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

10 11 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.

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

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.

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.

01/ 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

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Cambodian

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Skydragon the

IMAGE/ 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.

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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

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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.

09 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.

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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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.

03 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 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.