A Parkdale Heritage · 6 September 2006, 17:35 by Walt Jarsky
A Report to the Parkdale Neighbourhood Council
OUR STORY
The PNC had its first meeting in January of this year. We filled the board room of the Health Centre in an atmosphere of cautious optimism. Recognizing that forming a council as we envisioned would take some time we formed a Steward Group to take care of the process of a credible development, and a Youth Services Group that would respond to the urgent feelings in the meeting about these needs in our community. The latter group met once and did not continue; its concerns were absorbed into the work of the Steward Group.
The Steward Group (SG) continued to reach out to potential new organizational members, and “reach in” amongst ourselves while cooperating in addressing both issues in our community, and systems of communication and cooperation already in place (or misplaced!) in our community.
Some of us, namely Rick Eagan, Walt Jarsky, Maureen Fair, prepared for the Feb 20 conference on community development, with both the network of multi-service community centres, and Communitas, a catalyst centre for effective civic engagement. At that conference Walt did a workshop on neighbourhood councils with representatives from neighbourhood councils in Regent Park, Thorncliffe Park, and Parkdale.
In the spring, we sponsored a public meeting in the Parkdale Library on the work of the Riverdale Community Development Institute, and explored the possibilities of this model taking root in our neighbourhood. We continued with that work in the SG until June, and then we formed a committee to develop this further during the summer. Rick, and Victor Willis of Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre (PARC), met regularly with Joanne Fisher of RCDI, and Terry Lee, the director of the Ralph Thornton Centre in Riverdale (and eventually Shawn Conway, a Parkdale neighbour, and new director of the Thornton Centre) to explore the development of this collaboration. While always entertaining the possibility of developing a CD centre in Parkdale, we decided to field two students in Parkdale this autumn under the administration of RCDI since they already had in place the infrastructure of collaboration with the schools, and the system of orientating, supporting and evaluating the students.
We decided the Parkdale students would begin their orientation with the Riverdale-placed students in the Autumn, and see if we could develop a Parkdale-based weekly seminar similar to the Riverdale seminar that would both support and train the students, and be an opportunity for learning and collaboration of existing staff and activists in Parkdale that were committed to appropriate forms of community development for our time.
We decided that each of the two students would have specific projects: one would be to help develop the Parkdale council, and the second was not yet decided upon. The development of 194 Dowling (recently expropriated by the City for affordable housing), the future of our lakeshore in Parkdale, the future recreation centre on Wabash Avenue, service for our youth were mentioned as possibilities.
ISSUES
Our Steward Group has been tracking issues in our community: the developments on our waterfront, the expropriation of 194 Dowling Ave, the intransigence of the management of the Masyryk Cowan Recreation Centre to respond to community interest in forming an advisory board for the centre, the development of the Wabash Rec Centre, the closing of the Revue Cinema and the effort to form a community arts centre there, and the emerging gentrification of our community. While observing the playing out of these issues we have identified certain dynamics common to some of these issues..
DYNAMICS
One dynamic that the proposed parking lot to accommodate the Palais Royale redevelopment, the way in which the expropriation was conducted, and the refusal of the Cowan Rec Centre management to form a credible advisory board, for example, have in common is a strong feeling that we really do not “have a say” in what goes on in our community. In making this observation we are as much aware of the persons and practices that are opposed to such collaboration, as our own inabilities as a community to make sure we are heard. We are aware of both our history, economy, and social dynamics that contribute to this inability, at the same time as we take pride in our recent accomplishments in each of these issues. The fact is that members of our community have exposed the back-room dealings surrounding the parking lot, and we are developing a consensus in our community that the Rec Centre will respond to our community, and that 194 Dowling will be developed for affordable housing in such a way that will both build unity in our community, and affirm certain values that need to be further developed.
This pertains to our life with vulnerable persons. When we began our attempts to develop a credible neighbourhood council we identified key dynamics at work in our community. We observed that while there may be many vulnerable people in our community, we are not sufficiently developed as a community to say that we affirm or celebrate our life with vulnerable persons. Considering our present state of community development the most we can say is that we tolerate our life with vulnerable persons.
We identified as one of the goals of the neighbourhood council was to develop both the institutions and the community consensus to affirm and celebrate our life with vulnerable persons.
The development of 194 Dowling and helping the Cowan Rec Centre to respond better to the needs of our community will be opportunities to address the dynamics at work in our community, and develop them in such a way that will serve the long term vitality of our community.
A PARKDALE HERITAGE
We believe that an appreciation of the heritage of our community can guide us in addressing both our problems and the dynamics of our community. We understand that our heritage includes the wealth of building styles in our community and our old factories. We recognize the valuable sites among us: High Park, rare species habitats within walking distance. We recognize areas as valuable parts of our heritage: our neighbourhood, and waterfront. And finally we recognize the intangible aspects of our heritage, like our community stories, history, traditional beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours, and policies like consensual planning, for example. In reflecting on our intangible heritage we realize that we are in a time of profound cultural transition and cannot naively rely on or assume a shared body of beliefs or values in our community or communities.
Meanwhile we undertake these reflections while trying to respond proactively to the needs of our community. We appreciate that many of our neighbours are very upset with the City pushing a parking lot on our community in our lakeshore precisely because people sense their heritage being stolen, squandered and misused. Likewise, we recognize that the prospect of building affordable or supportive housing into the expropriated Dowling building challenges our community because we have not yet developed the consensus in our community to commit and celebrate our life with vulnerable persons. We recognize that we cannot take for granted an intangible, traditional heritage that will guide us in planning the best future use of this building, and that we must work at developing this consensus.
During the summer we have talked about the future of Dowling, and the values currently at work in our community. We agree that our community, our city, and our very humanity can be enhanced by our community’s commitment to vulnerable persons, and in our recognition of the human rights of vulnerable persons. We recognize that we need to do some work on our intangible heritage.
We have begun to explore what would be the “optimal constitution” of our neighbourhood while at the same time recognizing the limits of this kind of expression. We recognize the need to be mindful of the capacities of our neighbourood. While affirming the human rights of all individuals, we are engaged in a conversation exploring the capacities of our community, and the broader question of our community planning our common life with vulnerable persons.
In this context we can understand principles as assertions that provide a foundation for social and political thought, conversation and conduct. It is in this context that we are trying to form a Parkdale Neighbourhood Council, as a practical community institution to keep alive valuable principles already at work in our community, and to develop them further in response to the needs of our community.
Our community, like many places on the globe, faces the challenges of articulating principles that will guide our conduct in conversation with peoples of diverse religions, languages, cultures, histories, classes, and generations. The task is daunting but not impossible. We are confident in our sense of our place, and the trustworthy community groups we have developed. We bring a confident curiosity to the stranger among us and look forward to their contribution to our problems and needs. Indeed, some might say the feeling in our Steward Group has gone from the “cautious optimism” of our first meeting to hopeful enthusiasm of our most recent meeting in September.
Concretely these broader philosophical questions bump into each other when we try to come to terms with the future of the expropriated building on Dowling, how the Masaryk-Cowan Rec Centre will be more responsive to our community, and how our waterfront heritage will be enjoyed in the future. How will the faith groups, labour unions, Tibetans, South Asians, and the vulnerable, for example, guide us in these discussions?
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