CWNA - Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association
  • Home
  • About CWNA
    • Land Acknowledgement
    • What We Do / Mission
    • Our Members
    • Board of Directors
    • Contact Us
  • Development
  • Placemaking
  • Heritage
  • Safety
  • Join Us
  • News & Resources
    • Church Wellesley Update
    • Board Meeting Minutes
    • Community Directory
    • Planning Documents
  • Map
  • Contact Us

Church Wellesley Update

News from the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association
Subscribe to Church Wellesley updates

Barbara Hall Park improvements

2/23/2024

 
 Barbara Hall Park will be undergoing major improvements in the near future.  The City is collaborating with the Church Wellesley community to develop a new vision and Master Plan.  The objectives of the park vision and Master Plan are to enhance the park’s function for everyday use and, as a central gathering space for the City’s LGBTQ2S+ community, a space capable of accommodating passive and active uses, special events, moments of reflection, and to improve park maintenance and safety. 

Phase 1 of Community Engagement started in May 2023. During this phase, the City worked with residents and stakeholders to define a renewed overall vision for the park, including a series of Design Principles and Big Moves which will guide the development of design options in Phase 2. This section, reproduced verbatim from the City of Toronto website,  is organized as follows:
    • Finalized Drivers of Change
    • Draft Vision Statement
    • Draft Guiding Principles
    • Draft Big Moves
    • Community Engagement Meetings and Events 

Finalized Drivers of Change
These are the opportunities and challenges driving the need for a change to the park’s design.

A place with diverse users and needs
Barbara Hall Park has diverse users with varied needs. In many ways, the space is expected to be “everything to everyone”: a space for the everyday, while also being a place for reflection, mourning and celebration, and where people come to access the services of the 519 Community Centre. In the past, the park accommodated all of these uses quite well, but this has not been the case more recently. There is a lack of cohesion between the different park elements, and the park struggles to accommodate the huge number of users who visit during the annual Green Space Festival.

A green heart in need of improvement
The park is the green heart of the Church-Wellesley Village – a highly prized oasis of green within the community that is also its central gathering place. The raised lawn, garden beds, and canopy trees are all highly valued by nearby residents. However, the park lacks an appropriate range of seating, is not properly lit, and the pathways are not wide enough to accommodate heavy use. The programmed spaces present maintenance challenges that the community would like improved. The park has a lack of flat surfaces which make it difficult to program.

A place for reflection and grief
As the home of two significant LGBTQ2S+ memorials, the Toronto AIDS Memorial and the Trans Memorial, Barbara Hall Park is an important community space for grief, reflection, and activism. There is a strong desire to maintain these memorials as places where people can grieve or reflect quietly. However, there is a feeling that these memorials are not properly or clearly identified or maintained and they are sometimes vandalized. In addition, the AIDS Memorial does not resonate strongly with HIV-positive youth, who feel it should also inspire hope and celebrate the lives of those people who are currently living with HIV.

A place where people sometimes feel unsafe
The lack of clear sightlines throughout the park and the presence of dark corners present safety challenges and often attract undesirable activities, like drug use and drug dealing. Particular areas of the park, including the area to the south of the 519 and the northeast corner of the park, lack good lighting and/or programming and can feel particularly unsafe.

Draft Vision Statement
A vision statement is a short description of the ideal future park. It inspires everyone towards a common understanding of the project’s overall goals. The draft vision for Barbara Hall park is:

A revitalized Barbara Hall Park will be an inclusive and welcoming space that is the green focal point of the City’s 2SLGBTQ+ community in the Church-Wellesley Village. As home of the AIDS and Trans Memorials, the park will offer calm and quiet space for reflection and mourning of those lost, while also celebrating the history and resilience of the 2SLGBTQ+ community through heritage interpretation, art and culture. The park design will ensure it is a place where everyone in the surrounding community feels welcome and comfortable while centering needs of the most vulnerable. Barbara Hall Park will be a highly accessible, functional and cohesive space that is easy to program and is animated throughout the year with community-focused programming for people of all ages, ethnicities, abilities, and incomes. It will be a place to gather, celebrate, and heal.

Draft Guiding Principles
Guiding principles are high-level directions that reflect the community’s most important values and ideas for how the park should look and feel. They help guide how the park should be designed so that the vision statement can be achieved. The draft guiding principles for Barbara Hall Park are:
  • Balance: The park design should balance the community need for a welcoming green oasis and community events.
  • Animate: The park design should improve the existing park’s programming and provide opportunities for additional daily animation.
  • Functional: The park design should enhance the park’s circulation and provide a variety of spaces for seating and passive use.
  • Durable: The park design should incorporate site furnishings, surface materials, plantings, lighting and waste management that can be easily and routinely maintained.
  • Accessible: The park design should surpass an AODA-level of accessibility.
  • Equitable: The park design should promote equity and support the existing and future community outreach/care programs that exist there.
  • Celebrate: The park design should celebrate 2SLGBTQ+ communities.
  • Commemorate: The park design should continue to be a place to reflect on and mourn the lives that have been lost to HIV while also celebrating people living with HIV today.

Draft Big Moves
Big moves are the main priorities for the design of the park. They are specific directions to the design team that flow from the vision and principles and help to make them a reality. In no particular order, the draft big moves for Barbara Hall Park are:
  • Add a small cafe/retail space to animate the park.
  • Add washroom facilities.
  • Add site furnishings that will contribute to the park’s animation (i.e. more seating, games tables, fitness station).
  • Remove the stage to improve sightlines and increase flexibility.
  • Improve the prominence and accessibility of both Memorials.
  • Enhance the AIDS Memorial.
  • Incorporate new elements in the park that celebrate people living with HIV.
  • Create a sense of arrival in front of the Trans Memorial through improved paving and landscaping.
  • Incorporate heritage interpretation to tell the story of the park and the 2SLGBTQ+ community in Toronto.
  • Improve the Dogs Off-Leash Area.  

In the fall of 2023, further consultations with the HIV/AIDS Community and the Trans Community took place to further work out how the respective memorials should be enhanced in the park redesign.  

A Phase I Summary Report is expected to be released very soon. 


The timeline for the project, subject to change:
  • Spring 2024: Hire a design team
  • Summer 2024: Phase 2 Community Engagement: Exploring Design Options 
  • Fall 2024: Phase 3 Community Engagement: Setting the Direction (final design option)
For more information and to sign up for updates, see the City's web page on Barbara Hall Park Improvements.

Comments are closed.
    Subscribe to Church Wellesley Updates

Join CWNA Today!   -   Subscribe to email updates
Home      Development      Placemaking     Heritage     Safety      Map     CW Update
  • Home
  • About CWNA
    • Land Acknowledgement
    • What We Do / Mission
    • Our Members
    • Board of Directors
    • Contact Us
  • Development
  • Placemaking
  • Heritage
  • Safety
  • Join Us
  • News & Resources
    • Church Wellesley Update
    • Board Meeting Minutes
    • Community Directory
    • Planning Documents
  • Map
  • Contact Us