MPP Glen Murray meets with residents of Cabbagetown in a community planning roundtable held at the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre March 24. MPP Glen Murray meets with residents of Cabbagetown in a community planning roundtable held at the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre March 24.

A curiously low-profile multi-level community consultation and planning process that has been underway in Toronto Centre for the past year or so made a stop in Cabbagetown on March 24.

The brainchild of Toronto Centre MPP Glen Murray, the initiative is a partnership with ward 27 and 28 councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam and Pam McConnell, and—according to the program’s website—also involves Federal MP Bob Rae and ward 30 councillor Adam Vaughan. It is an attempt to define the riding’s neighbourhoods and develop a “what we need and where we want to go” planning structure that crosses all lines of jurisdiction.

The March 24 meeting was not the usual full-house, raucous, and probably confrontational single-issue town hall meeting. Instead, it was oddly contemplative, short on pronouncements, long on discussion, reminiscent of corporate brainstorming gatherings—and largely derived from Murray’s community consultative experiences when he was mayor of Winnipeg.

A group of about 40 people, many of them community activists from different areas of interest (heritage, energy, green space) divided up into four tables moderated by Murray, McConnell and a crew of volunteers.

The groups were tasked with identifying community and government assets in the riding, pinpointing opportunities for leveraging community assets, resources and government investments, exploring how current community plans and initiatives can work together to cut through the “silo” syndrome among levels of government and within the same level, and bringing together community members, non-profit groups and government officials to identify priorities for Cabbagetown.

Per Murray, the provincial government alone has over $1.2 billion invested in the area—but in bits and pieces across dozens of projects funded by many disparate agencies. Only by keeping track of what investments are being made where, and by what levels of government, Murray notes, can the community hope to influence what—and through which agencies—future services are delivered.

Since the end of February, planning meetings have been held in Corktown and Distillery District, Regent Park, St. James Town, Cabbagetown, and St. Lawrence. The list of participating Ward 27 neighbourhoods is still being defined, but Murray told The Bulletin that meetings are envisioned for Church/Wellesley, Cloverhill-Bay, Yorkville, Moss Park and Moore Park/Rosedale, with some potential additions.

Prior to each session, Murray’s team tried to define each neighbourhood and its needs, challenges and assets via posting two surveys online. Even though the surveys are still taking responses, the results have already developed remarkable portraits and profiles of each neighbourhood.

Based on survey inputs, Murray’s team distilled six topics for the two-hour Cabbagetown session: heritage issues, homelessness and mental health, energy, health and seniors, education, and “other.”

The process is somewhat inchoate, and outcomes are hard to guess amid the highly-charged civic and provincial political atmosphere in Toronto these days. If nothing else when all is said and done, the project will have succeeded in compiling a remarkable database of needs, aspirations, community organizations and resources in the areas it touches.

One participant said, “We don’t know where it’s going but it’s the sort of opportunity you don’t want to pass up.” And for once, nobody is screaming at each other.

For more information, visit www.torontocentreplan.org.