape design.

Design Alliance Work

I also attended the annual meeting of the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario, where engaged in important discussions with representatives about Metrolinx construction projections and support for GTHA communities.

Joint OPPI-OALA Conference

Our joint conference with the Ontario Professional Planners Institute in London was a tremendous success.

CSLA Grant

This past Fall, we recieved a Canadian Society of Landscape Architecture grant to allow us to prepare special videos spotlighting specific landscape architecture projects. We will be sharing more on that progress later this year. OALA Council has also endorsed the new CSLA’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) action plan, which we majorly contributed to.

New Administrator

I am also very pleased to welcome Richard Stamper as our new part-time OALA administrator who will be assisting the staff team on advancing our strategic priorities over the next 12 months while Executive Director Aina Budrevics is on maternity leave.

Bill 23 Response

There has been a large response by municipalities and design professionals regarding Bill 23 and major changes to the Greenbelt, and I am pleased to see how many of our members contributed to our response to the province. Thanks to the energy of our members, staff team, and our PR consultants, OALA provided a strong position on the proposed changes.

April 2023 AGM

We are looking forward to sharing more on the strategic initiatives and our progress on the communications outreach at our upcoming OALA annual general meeting on April 27. This year, the AGM will be held virtually again, since this platform seems to bring the highest turnout from our members.

STEVE BARNHART, OALA, CSLA OALA PRESIDENT PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

Editor’s Message

Hello there! It’s me, your faithful Ground editor. I’m writing you here because our Editorial Board Chair Nadja Pausch has stepped down from the role, after putting an incredible amount of work into the magazine we all love, and helping steer us through the brutal pandemic and years of important social awakenings, making the switch to online meetings, writing articles, moderating and facilitating round tables, and generally ensuring the magazine survived and adapted, no matter what was happening in the world at the moment.

I would like to personally thank Nadja for the time she dedicated to the Chair’s role, and I know the Editorial Board would loudly and happily lend their assent.

This issue is all about neighbours, and I think we all have different associations with the word. It can evoke a Mr. Rogers-esque image of the friend next door who’s ready to lend a hand, an ear, or a kind word. You may think of community initiatives or groups who animate the places we live in, who inspire us, provide support, and act as stewards for the things that make a place special. On the flip side, you may think of tensions, or prickly controversies, large and small, that can sometimes be difficult (however necessary) to navigate. As landscape architects, you may see friends, allies, clients, or stakeholders.

This issue, I believe, covers all of that and more. In our round table discussion, we explore the challenge for practitioners to ensure they are working with a neighbourhood and enhancing what makes it special, rather than imposing “improvements” upon it, without understanding the people they are for. In “Depave Paradise,” we see multiple communities across Ontario coming together to transform underused, paved landscapes into beautiful, climate-resilient green spaces. In “Every Design is a Habitat,” we discuss what landscape architects can do for our floral and faunal neighbours. We even dive into the history of a Hamilton landscape that was an important part of the labour community and the city’s history in our Artifact section. I hope you enjoy these pages, and, on behalf of the entire Ground team, happy new year!

GLYN BOWERMAN EDITOR MAGAZINE@OALA.CA

GROWING seed strategy 01

01/ The first harvest of evening primrose seeds.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

02/ A flowering Oenothera biennis

Up Front: Information on the Ground

Seeds make you think about the future. From this handful of evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) seeds, we can imagine hundreds of seedlings growing in a nursery and then taking root in native pollinator gardens and prairie restoration projects. We can visualize these and other native perennials as part of the biodiverse, reimagined productive landscapes needed for climate change adaptation in this region. The evening primrose plants that formed these seeds spent the past summer growing alongside 1,000 other individuals from 28 species of native perennials at the Toronto Seed Strategy Pilot Orchard at NVK Nurseries in Dundas, Ontario.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

03/ Heliopsis helianthoides entertains a guest.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

04/ Doellingeria umbellata

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

05/ Straining for seeds at the Seed Saving Workshop, Toronto Plant Market.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

06/ Rudbeckia hirta

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

07/ Desmodium canadense, being visited by a pollinator.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

pollinators, and slowly set seeds. With guidance from Stefan Weber of the Ontario Plant Restoration Alliance (OPRA), Liam learned species-specific seed collection and processing protocols and began to observe the fleeting and precise moments that seeds are ready for gathering. Sand dropseed (Sporobolus cryptandrus), for example, “shatters” many of its minuscule seeds shortly after ripening, a dramatic maturation. So, gathering those seeds involves attentive patience, being ready just as the shattering begins. Now, late in the year, the orchard is teeming with drying blooms, inflorescences heavy with developing seeds. Each plant is a lesson in reproduction: from the tiny spray of flowers on Virginia mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), the delicate “tongue” of the hairy beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus), to the articulated composite seeds of the smooth oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides).

As the climate warms, native, locally adapted drought- and flood-tolerant plant species are in demand. While native perennial plantings have been a small part of the horticultural industry, today,

more landscape architects are specifying them, and more clients are requesting them. Ongoing advocacy from non-profit environmental organizations like OPRA (advocating for growers and seed-based restoration) and Carolinian Canada (popularizing regionally specific wildlife gardening), as well as guidelines like the Toronto Green Standard and Toronto’s Biodiversity Strategy (which call for regionally appropriate native plants from sourceidentified seed), have all contributed to this change. But while demand surges, supply is not there. Many in the industry are concerned about a lack of appropriate and sufficient seed and plant sources; it can be difficult to find enough quantity and the right plants. If native perennial plantings are a key part of climate-adaptation strategies, will there be enough, and how will their growth benefit Indigenous land caretakers?

The challenges are many and complex, and any response requires the coordination of many sectors including landscape architects, landscape contractors, seed collectors, growers, and ecologists. We can see strategic leadership on seed-based restoration at all levels: the International Network for Seed-Based Restoration (INSR), national-level strategies by the Canadian Wildlife Federation and the US National Native Seed Strategy, and critical initiatives at local scales such as by Kayanase and the St. Williams Nursery and Ecology Centre in Southern Ontario. The Southern Ontario Seed Strategy, led by Carolinian Canada, has been facilitating a broad-scale response to these challenges, gathering these sectors in crucial conversation. In turn, local initiatives such as OPRA, composed of people rooted in cultural and ecological communities, have launched pilot seed orchard projects in

Southern Ontario. In 2020, the Toronto Seed Strategy Working Group, including designers, plant growers, landscape contractors, and environmental non-profits formed to support native plant seed capacity specifically in the Greater Toronto Area for residential to larger-scale ecological restoration work. In a series of meetings, recurring concerns emerged: the need for stronger connection between landscape architects and growers so that design specifications reflect availability; the need to build relationships so that designers can forecast species needs in time for growers to obtain seed and propagate them; the need for all parties to educate clients about the value of sourceidentified seed; the need for any native plant production to reflect the principles and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada; the need to support Indigenous-led land initiatives; and the need for co-operation and communication above all. One outcome of the meetings was a collaborative effort to establish a pilot seed orchard.

The Toronto Seed Strategy Pilot Orchard was planted in June of 2022, thanks

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to many individuals and organizations including Design Climate Action, Karen May, OALA, for species selection, the World Wildlife Foundation for plants, NVK Nurseries for facilities and maintenance, Carolinian Canada for consultation, and a Mitacs Business Strategy Internship grant (in partnership with Ecoman Landscaping and the University of Waterloo School of Architecture) to support orchard documentation and seed gathering. The orchard is a humble three rows of plants, but it represents collective action towards climate change adaptation, a local piece of a broader set of regional, provincial, and federal strategies. We envision the orchard and future seed exchanges as a space for sharing knowledge, for learning and practicing seed collection and cleaning, and for bringing together the different sectors. We are looking forward to gathering and processing a diverse assemblage of seeds in the coming weeks, but the project’s success will be measured equally in the relationships cultivated through the process.

08/ Desmodium canadense

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

09/ Heliopsis helianthoides

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

10/ Planting the Toronto Seed Strategy seed orchard.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

11/ Searching for seeds.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Liam Doyle

LIAM DOYLE STUDIES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH’S SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT.

JANE MAH HUTTON, OALA, TEACHES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE.

STEFAN WEBER IS A BOTANIST AND SEED SPECIALIST WITH THE ONTARIO PLANT RESTORATION ALLIANCE.

TEXT/ JONAS SPRING OWNS AND OPERATES ECOMAN CORPORATION AND TORONTO PLANT MARKET

Over three weekends this past June, friends and neighbours of Old’s Cool General Store (OCGS) came together to deconstruct a paved area at the side of their building and create a garden. Volunteers removed the pavement, brought in soil, and planted trees, shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers in an area approximately 70 square meters (750 square feet). One of sixty-six such Depave projects in Ontario, this site was selected and the construction was managed by the non-profit organization Toronto Green Community (TGC) and its social enterprise RAINscapeTO. Depave Paradise is a program of Green Communities Canada, a national organization that works in partnership with local community environmental organizations across the country to support community-led climate action.

For over 10 years, Green Communities Canada has coordinated a nation-wide, multi-community program in which volunteers come together to rip up asphalt (by hand) and replace it with beautiful urban green spaces. Green Communities Canada empowers local organizations to lead these projects, and in doing so, transform their neighbourhoods. The program provides educational and mentorship opportunities, training local Depave Paradise coordinators from partnering organizations, and guiding the implementation of community-led projects through grants and logistical support. Monthly community practice meetings bring coordinators together from across the country to discuss their project progress and troubleshoot local concerns.

