Peggy Nash for a Canada Day BBQ in High Park from 12-2 on Friday July 1st

...from the Parkdale High-Park Member of Parliaments office

Join Parkdale High-Park Member of Parliament Peggy Nash for a Canada Day
BBQ in High Park from 12-2 on Friday July 1st.

There will be performances, community information tables and activities for all ages.
We will be located in the north end of the park, in Picnic Area 1 near the
Bloor Street entrance, close to High Park subway.

 




 

10:32pm Councillor Sarah Doucette requests public meeting with residents and park staff to view park plans

 

Vine Parkette Playground equipment public meeting coming up

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="attend the meeting have, have some input, have some fun "][/caption]

Councillor Sarah Doucette has just twittered  about a public meeting to review the park play equipment plans.

The blog will post the date when it gets the info

 

addition post outlining the issue with some good comments click here

[caption id="attachment_7958" align="aligncenter" width="444" caption="A photo from the last changeover to the current toddler equip, local residents spread the chips."][/caption]

Community contributions recognized inside Toronto article link

and some outtakes

full article here ERIN HATFIELD reporter for insidetoronto

• |


• Jun 20, 2011 - 8:04 AM

Ten community volunteers and five new businesses were recognized recently by Member of the Provincial Parliament for Parkdale-High Park Cheri DiNovo.

DiNovo recognized the honourees for their contributions in making the riding of Parkdale-High Park a better place, she said.

Volunteers honoured included: John Bowker, the owner of She Said Boom, on Roncesvalles Avenue, and a driving force behind the Roncesvalles Renewed project, and Tony Cauch, from the Roncesvalles Business Improvement Area, and a member of the board at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Also honoured at the ceremony was: Linda Clement and Martin Lennox from the Junction BIA; Gyongi Hamori, a volunteer in the Roma community; Garry and Sandra Melville, from the Warren Park Rate Payers Association; Tamira Sawatzky, a tenant advocate for Minto residents; Joanna Shepherd Zuk, the founder and co-leader of the Toronto West - Jane chapter of La Leche League Canada; Steve McNally, from the Bloor West Residents Association, who spearheaded the campaign for Annette Street Bike lane; and Gib Goodfellow, of the West Toronto Junction Historical Society.




 

Vine parkette Baseball diamond hits the dust today

well right now at 11:49am

 

 

But whats to replace it their seemingly is a lot of conversation over the current plans to place a new Jr play equipment centre in the area near where the the coming down baseball diamond is but little interest in getting involved as to what is going to be done.

Is the parkette to lose it wonderful green space?

 

Update 1:21 pm June 20th

A very good comment by reader John has been posted in the comments section of this post outlining the emails between the councilors office and himself, Click here to go to his comment.

Update 2 about the same time.

This author also wrote an email to the  councilor about the situation, asking for a public meeting about what can be done not what is being done.

The councilors office is correct there was public opinion fed into the process though an in park meeting - yet even then there was concern about the second phase.

But no matter that public forum was held coming up on over 4 years ago, times change in the Junction ..so so much since then...

is it all to hard to have another look before something is placed there for the next 20 years?

 

[caption id="attachment_7944" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The trucks the men"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_7945" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Pulling the concrete"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_7946" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="the foundations "][/caption]

Nice to see the drums lined up....

 

 

 

 

Universal Drum Reconditioning Company. 110 Glen Scarlett Rd. Toronto, ON M6N 1P4

 

Project Neutral Launch Saturday, June 18th 10 am - 11:15 am. in the Community Room, Annette Public Library, 145 Annette St.

[caption id="attachment_7931" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Click on photo to go to the site."][/caption]

 

The Junction has been selected as a pilot neighbourhood.
Please join us for the official launch of Project Neutral in the Junction.

Green 13 is partnering with Project Neutral and their objective is to create the first urban carbon neutral neighbourhood in Canada.

 

Bikeway Network - 2011 Update 1st consideration June 23 2011

 

This item will be considered by Public Works and Infrastructure Committee on June 23, 2011. It will be considered by City Council on July 12, 2011, subject to the actions of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee.

The Acting General Manager, Transportation Services, recommends that:

 

1.         City Council endorse the direction and implementation of the Mayor's Bike Plan comprising a 100 km network of off-street bike trails and completion of critical on-street bike lane connections where the community supports them....

and where they do not impede traffic flow.

 

two areas where  they are in consideration in the greater wards 11,12,13,14 and greater Junction are...

 

3.         City Council approve modifications to the bicycle lanes on Dupont Street at the approach to the intersection with Lansdowne Avenue, to move the beginning of bicycle lanes from a point 30 metres east of Lansdowne Avenue to a point 70 metres west of Lansdowne Avenue.

 

4.         City Council provide direction regarding the installation of approved bicycle lanes on Bloor Street West, from Mill Road to Beamish Drive.

full report PDF link Bikeway Network - 2011 Update.pdf

 

Background Information

(June 9, 2011) Report and Appendices 1 to 7 from the Acting General Manager, Transportation Services, on Bikeway Network - 2011 Update (http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2011/pw/bgrd/backgroundfile-38906.pdf)

Source: Toronto City Clerk at www.toronto.ca/council via Sarah Doucette @DoucetteWard13

 

 

American retailer Target adds The Junction to its lineup

 

Well the Junction gets a Target - a store that can cause  more than a few of the Junction people to drive to Buffalo to shop.

