News & Events

On January 10^th 2013, we hosted a community presentation by a group of students from University of Toronto who conducted a research project to investigate experiences of other Community Land Trusts as well as innovative participatory planning practices from elsewhere. The central question the group tackled is, “how can we structure a CLT to foster democratic decision-making, embody equity and ensure involvement and participation from a broad coalition of community members [in Parkdale-High Park area]?”

After providing a broader context of Parkdale and the CLT initiative, the group started their presentation by illustrating a case study of a CLT from Los Angeles, T.R.U.S.T. South LA and highlighting key components of the CLT governance – membership; organizational values & principles; board of directors structure; and (modified) consensus decision-making.

This brief introduction of the South LA case was very informative for participants, because it has been a general challenge of CLT movement in the Canadian context where there is no national (and regional) network of CLTs like US and UK to share experience and expertise of other CLTs.

Based on experiences from other cities and interviews with key informants from Parkdale, the group offered key recommendations for making a CLT governance model in Parkdale democratic and equitable. While more details can be found in the full report, some key points are: the importance of value/mission statement that would guide CLT’s activities and decision-making processes; making the CLT concept concrete and exciting when engaging community members and wider allies; and the accessibility of CLT information in various formats for outreach.

Among many recommendations as well as challenges identified in the study, it is recommended to adopt a ‘1/3 governance model’ for the CLT in Parkdale.  But it has become clear that because of unique neighbourhood diversity and inclusive goals of the CLT in Parkdale, the simple transfer of the model may not be sufficient. The group mentioned that when they interviewed with representatives from other CLTs and asked about how they attempt to ensure the democratic and equitable representation, they answered that a simple 1/3 governance model is sufficient, because those neigbourhood contexts are far less diverse than Parkdale, and tend to be low-income neighbourhoods that have experienced a long period of disinvestment or that have been becoming a frontier of gentrification; in most cases, identifying beneficiaries and stakeholders of CLTs is not so much complicated.

Further, in general, the operation of CLTs requires expertise in various fields such as community development, financing, real estate, project management, municipal governance and law. This is essential but also necessitates a difficult balancing act between democratic representation by community members and expertise of “skilled members”.

The next step for us is, of course, to make the best use of this research and momentum to guide the ongoing conversation about the CLT board development while putting the recommendations into action.

*Great thanks to a wonderful research team of Amy Bath, Daniel Girard, Sean Major, Sheraz Khan, and Stephanie Ireland from University of Toronto Planning Program, and to their project supervisors: Katharine Rankin and Charles Levkoe from University of Toronto, and Leigh McGrath from Urban Strategies, and Rob Howarth from Toronto Neighbourhood Centre; and also to Metcalf Foundation for support of CLT initiative.

A Community Land Trust is an innovative model that establishes community ownership of land and local democratic control over that land for the benefit of local community. As Parkdale has faced a number of local challenges related to land and its use – declining affordability, food insecurity, lack of community space, and limited community control over neighbourhood change, Parkdale People’s Economy / Parkdale Food Network have been exploring a possibility of establishing a CLT in Parkdale High-Park area.

A CLT can also be a vehicle to promote democratic planning decision-making over local land use because of its unique 1/3 governance model to ensure local representation from divere community stakeholders and local control. But ‘the local’ does not always mean ‘democratic’, and thus crucial questions arise: How can we ensure democratic governance and participatory processes that fairly represent and balance the diverse and conflicting interests of residents in Parkdale-High-Park area?

To tackle the complex question, a group of graduate students from University of Toronto’s Planning Program undertook a research project exploring experiences of other Community Land Trusts as well as innovative participatory planning practices from elsewhere. In this event, the group will present their findings on how other CLTs are governed in practice and offer recommendations for building an equitable and sustainable governance model for Parkdale-High-Park area. The community presentation is scheduled as follows:

—
Date: January 10th (Thursday)
Time: 6pm – 7:30pm
Location: PARC (1499 Queen Street West)
RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.ca/event/5023429212
—

After the presentation by the group of students, we hope to have community discussion to think  about how recommended strategies would work in Parkdale-High Park area.

A while ago, we presented how land is used in South Parkdale. This time is North Parkdale. How land is used in North Parkdale shows a very interesting contract to its South Parkdale.

Unlike South Parkdale, property sizes are generally a lot smaller; land use is predominantly low-rise single house. This may not come as a surprise. What is interesting, however, is that all 14 TCH stand-alone properties in Ward 14 concentrate – and scattered around – in North Parkdale (highlighted as red), while South Parkdale has concentration of high-rise TCH buildings. Further, there are obviously four abandoned – boarded-up – houses sitting in the north (as highlighted as yellow). Additionally, there are many places of worship (highlighted as purple).

To far lesser extent than South Parkdale, there are still dozens of rooming/boarding homes, although they tend to concentrate close to Queen Street West.

And here is a Parkdale wide map.

These are the last maps from the first phase of our community mapping exercise that largely explored changes in residential dynamics in Parkdale. We are planning the next phase of mapping now.

*Great thanks  to Sean Major, Daniel Girad, Stephanie Ireland, and Derek Bundle for conducting field surveys and providing research support, and to City’s Affordable Housing Office and Gord Perks Office for providing resources and advice.

In mid-October, the CLT working group organized an information session for potential members for the first ‘transitional’ board of directors of Parkdale Community Land Trust.

A Community Land Trust is a membership-based organization, as it represents community diversity through members and board of directors elected by them. Currently, however, we are not there yet to base our organizational development on membership. At the same time, we understand that there are a number of opportunities we would hope to seize. Therefore, we have decided to begin by setting up a ‘transitional’ board of directors until we shift to a membership-model. This way gives us time (we plan for three years) to establish a strong governance model, policies and memberships before turning it over to a membership-based board. But also this approach provides us with a platform to formalize our activities as well as helps us ready to seize any future opportunities that may emerge suddenly.

With this context in mind, the information session was organized and we invited 12 community organizations representing diverse Parkdale residents. Also technical expertise and knowledge necessary for establishing a CLT was another component in choosing diverse organizations.

The information session centred around explaining what is CLT and why in Parkdale, and what opportunities exist currently, and what are expectations and involvement of board members (presentation PowerPoint here).

We will be announcing soon the first members of a transitional board of directors!

This map is a snapshot of how land is used in South Parkdale, while this is still work-in-progress.

As we have seen, South Parkdale has a large concentration of rooming/boarding houses, hence they occupy a quite portion of land in the south. Public land – largely TCH properties – in the south have larger property sizes as they tend to be high density multi-units apartments. In contrast, in the north, although the map will be release shortly, there are 17 TCH stand-alone single home properties, 14 of which had been proposed for sale.

We have also identified 4 abandoned and vacant lands, while we expect there could be more.