01/ Old’s Cool General Store, Toronto, after the Depave project.

IMAGE/ René Fan, OALA, Toronto Green Communities

02/ Depaving underway at Old’s Cool General Store.

IMAGE/ Mary Jenkins, Toronto Green Community

TEXT BY EMILY AMON AND RENÉ FAN

The Depave project is a labour of love that empowers communities to make positive changes to their surroundings. The physical effort exerted for deconstruction and planting shows community support and buy-in, and the likelihood for long-term stewardship and responsibility for the space. The completion of the project brings satisfaction and reward, along with the benefits of being active outside, making connections with neighbours, and mentoring younger volunteers.

On the event day, it’s nothing but smiles. Local volunteers gather to do the heavy lifting, releasing any pent-up frustrations about climate-change, and investing their time and energy to transform a local site into a beautiful plant-filled permeable landscape. These demonstration projects make permanent positive changes to neighbourhoods, and encourage others to take action.

Beyond the beauty of a vibrant garden, there are many environmental benefits to replacing impermeable surfaces with plants and softscape. As a starting point, stormwater is retained and infiltrated instead of draining into storm sewers with associated pollutants. With infiltration, plants are nurtured, groundwater is recharged and flows, subsurface, to rivers and lakes, which helps to restore the hydrologic cycle. As a

softscape, the growth of trees and shrubs sequesters carbon to reduce greenhouse gasses, and the selection of native species provides habitat for birds and pollinators in our ecosystem. The growth of trees provides shade, improves air quality, and reduces the urban heat island effect—all improvements for human comfort in the city.

OCGS was an ideal Depave site because of its role and value among the community in East York. The store has a loyal following on social media and is active in the community with outreach to nearby schools and partnerships with local organizations. The site itself is publicly accessible and highly visible at the intersection of two bus routes. Like many lots in Toronto, the side yard next to the store is a public right-of-way owned by the City, but is the property owner’s responsibility to maintain. TGC worked with the City to secure a permit for work and prepared a planting plan with native species that suited the sandy soils and sunny conditions of the site.

06/ Claude E. Garton Public School, Thunder Bay, before.

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Depave Paradise in Ontario

Since the establishment of the program in 2012, Depave Paradise has completed 80 projects across 32 Canadian cities, converting a total of 16,384 square metres of underutilized paved surface into beautiful community green spaces with native grasses, flowers, and trees—nearly two thirds of which (66) have been in Ontario.

Each Depave project is as diverse as the sites and communities that host them, and no two Depaves are entirely alike, as community-involved design planning is a central component of the program. Sites have been installed at schools, universities, community centers, faith buildings, parks, right-of-ways, and more.

Claude E. Garton Public School, Thunder Bay, ON (2019) - Locally Coordinated by EcoSuperior

Take Claude E. Garton Public School, as an example. Claude E. Garton is a K-8 elementary school in Thunder Bay, Ontario. In 2019, they were recognized as an “ecoschool” for their involvement in a Depave Paradise project, led by local Depave Paradise delivery partner EcoSuperior. Through this project, over 100 square metres of asphalt was converted into a rain-garden with a large infiltration trench. The rain garden featured a clear stone leaching pit to promote as much stormwater infiltration as possible, reducing pooling that previously took place on the lot.

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IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada

07/ Claude E. Garton Public School, Thunder Bay, after.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada

This project benefitted from student involvement, in both the planting and depaving efforts. Furthermore, students were able to learn first-hand about stormwater and the altered urban water cycle, which tied into their water, earth, and science curriculum. Over the last few years, the garden has been maintained by the school, and remains a functional and aesthetically beautiful feature on the playground. Informational signage explains the purpose of the garden and describes the natural and altered water cycles that result from converting naturalized landscapes into urban hard-scapes. This is but one example of a schoolyard depave which is alleviating

localized pooling of stormwater, and creating outdoor classrooms and opportunities for nature-based education.

Down in South Western Ontario, a number of Depave Paradise demonstration sites have been installed by Hamilton Depave Paradise delivery partner Green Venture. Over the history of the program, 14 of the 66 Ontario-based depaves have taken place in Hamilton—guided by their knowledgeable staff, and supported both through Green Communities Canada and a number of partnerships within the city. For the last few years, a string of projects have focused on the Barton Street area, revitalizing a local area of concern, and bringing in new greenspaces for the underserved communities there.

EduDeo Ministries 621 Barton St. E, Hamilton, ON, (2020) - Locally Coordinated by Green Venture, Designed by Adele Pierre, OALA

The Depave at 621 Barton St. E is close to the industrial sector of Hamilton. The area has a high percentage of impermeable surfaces and lack of green space, contributing to combined sewer overflow. The priorities for the site included management of stormwater runoff, pollinator plantings, and a pleasant spot for informal meetings and lunches to be utilized by the charity site host. The area of the site is 98.25 square metres, all of which was covered in asphalt. A downspout from the roof directed runoff into the street.

The design is divided into three distinct areas. A rain garden planted with native species infiltrates runoff from the diverted downspout. The recycled plastic picnic table sits on a base of Ecoraster permeable paving, which is filled with fast-draining gravel, and a walkway winds through a pollinator garden with boulders along the path providing seating. Additionally, EduDeo plans to install a Little Free Library in this garden. This site, and many others in Hamilton, were designed by Adele Pierre of the OALA.

Additional sites have been installed at parks, such as the transformation of an old outdoor rink at Honey Harbour Park in Georgian Bay this past spring, led by

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08/ 621 Barton Street East, Hamilton, before.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada 09/ Barton Street East, Hamilton, after.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada

Jiimaan’ndewemgadnong - The Place

Where the Heart of the Canoe Beats (2019), Peterborough, ON, Locally Coordinated by GreenUp

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Jiimaan’ndewemgadnong - The Place Where the Heart of the Canoe Beats, Peterborough, after planting, but before the art installation.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada

11/ Jiimaan’ndewemgadnong - The Place Where the Heart of the Canoe Beats, Peterborough, with Tia Cavanagh.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of Green Communities Canada

Severn Sound Environmental Association. There, plans included removal of an old skating rink, which had been on the site for decades, and replacement with a smaller, covered rink, and pollinator gardens. They also worked with the Georgian Bay Métis Council to put in a healing circle, expanding opportunities for cross-cultural learning and meaningful Indigenous presence in this public space. In Collingwood, Environment Network replaced a run-down parking lot between two baseball diamonds at Heritage Park this past spring, and installed a large community garden with raised beds, and mulch base. The site is located across the street from two social housing apartment complexes and the community garden will be used by families living in the new housing complex, as well as by the general public. The families given priority will be single mothers who are receiving help from a local Mothercare program and low-income seniors. This site is not only expanding opportunities for local food production, but also creating a sense of empowerment and food security, all while replacing broken infrastructure and improving drainage.

In Peterborough, a number of projects of significance have been installed, including the auspiciously titled “Jiimaan’ndewemgadnong” (The Place Where the Heart of the Canoe Beats).

Born out of a partnership between local Depave Paradise delivery partner, GreenUP and the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Association’s vibrancy project, this attractive pocket park became a showcase not only for sustainable urban design and green infrastructure, but a meaningful public art installation celebrating Indigenous culture. Located on the corner of King and Water Street, on what used to be a piece of the Euphoria Wellness Spa car park, this area is now a thriving green space with benches, boardwalks and trees. The site design features a rain garden, as well as nativeprairie planting, and a canoe-art installation designed by local Curve-Lake artist, Tia Cavanaugh, celebrates the location as a historic portage route.

The Depave Movement

In many communities, a Depave event is the start of a conversation about how we can better design our urban areas with nature in mind. Participants and volunteers at Depave Paradise events agree these engagements create a transformation beyond the physical alterations of the site, opening up a dialogue about equitable access to greenspace, and questioning assumptions about the permanence of hardscaping (and environmentally destructive development in general). Further, Depave Paradise sites are by-and-large partnership projects, which bring together a variety of stakeholders: community members, site hosts, contractors, volunteers, and environmentalists. In this way, the Depave Paradise movement goes beyond creating demonstration sites, and pushes towards shifting the culture around urban land reclamation and sustainable stormwater management.

Green Communities Canada has continued to push the conversation about green infrastructure forward through the Living Cities Canada project, an innovative

policy and advocacy program designed to provide municipal governments and grassroots organizations with the capacity to better advocate for and advance equitable, abundant, and thriving green infrastructure in communities across Canada. The Living Cities framework document, published in Fall 2022, synthesizes key learnings about how municipalities in Canada and around the world have successfully implemented and mainstreamed green infrastructure. This framework guides the development of “Living Cities policy pathways” which chart a course forward on what policies, plans, strategies, processes, and instruments can make each community a “Living City.” This program represents a shift in approach, moving beyond simply creating demonstration sites, and pushing for a more strategic and organized approach to green infrastructure implementation, led by both community and municipal partners.

