Cabbagetown seating issue still not benched by BIA

By Eric Morse —

The great Cabbagetown bench brouhaha continues to roil through the month of July.

On July 16, a meeting took place convened by the Old Cabbagetown Business Improvement Area (OCBIA) in response to a petition signed by forty BIA members and Cabbagetown residents. The petition protested the concept of public seating at the intersections of Parliament with Spruce, Winchester and Carlton streets, as reported last issue.

The day before the meeting, the BIA circulated an open letter to members and residents, which stressed the long-term nature of the plans and proposed an experimental project at the corner of Carlton and Parliament in tandem with the new TD Bank building construction on the northeast corner.

The letter declares, “This boulevard is currently being torn up by construction for the new commercial building. When the landscaping starts, we’ll help with trees, seats, interlocking brick and a place to put public art. The seating will be designed so that people can’t sleep on it.” It continues, “This is a pilot project. If it works, we’ll all enjoy these facilities, if a problem develops, we’ll try to fix it. If we can’t fix the problem, we’ll remove the seats.”

The two-hour-plus meeting—attended by about 40 people and at times highly rancorous in nature—led to no conclusion. The terms of engagement for the meeting itself were challenged at the outset by several participants including BIA members who claimed that they had been misled into believing that the meeting would be a private one with BIA management and who objected to the presence of the media—a position expressly rejected by the BIA.

Most of the participants at the meeting were vehemently opposed to the idea of public seating at the corners in question. The manner in which the BIA had (or had not) conducted public consultations on the issue was also vigorously assailed.

There was, and continues to be, fundamental disagreement as to what type of behaviour is actually happening on the corners in question. Const. Peter Cullingford, community relations officer at 51 Division, told the meeting that intense review of the activity at the Winchester/Parliament corner revealed nothing that could justify police intervention—a position severely challenged by others present at the meeting, and by residents’ unofficial spokesperson Tracy Plant.

Plant objects to the “undesirable groups who will use those spaces through the night and into the morning” and to the “public consumption of alcohol, drugs and drug dealing, verbal abuse, harassment and violence.”

At the meeting, Nick Javor, national vice-president of Tim Horton’s—whose franchise occupies the southeast corner of Parliament and Winchester streets—quoted a corporate policy opposing any public seating in front of a Tim Horton’s outlet. Luciano of Luciano’s No-Frills at the north corner of Parliament and Spruce expressed concern about the seating proposition, but noted that the Christmas tree lot that occupies the corner in winter contributes to the ambience of the intersection and suggested that a farmers’ market in the warm months might also work out well.

The BIA’s position on the revitalization plan, as expressed by executive director Doug Fisher in the open letter of July 15, at the July 16 meeting, and in Fisher’s subsequent interview with Metro Morning, is that none of the proposals contained in the revitalization plan are cast in concrete as to when or whether they will be implemented, nor would any be implemented without prior consultation with stakeholders before going ahead. Fisher has further stated that public seating is not and never has been a priority element of the plan (although the Carlton/Parliament construction provides a window for a pilot project) and that several elements including beautification are currently viewed as higher priorities.

As to the proposed experiment at Carlton and Parliament, Fisher has stated: “ If they work, we’ll keep them. If they don’t, we’ll take them out.”

Executive members of the Donvale-Cabbagetown Residents’ Association were present at the July 16 meeting but did not speak. A source in the DVCRA Board, which has an interlocking representation arrangement with the OCBIA Board, has revealed that the DVCRA is about to issue a statement to the effect that it wishes to cooperate with the BIA in seeking a solution to the problem and that it expects the BIA to respect its promise that the Carlton/Parliament seating proposal will indeed be experimental in nature.