Community groups finding collaboration a great way to strengthen neighbourhoods
Toronto neighbourhood associations are finding rewards in reaching across borders with the common purpose of solving urban issues.
Tara Walton
/ Toronto Star
Order this photo
Gathering on the West Toronto Rail Path, from left, Bruce Gavin
Ward, Liz Sutherland, Donna Cowan and Suhail Barot got together to
develop a road safety program.
Donna Cowan was
appalled at the anger in the streets she witnessed when she started
commuting on her electric bicycle a couple of summers ago.
“It wasn’t car against bike only, it was car against car, bike against bike, walker against bike, everywhere,” she said.
So Cowan did what
she’s grown accustomed to doing since the neighbourhood association she
leads, DIGIN, launched a little more than a decade ago: she reached out
to other local groups.
More and more
neighbourhood associations like DIGIN — which is committed to the
cultural, social, environmental and economic vitalization of the Bloor
Street West neighbourhood around Bloordale — are breaking down
boundaries and working together to strengthen their areas, Cowan said.
She believes collaboration is a must if neighbourhood associations want
to get anything done.
“Your community
doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Just because you have a border to your group
doesn’t mean you cross the street and nothing’s happening,” she said.
On Sunday, Cowan,
representing DIGIN, met Liz Sutherland of Ward 15 Cycle Toronto; her
Ward 18 counterpart, Suhail Barot; and Bruce Gavin Ward, from Friends of
West Toronto Rail Path, to work on a street safety initiative aimed at
boosting civility and respect among all people who use the road.
People need to come together to improve an area, she said.
DIGIN has had its
successes. It was the group’s idea to launch the BIG on Bloor Festival, a
bi-annual street festival aimed at getting people in the neighbourhood
talking about how to develop their stretch of Bloor.
“It brought together
not only community residents’ associations but also social service
agencies, the Bloordale Village BIA (Business Improvement Area), the
Bloorcourt BIA, councillors, provincial and federal elected officials.
From it, people are still talking; other collaborations are still going
on. It was quite fruitful,” she said.
Many community groups that neighbour DIGIN subscribe to her group’s email list to keep up to date, Cowan said.
Tara Walton/Toronto Star
From left to right, Liz Sutherland, Donna Cowan, Bruce Gavin Ward
and Suhail Barot pose for a photo Sunday on Dupont St. near the Toronto
Railpath.
“When next-door
associations have information, they share it. For example, our
neighbourhood is notorious for having bad developers. We’ve talked with
other groups to share information so you know what tactics (certain
developers) are going to use on you, that sort of thing.”
New development is
often a catalyst for community groups coming together, said Sue Dexter, a
member of the Harbord Village Residents Association board. Harbord
Village, she said, regularly collaborates with Grange Community
Association and The Annex Residents Association, among many others.
“I think there are
enough issues in common that we do cross each other’s boundaries and get
bound up in each other’s work,” Dexter said. “In a sense, we’re riding
shotgun with each other and helping each other out as best we can.
Harbord Village, for example, is a delegate to the Huron-Sussex
neighbourhood revisioning.”
Dexter said Harbord
Village has collaborated with other groups for at least a decade now,
but the collaborations are happening more often lately.
“We’re starting to
think of our own selves and our interests in a different way, because we
see ourselves as part of a bigger picture. It’s no longer a one-off, in
a sense. It’s a bigger unit.”
The change in thinking
could be part of a resurgence in initiatives led by neighbourhood
residents. In September, Paul Bain, a project manager in the city’s
planning department, told the Star he has observed a “renaissance” of resident-led initiatives sprouting in neighbourhoods across Toronto.
“People have
understood that there’s an opportunity to go in and do things in their
community, and not just sit back and wait for the city to do it all,”
Bain said.
Ed Hore, co-chair of
the York Quay Neighbourhood Association, said it’s been helpful to have
the support of other groups as the YQNA deals with the issue of the
island airport.
“We want a whole bunch
of groups together on this, because we don’t want to be a whole bunch
of parties all squabbling with each other.”
So much more can be
accomplished by working together and capitalizing on one another’s
strengths, said Tony Bolla, who is both a board member of the Regal
Heights Village BIA and the Toronto Association of Business Improvement
Areas.
Bolla, who also
founded a community website building business, said the Internet
facilitates increased collaboration. Communities across the province
have contacted him asking for help to build a website of their own.
The Danforth East
Community Association has also spread its wings outside of Toronto
through the association’s pop-up shop project, which aims to revitalize
main streets by moving temporary stores into empty storefronts.
The project has so far
proven successful — the commercial vacancy rate on Danforth East has
decreased from 17 per cent to nine per cent — and the team has shared
information with communities within the city as well as Oshawa, Bruce
County and New Tecumseth, said Gay Stephenson, one of the project’s
leads.
“The pop-up shop
toolkit is available for any community to use for free and we can offer a
workshop to help them get started,” Stephenson said in an email to the
Star Sunday.
“We began sharing it
on Twitter last week, and it's been downloaded 81 times. And the City of
Toronto is very keen on supporting the spread of the pop-up project
through combining work with BIAs and residents associations.”
With files from Rachel Mendleson