Depave Precedents & Context

In Toronto, the Old’s Cool depave project transformed a paved side yard into a verdant garden. Many similar right-of-way and boulevard spaces exist throughout the city, and in aggregate are an opportunity for a higher use of overlooked remnant space. In cities across North America, reclaiming public space has been an initiative for safety, greenery, and the desire to pedestrianize automobileoriented landscapes.

One example of the movement toward reclaiming remnant spaces is “PARK(ing) day,” an annual event that began in San Francisco in 2005. DIY in spirit, it started as a guerrilla art project to create temporary social spaces with seating and greenery in a curbside parking spot. Estimating that streets makes up 20-30 per cent of the city’s land area and only 20-30 per cent of that is sidewalk, organizers calculated that curbside parking rates were actually affordable real estate. PARK(ing) day is now a yearly event and their website describes it as a “global, public, participatory project where people across the world temporarily repurpose curbside parking spaces and convert them into public parks and social

spaces to advocate for safer, greener, and more equitable streets for people.”

A greener precedent of public space reclamation is the establishment of community gardens across North American cities in the 1970s. Established in reaction to the number of abandoned lots during a period of economic recession and disinvestment, communities and activist gardeners turned derelict properties into vibrant green spaces. New York City’s Green Guerillas transformed over 100 vacant lots into gardens during their first three years of operation. Although the work was arduous and laborious, one of the many rewards was the support and stewardship from the local community, including children. In New York City, the creation of community gardens were a process of grassroots organizing and a product of community direct action to improve the bleak and dreary landscape of neighbourhoods experiencing decline. A unique and central tenet of Depave projects is citizen direct action. Depave projects are organized to be community events with residents and neighbours doing the work of removals and installation, to secure community buy-in, support, and long-term stewardship. In the 1970s, direct action was in the face of inaction by bankrupt municipalities that did not invest in parks and maintenance for all neighbourhoods. Similarly, municipalities today are under-resourced for parks investment and maintenance, and design is often constrained for lower maintenance.

Today, direct action is also a response to the urgency of the climate crisis. While governments and corporations stall on making measurable changes, many people are compelled to act on their own or through community efforts to resist unsustainable practices that contribute to environmental degradation. In built-up environments, a disproportionate amount of pavement contributes to increased stormwater, basement flooding, and combined sewer overflows which result in poor water quality in lakes and rivers. Removing unnecessary pavement is arguably one of the most beneficial things a community can do to mitigate the built environment.

The other half of the Depave equation is planting native species. Ecological restoration depends on the growth of native plants that have co-evolved with the soils, pollinators, and wildlife of the area. Restoring natural processes and native species on a large scale is part of the rewilding movement, a method of ecosystem restoration to reduce biodiversity loss and mitigate against climate change. Nature-led solutions, such as depaving and rewilding, deconstruct the built environment to provide a measure of incremental environmental restoration.

“Undoing is just as much a democratic right as doing,” said the architect and artist Gordon Matta-Clark, whose practice in the 1970s combined social critique with community empowerment and civic engagement. His interventions on vacant buildings by splitting, cutting, and sculptural excisions were a commentary about a failed financial system and a repressive architectural discourse that valued buildings only as property. Instead, Matta-Clark considered architecture as the entire fabric of the city, and saw voids, gaps, and remnants as opportunities for intervention. In a similar spirit, Depave projects embody destructive and creative energies, and work with residual overlooked spaces to help communities create vital green spaces that provide immeasurable environmental benefits.

BIOS/ EMILY AMON IS THE GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM LEAD AT GREEN COMMUNITIES CANADA. SHE HOLDS A MASTER OF ARTS IN SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES AND A HON. BACHELOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES AND STUDIES FROM TRENT UNIVERSITY. EMILY COORDINATES THE DEPAVE PARADISE PROGRAM NATIONALLY.

RENÉ FAN, OALA, IS A PROJECT MANAGER WITH THE TORONTO GREEN COMMUNITY, A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION THAT SUPPORTS DIVERSE COMMUNITIES TO DEVELOP AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE CITY. SHE IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WITH A BACKGROUND IN GEOGRAPHY, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION.

MODERATED BY NADIA GALATI, OALA

CULTURAL LANDSCAPE APPROACH. WITH DANIEL ROTSZTAIN, HE IS THE CO-LEAD OF PLAZAPOPS, A SSHRC AND FEDDEV-FUNDED COMMUNITY-LEAD PROJECT

CHIYI TAM IS AN URBAN PLANNER AND ANTIDISPLACEMENT ORGANIZER IN TKARONTO’S KENSINGTONCHINATOWN NEIGHBOURHOOD. SHE IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE KENSINGTON MARKET COMMUNITY LAND TRUST, AND SERVES AS A DIRECTOR OF THE TORONTO CHINATOWN LAND TRUST AND THE UNION COOPERATIVE INITIATIVE. SHE FREQUENTLY WORKS WITH GROUPS EXPLORING COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP AND WEALTH BUILDING AS AN ANTI-DISPLACEMENT STRATEGY FOR RACIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE.

LEO DESORCY IS AN URBAN DESIGNER AND INSTRUCTOR WITH 38 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS, AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE OALA. HIS CAREER HAS FOCUSED ON A “LANDSCAPE FIRST” APPROACH TO POLICY WRITING, INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN, LARGE SITE REDEVELOPMENT AND SITE PLAN DESIGN AND REVIEW.

SABINA ALI IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE THORNCLIFFE PARK WOMEN’S COMMITTEE, AND ONE OF ITS FOUNDING MEMBERS. SHE MANAGES FOOD, ART, FITNESS, MARKETS, AND GARDEN PROGRAMS. SHE IS THE RECIPIENT OF THE 2011 ELIZABETH COKE AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP, THE 2014 JANE JACOBS PRIZE FOR HER DEDICATION TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, AND THE 2014 PHENOMENAL WOMAN AWARD, THE 2017 AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN CIVIC ACTION, AND THE MP’S SESQUICENTENNIAL CITIZENSHIP AWARD.

NADIA GALATI, PRINCIPAL AT PROCESS, IS AN URBAN PLANNER AND DESIGNER WITH EXPERTISE IN PLANNING, ART, AND DESIGN. THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT APPLYING INNOVATIVE METHODS TO ADDRESS URBAN AND POLICY CHALLENGES THROUGH SOUND ANALYSIS, ACTION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DECISION MAKERS IN GOVERNMENT, AND THE PRIVATE AND NONPROFIT SECTORS.

Nadia Galati: Neighbourhoods are made up of people with different lived experiences. What does it mean to be a great neighbourhood, relative to all the different people within it? What does that mean downtown, versus inner suburbs, or outside the city center? And what are different challenges facing our communities?

Sabina Ali: When talking about the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, a predominantly South Asian community, the way the neighbourhood has been designed, with all the tall towers facing the Don Valley, and then the median size towers, and the small park in between, there are different pathways from the various buildings that connect the park, and then the park that leads to the town centre. It’s a 2.2 kilometers-area which is densely populated, which used to be farmland and a racetrack. The way people are living there, the way it has been designed, is the key for keeping people together. There are connections from the buildings to the green space, to the mall, the school library, the mosque, and stores at a walking distance that keeps people connected together.

But I will give you an example of the recently redesigned R.V. Burgess Park. We all know how much we struggle with the community consultations the City organizes. You don’t get people at that particular time, and it’s an immigrant community, people are busy with their lives, their jobs, the children. And then you have a selected working group that provides ideas for the park, and you also have to identify if that group represents the people who actually use the park.

For me, I go the other way: a very informal method of consultations, like how our Women’s Committee did in 2008 and ‘09. When our group got involved in the revitalization, we ran a campaign for the missing playground equipment in 2009 that came to the park last year, 2021, after many years of struggle. And I really felt like the City could have made a simple decision

of just going to the park and talking to park users: what they would like to see in the park? Collect those ideas, and develop some kind of design. Not just talking to the people who don’t even visit the park, different stakeholders or the organizations who have no clue when the park is mostly used, or at what time. Our organization has been involved for the past 14 years, and we spend a lot of time in the park. We have a park café which is a social enterprise running out of the park. The café supports newcomer women without employment experience, who face multiple barriers to employment. We provide that kind of opportunity and training, so it acts as an incubation where they spend some time, and then move forward.

We are actually the main stewards of the park. When City consultations happen, and people are not able to participate, people ask me to tell the City we need a washroom in the park. That was one of the latest examples where I felt, when the designers or the architects try to bring beneficial things to the community, they need to involve the people actually using the space, and ask them what they want.

Just in front of the café, we had a big space assigned for bread baking. After a prolonged meetings, City staff gave us the green light. Then they said ‘this is not a safe space to put the tandoor oven, because it involves fire.’

From 2013 to 2021, what changed in that space? That, in redesigning, they have to move the oven, and place it beside the café, which is actually the market path. Park users are saying, ‘No, that was the central space for the tandoor oven, where people from all the tall buildings can actually see what is happening in the park.’ They can even keep an eye on the oven to keep it from getting vandalized. But now it’s pushed to the side of the café, which blocks the pathway for the market, and the smoke from the oven gets into the merchandise. A lot of women have complained to me.