This author is wondering just what effect this will have on the store-scape  in the area, will it ring up customers from the local Walmart, Futureshop and the other big box stores in the area?

 

Will it create a greater retail diverse store class on the local Dundas St. West strip?

One area it will definitively have development effect on in the reworking of 43 Junction Road.

 

Toronto location – at a site being developed by Riocan Real Estate Investment Trust at the corner of Weston and St. Clair– was announced at the real estate company’s annual general meeting Wednesday.

....other interesting stories about this development.

 

Why Target's Canada Move Matters link

Sizing up which REITs will win from Target’s advance

 

Toronto Star Article - first urban carbon neutral neighbourhood

The Junction’s launch is the June18th at Annette Public Library, 145 Annette St., at 10 a.m.

Riverdale, Junction vie to become world’s first urban carbon neutral neighbourhood

David RiderUrban Affairs Bureau Chief - article link

If this was a reality show—The Biggest Carbon Loser, say — The Junction and Riverdale would be scheming against each other to claim neighbourhood supremacy.

Instead, they are trying, separately but ultimately together, to become the first carbon neutral urban communities on earth — green beacons in the struggle to prevent a global warming catastrophe.

It’s heady stuff — but first both communities must organize free trade coffee and other details for their Project Neutral launches next Saturday.

“We could get 40 people or we could get 200 and neither would surprise me,” says Sean Drygas, a leader of the east-end effort involving homes and businesses bounded by The Danforth and Pape, Logan and Langley Aves.

Rita Bijons has high hopes for the west, bounded by Annette St., Clendenan Ave., Runnymede Rd. and the CPR tracks, because her arrival on doorsteps with launch invitations already has residents thinking.

“Some are saying ‘My kids are terrible, they never turn off lights.’”

Project Neutral is the brainchild of Karen Nasmith, an urban planner who wants to broaden thegreenhouse gas focus from new green communities to drafty old houses and the lifestyles of those in them.

Research done by Nasmith and Project Neutral co-founder Julie Dzerowicz turned up rural communities — including Ashton Hayes, England, and Eden Mills, Ont. — trying to reduce their measurable carbon dioxide output to the level they absorb or offset. But there are no urban neighbourhoods, not anywhere.

“The irony is that most of us live in the mature neighbourhoods where the built environment represents at least 25 per cent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Nasmith says. “So there’s huge potential.”

Project Neutral was launched with $10,400 from Toronto’s Live Green program. Fifteen neighbourhoods formally applied and the two were chosen.

After the launch, teams of 10 to 15 will survey homes and businesses to develop a baseline of emissions, develop a carbon footprint and identify reduction opportunities. In the fall they’ll have summits with experts offering strategies and solutions.

Then comes the next phase — an emissions reduction plan, with private and public sector partners, and implementation and the tracking of results.

The Riverdale team is comprised of a few groups that Nasmith suggested band together. Drygas, an executive with Maple Leaf Foods, says he’s eager to learn.

“We’re only talking about getting so that our emissions are stable, not reducing them. We have to do even better than neutral as a global civilization,” he says. “Anything the community sets its mind to is possible. I have enough faith in humanity that, when push comes to shove, civilization will step up.”

He envisions solar panels on slopes along the Don Valley Parkway, group shares in a wind turbine and maybe collective use of an electric or hybrid car from one of the auto share services.

The Junction group has an organizational head start because it is rooted in Green 13, a grassroots environmental group in Ward 13.

“Many of us have in our own homes made behaviour changes, or retrofitted, so a chance to come together as a community is a very hopeful thing, a very exciting thing,” says Bijons, a retired kindergarten teacher.

“I’m grabbed at my heart by climate change. I feel a fierce need to advocate for all those young lives I was privileged to be in touch with all those years.”

On a café patio, she and volunteer Japjeev (Jap) Bhasin rhyme off ideas ranging from caulking windows to homeowner loans that can be repaid with savings from reduced energy bills. Galvanizing neighbourhoods of roughly 1,000 households is expected to make going green more affordable through bulk purchasing.

The 350 citizens of Eden Mills near Guelph managed to shrink their overall carbon footprint by more than 13 per cent in three years, says resident Charles Simon. Half is from planting 30,000 trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, and half from conservation and green energy sources.

Mass tree-planting will be tough in Toronto, he says, but Eden Mills has no public transportation, while city living offers many alternatives to fume-spewing cars.

Simon is telling the Toronto teams to keep control in the hands of volunteers and, most importantly, keep it fun.

“It’s how you keep the enthusiasm up. We have meals together, and concerts, and they become fundraisers. And no finger pointing or preaching. That doesn’t help anybody.”

The Riverdale effort launches June 18 at Frankland Community Centre, 816 Logan Ave., at noon. The Junction’s launch is the same day at Annette Public Library, 145 Annette St., at 10 a.m.

The Star will periodically track the progress of both neighbourhoods