Toronto’s Official Plan states that our residential neighbourhoods are to remain stable. The City has recently changed the zoning by-law in a way that is allowing developers to rapidly build ‘mega-houses’ and condominiums on residential streets.

The old zoning allowed a single house to be split horizontally into a two-dwelling ‘duplex’—typically, to allow a rental unit in the basement. Vertically split duplexes were not allowed.

The new zoning allows vertical duplexes—vertically split houses.
The City says they changed the zoning to allow for shared staircases. But developers are having a field day with the new permission. They buy a house, then apply to demolish it and build a very large vertical duplex having the appearance and size of two large semi-attached houses. They then condominiumize the vertical duplex and market each unit as a separate house.

Come to the Community Consultation Meeting on New Vertical Duplex Permissions and the impact on our residential neighbourhoods with Councillor Mike Layton, City Planning Manager Lynda Macdonald, City Planner Kirk Hatcher, and a representative from Zoning

This is the only Community Consultation that has been scheduled about this important issue. Please attend.

Date: Tuesday, July 14^th
Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Place: 248 Ossington Avenue (Ossington and Dundas) – West Neighbourhood House

The Parkdale Good Food Market provides high quality, affordable fruits and vegetables. The Market focuses on building food security as well as creating connections in the community.  Some prepared food, kids activities, and health oriented information and education will also be provided. It is a great opportunity to spend time in the park and get to know your neighbours!

The market will be running every Wednesday from 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm,
July 8th – September 16th, in Masaryk-Cowan Park (220 Cowan Ave).

Get more information here.

How do we measure Parkdale’s wellbeing?

Attend the Parkdale Wellbeing Indicator Development Workshop 
This project is a community-based planning initiative to develop a long-term neighbourhood plan for Parkdale. The project foregrounds participatory planning process and resident engagement for visioning and shaping the future of Parkdale that we want to create together. The project is organizing a series of workshops to discuss challenges, assets, and strategies for building a healthy neighbourhood and community shared wealth. The first workshop is on developing neighbourhood wellbeing indicators.

Measuring what matters to our wellbeing
How do we measure progress of our neighbourhood and local economy? GDP is often used as a standard measure of economic activities, but it is limited because it fails to attend to complex social and cultural factors that equally matter to our wellbeing and local economy. Then, how can we know how well we are living? How do we define ‘progress’? What is important to our decent working lives? These are some of the questions that we will explore in this workshop.
Please join the workshop!

For more information, please visit the project website or register here:
Date: June 27th, Saturday
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Place: PARC 2nd Floor, 1499 Queen Street West

Snacks and refreshments will be provided!

*This session is open for anyone who lives and works in Parkdale!

A group of six small arts organizations (TMAC) are in crisis over taking possession of a 3-story space designed for their needs. This project is at 36 Lisgar St. (new Edge Condos) right behind Canada Post Station C at Queen & Lisgar. The project was supported by the City under  Section 37 where the developer (UrbanCorp) received an additional 6-stories increase in density in return for community benefits. After waiting 4 years it now looks like these groups may not be able to take possession of their space.
You can read more in a Toronto Star article.

Two meetings are scheduled.

TMAC Info Session
Monday, June 22, 6 p.m.
Bento Miso Collaborative Workspace
862 Richmond St. W. at Strachan

AND

City Planning Consulation Meeting for 36 Lisgar St
Thursday, June 25, 6:30 p.m.
(1303 Queen St. W. (Parkdale Public Library )

Cowan Avenue closes off from King St. south to Springhurst Ave. to traffic from 8 AM to 3 PM so people can stroll the sidewalks and avenue for this annual Parkdale street sale of goods used, new, antique, vintage, household, yard, and whatchamacallits.

With the spring rainy season here, now is the time to flood-proof your home.

Rain barrels are a smart way to reduce your risk of basement flooding. Plus save money on your water bill by using the harvested rain water to keep your lawn and garden green with chlorine-free water.

Make the water-wise choice and purchase a rain barrel from Greenest City. All money raised will support their operational costs, as well as some of the programming costs for  Urban Agriculture, Community Engagement and Education initiatives.

You can pre-order your $55 rain barrel at www.RainBarrel.ca/GreenestCity

Date: Monday, June 1^st
Time: 3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Place: 50 Wabash Ave., Sorauren Farmers’ Market

The Pan Am / Parapan Am Games are coming!

Roncesvalles-Macdonell Residents Association (RMRA) is holding a public meeting so you can hear more about how you will be impacted by the Games. Representative from TO2015 will provide tips, tools and information to help residents and local businesses get around during the Games.

The Parkdale / High Park area is located along the race routes for marathon, triathlon, cycling and race walk, which will take place in July and August. For detailed information on temporary Games-time transportation changes, as well as the race route maps, click here.

Date: Tuesday, May 26^th
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Place: 128 Fern Ave., Fern Avenue Public School – Gym

The Horticultural Societies of Parkdale and Toronto are having their annual Plant Fair. The “Green Elephant” sale, herbs and hard-to-get perennials from select GTA nurseries and member’s own gardens—all at the best prices in town! Bring your questions. COME EARLY!
Click here for details.

Date: Saturday, May 23^rd
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Place: 78 Seaforth Ave., Parkdale Public School

Saturday May 9th  – from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm  –  from Dufferin to Roncesvalles

Shop Locally for great deals, while browsing Parkdale’s galleries, restaurants and shops.

Also happening ALL this month is Contact 2015 Photography Festival in select stores along Queen.

The PRA is conducting a survey of local residents. We want to know what tenants and home-owners think about their neighbourhood, how we can all work together to continue to make Parkdale one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the GTA.

Your responses will be anonymous. The survey results will be used as a planning tool.

Your feedback is important to us. Please take a few minutes to answer our questions.
TAKE THE SURVEY

Deadline for submissions is May 5, 2015.