BIOS/ BRENDAN STEWART, OALA, IS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH WHERE HE TEACHES COMMUNITY DESIGN STUDIOS AND A PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE SEMINAR. HIS CURRENT RESEARCH AND CREATIVE WORK FOCUS ON THE ADAPTATION OF UNDER-UTILIZED AND OVERLOOKED LANDSCAPES THROUGH COMMUNITY LED PROCESSES, INFORMED BY A

TO CREATE PUBLIC GATHERING PLACES IN TORONTO’S INNER SUBURBAN STRIP MALL PARKING LOTS.

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the

in

redeveloped

abuts

IMAGE/ Chiyi Tam

02/ Sita Ganesan (U of G MLA 2020) discussing studio design work at an open house at The Wexford Residence seniors community in spring 2019, part of the process that created plazaPOPS’ 2019 pilot

IMAGE/ WexPOPS

It was Women’s Committee and the other park users’ space. We designed the park. We have animated R.V. Burgess Park, which is recognized now because of the work and hours we put into it for years. And we wanted it to be an inclusive space where everybody gets an opportunity to use it equally.

Brendan Stewart: The framework I find helpful in my community design work, is to understand the places we work in as living cultural landscapes—recognizing we need first to understand how a place is used and valued, and creating design and planning interventions that work with these existing patterns.

With the example of Thorncliffe Park and the tandoor oven and all the work the Women’s Committee did to build this community, to me, I would understand that as a vibrant cultural landscape. Of course physical space matters, but the network of care that Sabina helped create, while less visible, is really important. I think about the greatness of communities primarily in this way. What are the less tangible cultural and social systems at play? Is there a lot of community life happening and how can it be supported or enhanced? That’s what we’re trying to achieve through our community design work: creating richer community life, more connection, more support, healthier communities.

When we’re operating in existing places, the first thing we need to do is try as best we can to understand the good stuff that’s already happening. And, of course, so much of that can be invisible when you’re an outsider. So the framework of thinking about places as cultural landscapes suggests tools for trying to understand those things, observe and map them, have lots of conversations, have informal processes for getting to know who the local leaders are, who the knowledge keepers are, which places are sacred? They may not be (and likely aren’t) obvious to an outsider, but you shouldn’t be working in a community and proposing changes if you don’t deeply understand those things.

NG: What do good neighbourhoods mean, relative to land and housing?

Chiyi Tam: That’s something that came up when we were working at Process together: you’ve never heard of a professional practice that is planning in consultation and design that’s professionally in charge of negotiating the democratic process. There’s no other profession in charge of this wild negotiation of space.

My thesis statement is we should be so lucky to be in neighbourhood conflict, to

A handwritten room for rent sign outside

Poon Yue Society of Ontario building

Chinatown, in stark contrast a newly

single family home now

the building’s east side

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Cambodian

IMAGE/

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Skydragon

the

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be in substantive, generative, sometimes very frustrating neighbourhood arguments with each other. The amazing thing is that these arguments actually lead to concrete decision making over the outcome of the design project. For Chinatown, I worry whether or not an urbanist intervention, usually some kind of sanitizing public space redesign, is going to violently displace the unlicensed street vendors who are a key health indicator for Chinatown.

When we went on a listening tour to find the feasibility of doing a community ownership project in Chinatown, we went around and talked to a whole bunch of different Chinatown folks, and the thing that kept on coming up was the vegetable grannies who sell produce from their yard on Spadina Ave. and Dundas St. A healthy version of Chinatown in 50 years is one where they still get to do this on the street corner, unbothered by bylaw officers, or the BIA who thinks that they’re making Chinatown look disgusting and weird, or by property owners who would really prefer not to have to clean up the storefront in a certain way.

It just keeps on coming back to governance, decision making, all of those fun things, and also social indebtedness. When we think about neighbourhoods, and how healthy they are, something we don’t talk a lot about is how interwoven those relationships are. How heavily dependent we are in a relational way to each other. To have that level of social indebtedness takes time. It takes having conflicts with people over the price of their apples in the corner store. It takes people witnessing you being pregnant, and then not pregnant. All of these things that are only possible if your housing, your job, or that corner store’s lease is secure. And we don’t have this kind of security because of gentrification.

This is the reality we’re planning, designing, and organizing under, which makes all of the skills that drew us into this space and pulled us towards architecture school seem totally irrelevant. I learned all of these GIS skills, and how to use

Illustrator to create amazing visuals... for what? For who? The two things are increasingly divergent, and that’s deeply frustrating for the majority of people in practice right now.

NG: Is there a role for bigger planning and landscape architecture departments at the City and less of folks like myself in consulting worlds? Can public policy be as active and live in terms of relationships on the ground?

Leo DeSorcy: I don’t want to sound like a bureaucrat, and maybe it was because I worked 32 years for the City in the planning department, but as an urban designer, the neighbourhood character is determined by an underlying legal framework of public streets, public parks, public buildings like schools, and a lot of private development, and that structural DNA is given. When transforming a neighbourhood, there are processes which govern establishing new DNA. When you’re laying out a new neighbourhood, there are processes to do that.

There are also very difficult processes for transforming areas where people already live, and have an image of where they’re living, and a pattern for living their life.

Members and residents of the

Chinese Association of Ontario sitting on the stoop of their collectively owned association building

Chiyi Tam

View north of Spadina and Dundas from

Mall, street vendors animate

corners of the intersection

Chiyi Tam

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The city is under tremendous pressure to grow. People keep saying there’s a million more people coming here, there’s more people going to work here. How do we get around? Where do we work? Where do we shop? Where do the kids go to school? Am I going to be able to walk the dog? Everything is structured around this DNA.

What’s interesting for me is, during my career with the City, I saw an increasing role for landscape architects in the transformation of the public pieces of that DNA.

NG: That DNA is law. People wrote it, which means it can change. People made choices to create those policies. We could be activists, and we can put pressure on our public representatives to change those laws, but what about incremental pressures and activism within our own practice? What should we be demanding of our practice and our professions?

BS: I grapple with this all the time, because, with the challenges we’re facing, to do things we feel good about ethically, to grapple with reconciliation, spatial inequity issues, affordability, gentrification, all these things, my sense is that the emerging practitioners we’re training in design and planning school are entering into a much more complex field of work than previous generations.

I’m trying to bring some of this complexity into the classroom, and it’s definitely a struggle because there’s obviously a foundation of technical skills students need to learn, and there’s only so much time. When you think about what should be in a curriculum and the skills we should be focusing on, and how we teach those within a world of limited resources and time, it’s hard.

For me, the main vehicle is my community design studios. I’ve shifted away from an approach where students look at designing a new neighbourhood on a greenfield or brownfield site—a place where people don’t presently live—to working in existing places that are evolving, and exploring sociological concepts like third places, social infrastructure and social capital, and how spatial form can enable healthy community life.

I think it’s really important that students learn to grapple with proposing change within existing neighbourhoods, and trying to understand the complexity of everyday places that might otherwise be invisible to them. And to start thinking about techniques and methods we can use to understand these places, co-design with community, and how to evaluate good design against social and cultural criteria, in addition to ecological and economic.

05/ Max

Sima

(U of G MLA 2020) participating in a community design workshop in the basement of Precious Blood Catholic Church in December 2018, part of the process that created plazaPOPS’ 2019 pilot

IMAGE/ WexPOPS

Gatta and

Kuhail

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In the best-case scenarios, I’ve been able to integrate an actual project into a studio, but I’ve found that can take years to set in motion. Take, for example, the plazaPOPS project that Daniel Rotsztain and I have been working on. It’s grant-funded and part of my research program, so when the timing aligns with a studio, I’m able to integrate student learning into a real community design process involving real people, real places, and a real budget. We did this in 2019, and will do it again this winter semester in a studio course I’m teaching at the University of Guelph and a seminar that Daniel is teaching at U of T, but you can’t do that every year unless you have a whole operation behind you.

I would love it if our schools moved more in this direction, as I think this kind of real-world experiential learning helps build awareness and the types of sophisticated soft skills that students will need. I would direct readers to the LAF-funded work that Jeffrey Hou from the University of Washington led called “Educating Design Activists in Landscape Architecture.” He summarizes interesting models around the world for integrating this type of community based work into design education.

CT: I will respond from the position of someone who just graduated planning school recently and is now teaching in design school at a graduate level. I agree, and I think it’s very palpable to us as a graduating class of the last, say, five years. The students I’m teaching now are the same age as me, and the shift that has happened is we now work from the base assumption that planning and design are not neutral. There is no such thing as neutral knowledge, and planning and design have been constructed within the Western and white knowledge system and methodology, and hold up a private property system as a fundamental core design function.

We’re being told this truth, but nobody has figured out what to do about it. We’re on the brink of a conversation about what it would look like to imagine, to do dream work, to do community relational

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06/ Thorncliffe Park Community Garden.

IMAGE/ Sikander Iqbal, Wikimedia Commons.

07/ Sima Kuhail (U of G MLA 2020)

discussing studio design work at an open house at the Arab Community Centre of Toronto in spring 2019, part of the process that created plazaPOPS’ 2019 pilot

IMAGE/ WexPOPS

08/ Quinn Howard (U of G MLA 2020)

discussing studio design work at an open house at The Wexford Residence seniors community in spring 2019, part of the process that created plazaPOPS’ 2019 pilot

IMAGE/ WexPOPS

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IMAGE/ Brianne, courtesy of Flickr.

10/ The iconic Kensington Market Neighbourhood, Toronto.

