1) Somewhere in the last few months, the Ontario Science Centre’s 2022/23 annual report was released. It shows that the OSC had attendance of 670,556 in that period.
2) 2022/23 is interesting in that it was a recovery year, people resuming routines following the winding down of COVID restrictions. The closest analogue is 2019/20, which lost its final weeks to COVID closures. Attendance in that year was 766,487. So 2022/23 was only off 13%.
3) BUT there are other factors - for example, in 2022/23 the OSC saw a major decrease in school attendance due to bussing issues…
In 2015, for $30M, the Province rebuilt 7.5 acres of Ontario Place to create Trillium Park.
In 2023, the Province plans to spend $300M - $600M to build an underground parking lot for a private spa operator, ostensibly to realize 12 acres of public space.
This is the West Island. Approximately 14 acres. It will be entirely bulldozed and built atop by @ThermeCanada’s spa. Entirely.
It could instead be renewed to a fantastic standard for less than @fordnation would spend on the parking garage that will facilitate its destruction.
…and instead of a complex public landscape with lake-facing and interior spaces, exposed & sheltered, paths & berms, able to be wandered and explored in many ways, the replacement will be a (prettily-rendered) peripheral trail. Lake on one side. Giant private spa on the other.
1) Recently, on several consecutive weekends, @ThermeCanada ran full-page colour ads in Toronto newspapers promoting their Ontario Place proposal. Let’s look at what those ads showed, and whey they did not.
2) Conveniently, @ThermeCanada’s website provides a plan view of the West Island, which makes it possible to pinpoint the location of the views in those ads, and consider them in relation to the entirety of the proposed design.
3) First, we should identify the part of @ThermeCanada’s redeveloped West Island that would not be accessible to the public. This would be the indoor private spa, its outdoor patios and pools, and the green buffer between the pay-to-play space and the public path.
1) Something that stood out to me re: opposition to 60 units of modular housing at 175 Cummer Avenue.
This is Willowdale and Cummer:
2) The left image outlines the site of the proposed modular housing, on the north side of the Willowdale Manor property. The right image shows the proposed plan overlaid on the aerial.
3) This is the single-issue Voices of Willowdale website, that was created just to voice opposition to the proposed modular housing project.
Dear @OntarioPlanners,
You may want to reacquaint yourself with the Statement of Values and Code of Practice that you require planners to study as part of earning accreditation.
Statement of Values:
To respect and integrate the needs of future generations.
Members recognize that their work has cumulative and long-term implications. When addressing short-term needs, members acknowledge the future needs of people, other species and their environments...
Professional Code of Practice: 1.0 The Planner's Responsibility to the Public Interest
Members have a primary responsibility to define and serve the interests of the public. This requires the use of theories and techniques of planning that inform and structure debate...