PNLT & GC Milky Way Garden Fundraiser

Since its establishment in 2012 and the incorporation in 2014, Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust has been working on its organizational capacity building initiative, partnership development and business planning.

This year 2016 is going to be a critical milestone for PNLT, as currently, PNLT in collaboration with Greenest City is acquiring the very first land, the Milky Way Garden, in Parkdale, thanks to a generous offer from local residents. The story behind this garden has been featured in the recent Toronto Star article.

For this first acquisition, PNLT and GC have launched the fundraising campaign!

 

Parkdale Wellbeing Indicators

As part of the Parkdale Community Economic Development (PCED) Planning project, we developed Parkdale Neighbourhood Wellbeing Indicators.

How do we know the local economy serves community needs and enhances community wellbeing? Conventional economic measurements such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are limited for this purpose as they tend to focus on economic growth. They also fail to consider complex social, cultural and ecological aspects that matter equally to the health of the economy and people’s daily life. This gap prompted us to develop a set of neighbourhood-based indicators to assess what matters to Parkdale as a starting point of community visioning for the PCED Planning project.

We conducted 8 separate workshops from May to June 2015. We engaged diverse community members – including PARC members, tenants, newcomers, immigrants, agency staff, cooperative members, residents in general and steering committee members – with a total of 97 participants. Based on the extensive community engagement and research, the 7 domains of Parkdale Neighbourhood Wellbeing Indicators (PNWI) were developed as shown above.

Each domain includes a set of indicators. Below is an example of Housing & Land Use.

A full list of indicators can be downloaded from here.

**Special thanks to Catalyst Centre and Sally Miller for workshop design, as well as to Daniel Liadsky for finalizing the draft indicators and identifying data compatibility and data collection strategies.

Parkdale Community Forum: Report launch!

On February 27, the Parkdale Community Economic Development (PCED) Planning project hosted the Parkdale Community Forum at the Parkdale Public Library. The PCED project has completed the first stage of the project – one-year participatory planning and community visioning. The first stage has generated a range of promising directions and ideas. At this forum, over 100 community members came together to learn about outcomes from the project and promising directions for the future of Parkdale.

Throughout the planning process, community members identified the four overarching values for Parkdale – affordability, diversity, inclusion, and equity. But then, Parkdale is changing. Due to the current pattern of neighbourhood change, what is at stake is these  Parkdale’s values. How can we protect affordability, diversity and inclusion while also promoting equitable development for shared wealth generation and decent work? This is one of the central questions for the PCED planning project.

To that end, we have identified a range of “directions” based on the inputs from the participatory planning process and research. There are seven key areas for community action and policy option:

1. Social Infrastructure
2. Affordable housing and land use
3. Decent work and inclusive economic opportunities
4. Health and food security
5. Community financing
6. Participatory local democracy
7. Cultural development

The Parkdale Community Forum was held to report back promising directions as well as to kick off action planning process for implementation. The summary report can be downloaded from here!

 

Following photos are some highlights of the community forum.

 

The PCED project has been supported by Atkinson Foundation’s Decent Work fund.

Parkdale Community Forum – Report Launch

As a part of Parkdale Community Economic Development Planing project, we are organizing a community forum to launch a planning study report based on the extensive one year participatory planning and community visioning!

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/community-forum-parkdale-ced-planning-research-report-launch-tickets-19324081849

Visions to Actions Planning workshop underway

PCED Planning project is hosting a series of participatory planning workshops for creating a Parkdale Neighbourhood Plan. The first workshop was held on November 23rd Monday night at the Bonar Parkdale.

We are discussing concrete strategies and action items for the following six areas: Housing and Land Use; Decent Work and Economic Opportunities; Health and Food Security; Participatory Democracy; and Cultural Development.

 

 

There are two other dates/times for this week.

• November 23 Monday 6:00-8:30 at Bonar Parkdale (250 Dunn Ave)

• November 26 Thursday 2:00-4:30 at Bonar Parkdale (250 Dunn Ave)

• November 28 Saturday 1:30-4:00 at Parkdale Public Library Auditorium

You can sign up from here for the workshops.

Please join the participatory planning process to create a vision for Parkdale’s future together!

 

 

 

From Visions to Actions for building community wealth in Parkdale

Please join the next participatory planning workshop by the PCED project to develop a Parkdale Neighbourhood Plan!

We are finishing an extensive process of community needs and assets mapping workshops and consultation meetings for Parkdale Community Economic Development Planning project (PCED). Building on the framework from the Parkdale indicator development and results from needs and assets workshops, PCED planning project is moving into the next stage of planning study and consultation in the phase 1. The next engagement workshop focuses on how we can move  “from visions to actions” to build community wealth in Parkdale.

The community visioning process through indicator development and needs/assets mapping workshops enabled us to collaboratively find key values, issues and priorities in Parkdale. They range from affordable housing and decent work to accessibility and local democracy. These constitute essential areas of Parkdale’s wellbeing. At the same time, community engagement consultations along with ongoing research activities have surfaced a number of interesting ideas and possible action directions in different areas. For example, at the PCED steering committee meeting, we had an initial discussion of several “big ideas” that we would like to pursue.

At the next stage of community consultations, we would like to build on the previous works, and discuss concrete goals and concrete action ideas for Parkdale, which  would be very important to identify how we can move from collective visions that we have created so far to community actions that we can take together.

Please come out to discuss and share your ideas! Also learn more about what is going on in Parkdale. There are three dates/times for this round of workshop.

• November 23 Monday 6:00-8:30 at Bonar Parkdale (250 Dunn Ave)

• November 26 Thursday 2:00-4:30 at Bonar Parkdale (250 Dunn Ave)

• November 28 Saturday 1:30-4:00 at Parkdale Public Library Auditorium

Please RSVP for the date/time that you would like to attend via online.

Join the PNLT’s first AGM on October 28

It has been five years since the initial idea of building a community land trust for Parkdale in 2010 (see Beyond Bread and Butter report). Incorporated in 2014, Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust is hosting the very first Annual General Meeting as follows!

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Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust 1st AGM
Date: October 28 Wednesday
Time: 6:30-9:30pm
Location: Bonar Parkdale (250 Dunn Ave)
Registration: RSVP online
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Please join this historic moment! PNLT is one of the first CLTs in Toronto. At this AGM, we not only share our latest updates and draft bylaws, but also members will elect community representative board of directors. This is of critical importance to PNLT because a community land trust is a community-controlled organization through its unique governance model.

The AGM is one such opportunity for participatory decision-making about how PNLT should run in the community interests. In order to vote at this AGM, you must first become a member of PNLT by registering before October 21st 2015. Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in Parkdale. Sign up online here. Even if you are not a member, you can still join the AGM.