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work, with a bias towards being able to communicate, strategically vision, and visually represent.

This is where the hope for me in planning and design education still is. Even if we get rid of and abolish the words “planning,” and “design,” and “architecture,” there are still individual human beings who were called into this practice because they loved to draw, to imagine, because they had an incredible personal capacity for a specific kind of joy and skill that brought them into a community, and made them want to build real, tangible things on land. That is what they will still have, even after planning and design doesn’t exist and we destroy it because it may be necessary in the future to realize a transformative and just future. That is deeply hopeful, because we will still have those skills regardless. And it makes it less scary to imagine a future where the private property system is abolished, but there’s still a role for us as individuals, even if our profession doesn’t exist. That still gives me hope. Besides the classroom, it doesn’t feel like there are many spaces where there’s enough privilege and indulgence to be able to do that dreaming work.

NG: What do we want to say to the landscape architecture community with respect to creating just, equitable, great neighbourhoods, and what is the role of the landscape architecture student, professional, or academic, to see themselves in this work?

LD: There’s always been a difficulty with who writes the program for design, how to evaluate it, and who pays after the design is finished to go back and find out if it was successful or not. The people who inhabit the office, and can’t find the washroom, or the people who find it inconvenient to get to the bus stop because the neighbourhood wasn’t laid out properly, or the bus stop’s in the wrong location. The people who use the bike lane, but don’t like the street because it’s too windy and the buildings are too tall. Decisions get made, and then, unfortunately, there’s nobody in the room who’s going to pay to go back and evaluate. The bicycle people do that. They’ll find out how many bicycles were on Bloor Street before the bike lanes went on, and then go back and measure it. But was it a rainy Tuesday? Maybe it was a special day? But it’s hard to find a good process to evaluate the outcomes.

The Kensignton Market Garden Car.

One of the things I fear a lot about the current political climate is the issue of affordability emerging as something that will trump everything. And local planning decisions, development charges, funding, formal concerns, processes...

All of our processes are currently under that. I see that as the biggest challenge, and it’s important that we take our broader design issues of climate change, social equity, etc., and attach those to affordability. If affordability is the boat that’s going to catch the tide, we have to ensure those other issues aren’t left at the bottom of the bay.

We need to find a way as landscape architects to build alliances with other issues, in our public and private practices, and our activism. We need to build our issues into affordability. My friends from London told me five years

ago to be aware that affordability was going to do this to the process. There are people in England who would tear down Buckingham Palace and pave over St. James Park if they thought they’d find apartments teachers could rent. Everything is at stake right now, and, as a profession, we need to grapple with that. If we don’t, landscape architects are going to be back to their old role of putting a little parsley around the pig, and not leading processes.

SA: We, as people in the community who are actively involved in placemaking, are looking for just and equitable systems. The approach is always there, but these words have just become fancy in today’s world. I want people to really understand what that means in real life.

TO MARK HILLMER, OALA, FOR COORDINATING THIS ROUND TABLE.

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THANKS

R.V. Burgess Park

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the City of Toronto

How landscape architects can make home for at-risk species

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02/

IMAGE/ Colin Tilbrook

03/ Goldenrod in Niagara.

IMAGE/ Leonora (Ellie) Enking / Flickr 04/ Little brown bat

numerous—perhaps dozens‚—of times without any inkling of the bat’s presence.

It seems that our sheltered front porch had become habitat for a little brown bat.

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leading to the bats emerging too early from hibernation, prior to food sources being available, which in-turn results in population decline.

In addition to the little brown bat, there are 255 species of plants, animals, insects, and other organisms on the Species at Risk in Ontario (SARO) list. Species on the list are designated as endangered, extirpated, threatened, or special concern based on the degree of risk to the survival of the species in Ontario. Like the little brown bat, many of the species on the list are being impacted by disease; however, there are also many listed species that are in decline due to the loss of suitable habitat. The anticipated effects of climate change will undoubtably exert more pressure on these species and may exacerbate the rate of population decline.

The bat that clung upside down to the sunny, warm wall of the house had found refuge in a semi-urban landscape —not habitat, per se, but a place to rest until after sunset when I viewed it in-flight, chasing insects in the twilight.

Upon returning from a walk on a sunny but brisk fall afternoon, my wife and I approached the front door and, as I put the key in the lock, my wife asked, “What are those little black things all over the front porch?” I looked down and replied, “Looks like mouse poo.” To which she responded, “It looks like it is coming down from above.” Our eyes traced up the wall and we discovered that the source of the poo was not a mouse, but rather a very small furry bat affixed to the masonry, sleeping upside-down in the warm autumn sun.

Judging from the amount of debris in the corner of the porch, our inverted guest had been roosting on the wall for quite some time. We must have traversed the porch

The Little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) is listed as an endangered species in Canada and Ontario and is protected by the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in Ontario. The endangered designation means the species is facing “imminent extinction or extirpation.” The endangered designation for the little brown bat stems from the impacts of a fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome, which propagates in damp, humid environments where bats tend to roost during the winter months. This disease disrupts the bats’ hibernation cycle,

This inspired a thought: what if landscape architects approached every project through the lens of it being potential habitat?

Beyond the Pollinators ‘This is old news,’ one might say, pointing to all of the examples of pollinator gardens that have been created to support declining bee and butterfly populations—and this would be an accurate observation.

My firm has designed numerous pollinator habitats within parks, open spaces, on the rooftops of buildings, and on closed landfill sites. The gardens around my own house were designed to support pollinators throughout the seasons. The goldenrod there is a source of nectar, and, in contrast to what some of the neighbours think, goldenrod is not a dominant allergen (it is commonly mistaken for ragweed, which is a potent allergen), but it is an essential flowering plant that nourishes bees, and butterflies prior to the fall migration.

However, the potential of the designed landscape is much greater when the range

Snapping turtles, listed as an SAR Special Concern species.

IMAGE/ Colin Tilbrook

Butler’s garter snake, listed as an SAR Endangered species.

of species that could benefit from creative interventions in the design of landscapes is broadened beyond the habitat requirements of bees and butterflies.

Species at Risk in Ontario

In perusing the SARO list, and reviewing the recovery plans related to specific species, one discovers that, for many species, while the habitat requirements are specialized, the components that compose viable habitats can be replicated in the design of the landscape. By gaining an understanding of the habitat requirements of a specific plant, animal, insect, or other organism, in combination with detailed knowledge of the biophysical, hydrological, ecological, and microclimatic attributes of the site, opportunities to create specialized habitat exist through the skillful and creative manipulation of the landscape. Certainly, there are limitations: species that require large patches of habitat or complete isolation from the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance are likely not suitable candidates. Fortunately, this is not the case for many of the species on the SARO list. Animals like the Jefferson salamander require habitat that will support life cycle needs, including clean vernal pools in a moist forest floor environment. This

type of habitat can be replicated through the articulation of topography to create areas of imperfect drainage sustained by clean runoff, with a generous layer of organics and woody debris in a shaded environment, proximate to, or within a woodland. This type of created habitat will take time to mature and evolve to the point that it will be a viable habitat for this species, but eventually the targeted habitat will be achieved, aiding in the recovery of the species.

Barn swallow, a species that is listed as threatened, will nest under structures such as bridges if the structure incorporates suitable elements that will allow for the attachment of the bird’s mud-constructed nest. In theory, every bridge that is designed could easily incorporate substructure elements that would support barn swallow nests. One just needs to know what the requirements are and ensure the design incorporates these elements. Or, one could purchase and install pre-manufactured “barn swallow nesting cups” and affix these to the underside of the bridge. And, yes, these are available on Amazon for immediate delivery.

It is important to recognise that, in many cases, the ability to create viable and

sustainable habitat requires a commitment to short-term maintenance and longerterm adaptive management to steer the evolution of the constructed landscape towards the targeted habitat end-point. For example, establishing meadowland habitat to support bobolink and eastern meadowlark is relatively straight-forward: secure a sizable parcel of land and establish native grassland through seeding. However, maintaining the landscape as ‘meadow’ requires a commitment to annual mowing to ‘stall’ natural succession by suppressing colonization by woody vegetation. This is a perpetual commitment that requires foresight, funding, and effort.

Recovery plans have been generated for the majority of the species on the SARO list. The recovery plans are exceptionally detailed and provide excellent guidance related to the habitat requirements and dependencies of the individual species.

Support for the Implementation of SAR Recovery Initiatives

In addition to the technical information required to support the design process, the province also offers support for the implementation of recovery efforts through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program (SARSP). This program provides funding for “projects that contribute to the protection and recovery of species at risk and their habitat.”

As stated on the SARSP website, the objectives of the program are to:

• Improve the status of species at risk and their habitats by supporting stewardship and recovery actions;

• Support stewardship and multi-partner approaches to species at risk protection and recovery;

• Support community outreach, and the provision of related tools and techniques to inspire and enable people to become involved in species at risk stewardship; and,

• Address important needs and knowledge gaps relating to the protection, recovery, and management of species at risk and their habitats in Ontario by supporting scientific research.

Information related to making an application, as well as the annual application deadline is available on the SARSP website: https:// www.ontario.ca/page/species-at-riskstewardship-program.

The designed landscape presents tremendous potential to support and assist in the recovery of a range of SARO listed species, as well as creating habitat for other important species in Ontario. As ‘stewards of the landscape,’ landscape architects have an important role to play in the recovery of SAR in Ontario. Adopting the ‘every project is potential habitat’ perspective will effectively expand the extent of opportunities and inspire the imaginative integration of meaningful species-supportive habitat throughout the province.

Q&A with the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

01/ National Housing Day demonstrators in Parkdale.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

02/ A land trust study and annual report.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

03/ The Tibetan Experience in a Gentrifying Parkdale, Jane’s Walk Festival, 2016.

Organized by the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

MODERATED BY SARAH MACLEAN

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In the face of a national housing crisis, many communities across Canada are coming together to form land trusts: organizations who secure available land as housing and other community assets. The first instance of this in Toronto was the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust, and Ground’s Sarah MacLean sat down with Executive Director Joshua Barndt, Community Development Coordinator James Partanen, and architect Monica Hutton about how the trust works, and how landscape architects can align with their goal of healthy, sustainable, affordable neighbourhoods.

Sarah MacLean: Could you tell us a bit about the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust mandate and its history?

Joshua Barndt: The Parkdale Neighborhood Land Trust (PNLT) was incorporated in 2014. After years of discussions between community members, resident associations, and nonprofit organizations in the neighbourhood, all the interested parties were concerned about gentrification in the community and, in particular, how increased real estate costs and the connected development trends were leading to the loss of important community spaces and assets—and in particular the loss of affordability. Those organizations came together to look at the community land trust model. As land values go up and markets become more heated, low-profit land uses are naturally pushed out of a neighbourhood and are usually replaced by more high-profit uses. Low-profit land uses are important to communities: things like space for nonprofits such as legal clinics, food banks, and settlement agencies, and even local community-serving businesses like local stores that sell culturally specific foods, restaurants with affordable food, et cetera. But, also, affordable rental housing is a low-profit land use, as it doesn’t maximize the profit it extracts from its renters. As gentrification occurs, land values

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go up, and speculative real estate activity increases in a community. The community identified this was an issue because there was a lot of land that was not owned in a nonprofit model or something that could preserve affordability. We had very little control over that change.

We needed to address ownership and put community members and organizations in control. In 2014, an interim board was created, the land trust organization was incorporated, and the interim board had representatives from the different organizations and resident groups that had been part the original discussions. They all came together with a mandate to identify important community assets at risk of being lost due to market trends, acquire those properties, bring them into the land trust as community-owned properties, and ensure those properties were used to meet community benefits in the long term.

Our mandate right now is to acquire and own property for affordable and supportive housing and uses that relate to community economic development, under which quite a few different things are included. One

is non-profit space for community-serving agencies, another is social enterprises, and there are other uses. And then, of course, is affordable housing. The underlying mandate for the trust is creating a structure where community members are in control of the organization by way of membership. Anyone who lives or works in the community can become a member, or part of our board of directors, or elect board members—which is the decisionmaking body of the organization. So, we bring the land into community ownership, but residents who register as members have agency to collectively make decisions around how we use that land and how we operationalize our goals.

It’s differentiated from other non-profit models where the board is generally appointed, or has volunteer appointees who are either experts willing to provide some support around governance, or who have a specific expertise related to the mandate. A supportive housing organization may have people with expertise around support services, or mental health and addiction issues. But we seek to have a broad set of stakeholders

who have a place and voice on the board. Not just experts, but community members with different interests.

Myself, I’m a long-term resident in the community. I grew up here and I live here as a renter. My relationship to the work we do is that I also experience some of the issues we’re seeking to address and have a long-term commitment to the community. I participate as a resident and a staff person.

James Partanen: Our mandate is to hold land, in perpetuity, to serve the community’s needs. We do that by engaging with community members through our land trust board and PNLT’s committees to specifically create space for as rich and broad a discourse as possible around what those needs are. Currently, our community is articulating that we should maintain our resources to maximize access to low-income housing. In 15 years, maybe that problem will be solved and we’ll have had such a political impact that we’ve substantially helped de-commodify housing for all Canadians and that won’t be our community’s priority anymore and it will articulate different priorities. Right now, however, this is what our community said is important about our structure.

04/ Parkdale—High Park MPP Bhutila Karpoche, speaking at a housing rally.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

05/ National Housing Day demonstration.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

We actually have two legal organizations: the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust, and the Neighbourhood Land Trust (NLT). The Neighbourhood Land Trust is a registered charity. Its purpose is to be the interface between commoditized real estate and our community benefit ownership model. The NLT legally holds onto property to make certain land is always safe and secure from the public market and available to be used for the community benefit. The Parkdale Neighborhood Land Trust is the broad organization with a board of 15 different members with any level of governance experience whatsoever specifically meant to maximize diversity and equitable participation and articulate what the community needs, not only in terms of the use of resources, but also in how we use them. For instance, we now have 84 different properties. That’s a lot of property maintenance, upkeep, and capital work

that needs to be done. How are we going to do that in a way that maximizes add-on social benefits to our community? How do we make certain we’re doing the best job of providing equitable access to the housing we can provide, or the gardening space? Those are the types of valuesbased, community oriented questions the PLNT has, which is relayed to the NLT charity, which takes that into account as it executes its fiduciary responsibility to own and maintain these resources.

Monica Hutton: My work started aligning with the land trust as it started bringing more properties into collective stewardship. Considering the land, the existing buildings, and homes contained within those, it requires a lot of coordinated programming for both the maintenance and improvement of those buildings— what’s required to bring them into a good state of repair, but also thinking of added benefits that can come with those required improvements, like increased energy efficiency, or accessibility. A lot of my work with the trust has been making plans for those improvements and coordinating that with the governance structure.

My personal background is in architecture and urbanism. There’s a necessity with this many properties within a portfolio to look at multiple scales. On one hand, looking at particular buildings and units and the land for a given property, but also thinking about what that means within a broader, more holistic approach to how they can operate together collectively and be maintained across a larger geographic area that has its own considerations for operating at a more urban scale. That is a really key part of the work.

JB: The first property we brought into community ownership was 87 Milky Way. It was a vacant parcel of land located on a landlocked site that’s almost behind the public library. We acquired that property specifically to secure it for equity-seeking community members who wanted access to land to grow food for their own use, and then hold events about food justice and related issues. It was vacant, and a traditional developer or landowner might

Land Trust community events.

IMAGES/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

think what its highest and best use is. That’s the type of discourse most landowners look at, and that would generally equate to high density, high profit land uses. In this case, we’ve preserved the site as urban agriculture in downtown Toronto—one of the goals communicated by equity-seeking community members. The community members who were on the site before we bought it were a number of primarily refugees who moved to the neighbourhood and were part of and adult ESL program operating out of the Parkdale Library. Living in Canada as refugees with generally very low-income, people found it hard to afford organic food, and had no access to land. Most of the students were renters in high rise and other apartment buildings. So they negotiated temporary access to this land to grow food from a private owner. The private owner decided they needed to sell the property, and the land trust was invited to step in and preserve that site. When we planned for the future use of that site, we included the students in that process to develop a plan to increase its use for what they needed. We developed the site plan, as well as business plans, to redevelop this parcel and maximize its potential for growing food, and community programming related to growing food. Subsequent to that process, some of the gardeners have joined our board, and one of the lead gardeners has been a longstanding board member. People can benefit, but also contribute to the work.

The second parcel of land we acquired was a 15-unit rooming house which was for sale. Many rooming houses in the community were being sold and upscaled. In the process, many low-income folks were being pushed out, becoming homeless. So we acquired that building, in partnership with the City, to preserve the affordable rental housing for existing tenants and to ensure the units that become available over time through natural turnover continue to be available for people in the community, on a low or fixed income, who need support. The existing tenants suddenly had a landlord who wanted to make sure their rent stayed affordable, was working to make it more affordable, and was able to bring in support services through a partner agency where they were needed. We also renovated the building.

It’s an example of eviction prevention and a homelessness prevention strategy, because we’re actually intervening in a market process which often leads to people being evicted, displaced, and becoming homeless. We’re curbing that, but we’re also creating a long-term housing solution.

JP: We’ve also done a lot of communitybased research, and the results have been great. For instance, our research has contributed to the creation of the City of Toronto’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition Program (MURA). Which itself is one of the mechanisms by which social housing agencies can help to secure and preserve at-risk affordable housing and make certain it stays affordable. We have also been able to use that program as a result to further our core goals of securing affordable housing in perpetuity. Also, as a result of that community-based research, we’ve helped some of our members and tenants in Parkdale gain skills around community development and leadership, and they’ve gone on to help organize other tenants in their buildings and been able to therefore negotiate with their landlords from a position of more power, rather than almost no power.

Another concrete way we’ve been able to improve people’s lives is through our rent relief program. We had a donor come forward and contribute a nice big check to us, specifically earmarked for our rent relief program. Then we developed it, did some engagement with tenants around what a rent relief program should look like, and implemented it earlier this year. Since then, we’ve been able to make 18 disbursements averaging around $500 to tenants who need support paying their rent.

JB: And to give some context to the rent relief, it was developed in the context of COVID 19 pandemic shutdowns. And while it’s not only about that, it was obviously a moment where we recognized more tenants than normal were having economic challenges. And so, the rent relief we offer is for tenants experiencing some form of temporary economic challenge that means they’re having trouble paying the full rent, and they can disclose those challenges to us and request some support. We want

09-10/ The

to make sure there’s a transparent and collaborative relationship between us, as a landlord, and the tenants.

Sarah MacLean: How has the Parkdale Neighborhood Land Trust work influenced the shape and feel of Parkdale? What type of neighbourly interactions, new relationships, or community events have been facilitated through your work? How do you see it impacting the neighbourhood in the future as your network expands?

JB: In securing 87 Milky Way as communityowned space, we made space for people to grow food, but also where people can gather. It’s accessible space where the

Milky Way community garden. IMAGES/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

11

11/ The Tibetan Experience in a Gentrifying Parkdale, Jane’s Walk Festival, 2016.

Organized by the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

12/ A Parkdale community gathering.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

13/ A Jane’s Walk to explore proposed actions, 2016.

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

community can come together, hold events, meet each other, and move their own initiatives forward. We’re constantly losing those types of informal social spaces where people can gather. So that’s one of the things we offer. Another is, when we’re planning our work, we’re often bringing residents together to talk about the issues they’re experiencing and to identify shared goals.

SM: Regarding the Milky Way Community Garden, what role do you see communityowned public space playing in nurturing, affordable and diverse neighbourhoods? And how can landscape architects and other designers help to support community land trust initiatives?

MH: The people living in the homes and on the land that is part of the trust influence any design process, unlike in a more speculative or market-driven atmosphere. When you’re trying to identify benefits that are important to the community and tying those into the design, I think you end up with something quite different. There are a lot of great ideas that come through tenant consultation around shared public space and how the space around buildings is used. Overall, that really benefits and adds to enhancing

the design process. The land trust is very generative in thinking through what alternate design processes could look like and how different consultants and professionals get involved in projects and take a different approach to the relationship with the people living there.

JB: When the land trust owned only the garden, at that very early stage, we worked with a landscape architect to design it to become a more productive space, to go through the site plan process, and the Committee of Adjustment. We found landscape architects can support our work as we become an organization that owns 84 buildings. We increasingly need the support of landscape architects and other professionals to ensure we are able to improve our buildings and properties. But we also have power. We are purchasing a lot of services. One way we’re discovering we can use that power to benefit the community, beyond just working with great landscape architects and consultants who are going to give us good advice and support, is finding ways to use our money to support professionals who are equityseeking, who buy from local businesses, and who are supporting the training of BIPOC and other equity-seeking residents. We’ve developed a social procurement plan through which we are prioritizing companies and vendors, including landscape architectural firms, that are taking concrete actions to ensure equity-seeking people in our community are getting work in those sectors and benefiting from the investments we make. By spending money on our buildings, we can create economic benefits for people and businesses we

want to support. We want to meet more socially minded, BIPOC-owned and run social enterprise firms, or co-op firms, who share some of our values. It can be a mutual relationship.

JP: One of the main discourses for land trusts is around the commodification of land and how it makes it expensive for people to rent. We have a bunch of other de-commodified resources in our society like schools, hospitals, parks, roads, and sidewalks. It’s interesting to think about what happens if you take housing and put it into a park setting. Immediately, it starts to look less commoditized, it look less natural when you see a “for sale” sign in front of it. Landscape architects can find ways to make housing look more like a park and less like something you would sell.

SM: How can an existing public realm of streets, parks, and open spaces support neighbourhoods like Parkdale? Is there a better way to balance affordable housing needs with spacial needs by improving or even expanding the local public realm? Are there any systemic or organizational obstacles that need to be addressed beforehand, and who is best positioned to address these?

MH: It comes back to the idea of scale. There are certain things that can be considered for a particular site and the area around buildings. How can we rethink that, either to support existing tenants in a different way and make improvements that could increase accessibility to the building, and maybe breaking down some of the barriers of private space? The other thing to think about is how, as land trusts grow and bring more land into collective stewardship, the network and connections between those can be thought about as well, and how you make connections across a larger community. So, as soon as you start looking at a number of sites being aggregated, the connection points between those within the public realm, as well as the businesses they’re connecting to, and all of those neighbourhood relationships—they are the strong piece in tying those sites together. Speaking to social procurement, as well: how everything cycles through the larger network, extending

beyond the actual land trust sites, but is very much supported by it. It’s not just about the strict delineation of the land within the trust, it has a capacity to operate, influence, and be generative on a much larger scale than just those individual properties.

JB: One thing we haven’t dug into much is, in the construction industry right now, everything is very expensive. We’re trying to produce and maintain affordable housing and we don’t have unlimited money, so the way the design industry has pivoted to support very high-end, expensive approaches to improving space, is unattainable to us. We can’t participate in that. We can’t do things on the same level. We’d be interested to learn from folks in your sector about ways to improve landscape, the space between buildings, and exteriors that are mindful of the material, labour, costs, construction, and maintenance costs. If it gets too high, it takes away from the affordability and the sustainability of the community asset. We would love to improve our spaces, but we need to do so in a way that’s mindful of cost. We need all of our partners to be thinking about that, and their practices to evolve to be able to accommodate that.

MH: That’s a really key point, especially over the long term. Because the more conventional approach would be a short turnaround, and not necessarily thinking about the life of land and buildings over the long run. Tying more of the initial design activities to how it will be operated and maintained over the long term is something that isn’t thought about as in depth over the full lifecycle of material.

JB: The average private owner expects to sell the property, so there’s a time length by which an investment is reasonable or not. The land trust expects never to sell the property, so we are very cognizant about the long term challenges of operating the building, and we want to make good investments that maximize those investments.

SM: There is a common misconception that you need to spend a lot of money to do good design, which is not necessarily so. From a landscape architecture point of view, we’re a bit more poised to understand how things evolve over time because of the nature of our medium and work—plants and landscapes inevitably change.

To end, how have your interactions with the City worked, historically?

JP: We have Councillor Gord Perks here in Parkdale, who has been historically politically aligned with our mission of

empowering local residents, and has supported a bunch of our initiatives in council and worked with us closely. In fact, our second property, 26 Maynard, was acquired basically because Gord Perks put forward a private member’s motion to operate a pilot of the MURA program I mentioned earlier as research at the City level to see whether or not a multi-unit residential acquisition program made sense. So he’s been quite supportive of us in the past and that’s great.

And the City partnered with us in the transfer of the 84 residential properties from Toronto Community Housing to the land trust. So they do seem to recognize we’re a valuable part of the social housing horizon in Toronto and they do take us seriously. We have a great relationship, as well, with the housing secretariat, which is the City department specifically working to make things better for the underand marginally-housed. But the City’s bureaucracy can also get in our way at times. As a land trust, it would be great if we could have a little more flexibility than exists in the current policies. But, by and large, we consider the City on our side. The province and the federal government are, of course, different.

BIO/ SARAH MACLEAN, BA, MLA, IS A FULL MEMBER – INACTIVE OF THE OALA. SARAH RECENTLY RETURNED TO TORONTO AND IS A GROUND MAGAZINE EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER. SHE IS INTERESTED IN THE ROLE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS CAN PLAY IN PROGRESSING EQUITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.

Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

01

living cities

Green Communities Canada (whose members contributed the “Depave Paradise” article in this issue), have developed a resource that should be valuable for many OALA members and placemakers. “The Pathways to Living Cities Framework” is a collection of strategies, best practices, and case studies aimed to help people interested in building climate-resistant, sustainable, and livable green infrastructure in communities across Canada.

You can find the framework on their website at greencommunitiescanada.org

01/

IMAGE/

IMAGES/

The Pathways to Living Cities Framework artwork.

Courtesy of Green Communities Canada 02-05/ Bill 23 protest in Prince Edward County.

Victoria Taylor

activism

There have been multiple protests over both changes to the Greenbelt Plan and Bill 23 across the province, including one in Prince Edward County in front of the office of Progressive Conservative MPP and Minister of Energy Todd Smith. The protest was organized by the education/advocacy group Prince Edward County Field Naturalists, and saw municipal representatives, activists, and OALA member and frequent Ground contributor Victoria Taylor. In an Instagram post about the protest, Taylor writes, “Destroying wetlands and allowing development in Ontario’s Greenbelt is not the way to address the affordable housing issue.”

greenbelt

In December, OALA joined the growing number of people and organizations who are concerned about the fate of Ontario’s Greenbelt Plan, in the wake of recent provincial legislation. Doug Ford’s provincial government intends to give over land designated as part of the Greenbelt to housing development— farmland and natural habitats in Southern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe that have, for years, been protected by legislation as a way to preserve agriculture and important ecosystems and watersheds, and combat climate change and suburban sprawl.

OALA’s chief concerns and questions about this plan include:

• the scientific criteria and rationale for the land removal identified

• impacts on natural functions and sustainability

• impacts on finite resources and sprawl

While OALA stated in a December 2 letter the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that it appreciates efforts to tackle the ongoing housing affordability crisis in Ontario, it warns “the Association believes, in the absence of knowing the science behind the Province’s proposed changes to the Greenbelt Plan, that removal of areas from the policy area could have significant long term environmental consequences. Without this information and while other housing and development options exist, including urban infill options, we cannot support the proposed changes and loss of land in the protected Greenbelt area.”

OALA hopes to be provided with the necessary missing information it outlined, and to have a continuing, healthy and productive dialogue with the provincial government.

housing

In related news, OALA has also provided advocacy concerning provincial legislation called the “More Homes Built Faster Act,” or Bill 23, a housing bill which aims to amend the “Municipal Act,” the “City of Toronto Act,” the “Conservation Authorities Act,” “The Planning Act,” and many more, in the name of fast-tracking new housing developments.

The first area of concern identified in a November 15 OALA letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing is the removal site plan control from any building with fewer than 10 units. The concern being this amendment weakens design excellence and contributes to a reduction in quality of life, health and safety, and environmental sustainability.

Also of concern to the Association is the bill’s stripping of municipalities’ responsibility for parkland dedication, the timing and location of these green spaces, and leaving it in developers’ hands. Reducing Conservation Authorities’ role in preserving natural habitats and important watersheds is also something OALA worries will limit our ability to foster resilience in the face of climate change and the associated devastating climate events like flooding.

The letter adds, “our members remain concerned Bill 23, as currently proposed, will have consequences which threaten the important matters of health, safety, and well-being of our communities, our environment, and our future.”

equity resources

In the hopes of promoting diversity, equity, and understanding, Ground is sharing resources for supporting, encouraging, and celebrating racial justice in the landscape architecture field. Here is one selection.

“How To: do no harm,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2022 Residency: www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/87138/ how-to-do-no-harm

“‘How To: do no harm’ is an online publication produced as a final synthesis of ideas explored during the Canadian Centre for Architecture annual “How To” residency in summer 2022. The residency took place over an intensive three-week period, both remote and in Montreal, and brought together an international group of participants working and studying in fields related to architecture, landscape architecture, and design. The publication takes the form of a fictional diary, tracing a possible (and relatable) career trajectory of an architect (or landscape architect) from student to late-career professional. The diary explores the ‘world of hurt’ in the architecture profession—touching on issues, both overt and insidious, related to working conditions, environmental impacts, racism, sexism, classism, and so on. The weaving together of these complex relationships through a first person account allows for these topics, which can be often overwhelming, to be easily digested in a relatable and accessible way. The publication asks important, difficult questions, and provokes honest self-reflection for anyone working in the fields of architecture and landscape architecture, while also offering possibilities for agency and repair.”

— SARAH MACLEAN, OALA, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND GROUND MAGAZINE EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER.

If you’d like to go deeper, the CSLA is providing a Diversity & Equity Resources Page on their website: www.csal-aapc.ca/ mission-areas/diversity-and-equity

06

books

Innate Terrain, edited by Alissa North, OALA, is a new book published December 2022 by the University of Toronto Press. The book “addresses the varied perceptions of Canada’s natural terrain, framing the discussion in the context of landscapes designed by Canadian landscape architects. This edited collection draws on contemporary works to theorize a distinct approach practiced by Canadian landscape architects from across the country.”

A host of landscape architect practitioners and scholars, including Indigenous people or those working within Indigenous communities, contribute a series of essays about how the distinct terrain found across the country is inextricably linked to landscape architecture and related practices in Canada.

You can find a copy at utorontopress.ca

07

snow day

On Friday February 3, 2023, from 8:00 a.m. To 5:00 p.m, the annual OALA ski day fundraiser returns!

It’s not just skiing, which is why we are calling it Family Snow Day at the Alpine Ski Club in Collingwood.

Bring your family, friends, and fellow landscape architects for a choice of winter activities such as skiing and snowboarding (including lessons), ice skating, guided or self-guided snowshoeing, a ski race, and support the Universities of Guelph and Toronto.

You don’t even have to drive: ride with your colleagues and friends on the UNILOCK School Bus!

Check oala.ca/events for registration details.

06/ Innate Terrain

IMAGE/ Alissa North, OALA, Courtesy of the University of Toronto Press

07/ Family Snow & Ski Day

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the OALA

08/ Richard Stamper (left) and Aina Budrevics (Right).

IMAGE/ Courtesy of the OALA

08

teamWe are excited for OALA Executive Director Aina Budrevics, who went on maternity leave as of December 9. Congratulations!

We will miss you while you’re on leave, but we know you’ll be spending valuable time with your new arrival. Aina plans to return in January 2024.

We are also saying hello to Richard Stamper, who will be fulfilling the role of OALA Administrator (part-time) in Aina’s absence. Richard has contributed to small businesses in financial, marketing, and senior management roles for over thirty years across several industries, including sports licensing and merchandising, apparel, and member-based associations. In his most recent role as Executive Director of Technology Accreditation Canada, Richard lead the organization’s growth from eight accredited programs to one hundred seventy-five in his fiveplus years. Richard values family time, an active lifestyle, and the many cultural festivals Toronto offers.

If you would like to reach out to Richard you can reach him at the following e-mail: OALAAdmin@oala.ca

donation

The work and effort OALA volunteers bring to the association is immeasurable. In this day and age, time is a rare commodity and your contribution is greatly appreciated.

In recognition of the 2022 OALA volunteer efforts, the Association has made a $2,000. donation to a group that originated as a cohort of Master of Landscape Architecture students at the University of Guelph. The group formed One Bench One Tree—where a single native tree is planted, physically distanced two metres from the bench, as a token of appreciation to the front-line workers during COVID-19.

Additionally, we thought what better way to formally recognize OALA volunteers’ efforts than on National Volunteer Day, April 20, 2023? With that in mind, stay tuned for Volunteer Appreciation Day in April, knowing that One Bench One Tree is recognized because you are paying it forward, and acknowledgment of your contribution is on its way.

new members

Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new members to the Association:

Waiyee Chou*

Asterisk (*) denotes Full Members without the use of professional seal.

Let the sun be your partner in powering play! PlaySoleil™ lights the playground at night through solar panels that charge throughout the day. By casting light downwards onto equipment, this security solution not only deters vandalism and other destructive behaviors, but also minimizes light pollution. PlaySoleil™ can easily be installed across new and existing play structures, making it a convenient, affordable option for your next project.

Functionality: PlaySoleil™ is fully solar powered. Recent advancements in LED and battery technology allow us to deliver this product that will, when fully charged, shine for hours. Charging time is typically two hours of direct sunlight. Parks and recreation directors tell us that when play equipment is well-maintained and well-lit, vandalism and other destructive behaviors are discouraged.

Installation: PlaySoleil™’s unmatched convenience and affordability starts with its quick and easy installation. PlaySoleil™ can be easily installed on new or existing play structures because there is no need to pre-drill light posts. Simply remove the current post cap, put the light in its place, and attach with the included self-tapping screws. PlaySoleil™ is made of clear plastic roughly 5.5” in diameter and 6” tall, and its stair-step design enables PlaySoleil™ to fit 3.5”, 4” or 5” (8.89cm, 10.16cm, 12.7cm) diameter posts.

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Playworld Systems, Inc. is a PlayPower, Inc. company © 2022 PlayPower, Inc. All rights reserved.

Woodlands Park is haunted by absence. Located in Hamilton’s emerging Barton Village neighbourhood, near the city’s heavy industry, today’s Woodlands is a windswept open space: the City levelled it after the ’46 Stelco strike. When a commemorative placemaking installation came to Woodlands this spring, the old park and its stories had been largely forgotten. The multimedia installation Woodlands Park: Ghost Landscape commemorates the lost park, exploring the meanings of public space and who controls it.

Hamiltonians knew the old Woodlands as “the People’s Park” for its labour gatherings, but it started life as a treed, Victorian park, with a cast-iron fountain at its heart. Later, an Edwardian bandstand hosted eminent speakers, and crowds gathered there to celebrate VE-Day. Workers organized and assembled here. It was the site of a brutal crackdown on people gathered for International Workers’ Day festivities on May

Day of 1932— a day which lives on as a notorious instance of violence against the labour movement. And it was an important gathering place for workers during the landmark 81-day Stelco strike.

When the Parks Board removed the trees, fountain, and bandstand, contemporaries used photography to document the destruction. Ghost Landscape incorporates these and other haunting archival images on signs and banners, with text from the period. Oral histories— sampled in the sound installation, together with music and ambient nature sounds—recall the rich life of the old

Woodlands, and what was lost just before May Day, 1947. (Listen, or find descriptions of sound and visuals, at GhostLandscape.ca.)

Ghost Landscape speaks to themes of change, renewal, and the mutability of our public spaces over time. One hopeful example: the planned Woodlands Spray Pad would mean the return of a central water feature, seventy-five years later.

01, 03-05/ Woodlands Park, Hamilton, Ghost Landscapes exhibit.

IMAGES/ Sarah Sheehan 02/ Woodlands Park, Hamilton.

IMAGE/ Jeff Tessier

BIO/ SARAH SHEEHAN IS A WRITER, HERITAGE ADVOCATE, AND THE PROJECT LEAD ON WOODLANDS PARK: GHOST LANDSCAPE, A TEMPORARY PROJECT MADE POSSIBLE BY THE CITY OF HAMILTON’S PLACEMAKING GRANT PILOT PROGRAM WITH SUPPORT FROM THE PATRICK J. MCNALLY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION. ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL SUPPORT GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY THE WARD 3 HAMILTON OFFICE AND USW LOCAL 1005.

TEXT BY SARAH SHEEHAN

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