Community and Cultural Master Plan for the Dupont|Bloor West Neighbourhood
Start-up November 2002

Dupont|Bloor neighbourhood Masterplan began as a urban intervention art project to physically, socially, environmentally and culturally improve the Dupont|Lansdowne|Bloor West area of Toronto

A series of general conferences with community leaders, stakeholders, residents and local business people were hosted beginning February 2003, followed by ideas sessions with various professional, arts and cultural practitioners. The meetings provided information that helped act as the foundation for generating improvement ideas and incorporated suggestions from residents: local business; schools; the community center; visual artists; landscape architects; developers; urban planners; designers. This research was used as the basis for developing a neighbourhood master plan that is a catalyst for vitalizing the area.

Background

The Lansdowne and Dupont inner-city fringe area of Toronto is densely populated, yet it is under-supported with the means to face its multiple, entrenched neighbourhood issues. As a result, there are pressures and stress with which the neighbourhood has long-standing difficulty.

The Lansdowne / Dupont / Bloor West area of Toronto:

• A distinct lack of enhancing, positive physical features to the neighbourhood amidst a pronounced abundance of trouble spots.
• Large, entrenched pockets of dysfunctional residents crowded into low-rent apartment buildings.
• An illicit drug and sex trade is pronounced
• No “real” recreational walking routes or desirable end destinations for walks
• A recently established homeless shelter is further expanding to offer additional transitional housing with resistance from some of the community
• Laneways misused and littered with rubbish
• Vehicle congestion, safety and traffic pattern issues
• With 50% more children than average Toronto neighborhoods, families also have issues about safety, especially since children have been hit by cars.
• Few and poorly maintained neighbourhood parks
• The area also has little usable green space and few residential trees
• Its physical layout is not favorable to building a sense of community (two railway lines, for example, divide the neighborhood)
• Affordable housing for Individuals of all cultures and backgrounds
• A widely varying housing stock, that includes poorly maintained high-rise apartments, which are not conducive to community building
• A concentration of individuals living in poverty or who are among the working poor
• Families of new Canadians of various nationalities
• For many individuals, English is a second language
• Underused industrial buildings offer affordable rent for many artist, photographers and filmmakers.
• Available tracts of land have attracted development offers to build high density units with little benefit or integration into the neighbourhood

The masterplan lists changes to work towards that will help support a healthy neighbourhood.

• A connected walking system through the neighbourhood that pulls it together as a “place”
• A plan for the Wallace Emerson/Galleria development to become a major link in a walking system that connects the park to a greened Lappin Avenue, onto and across the railway lines, to an improved Campbell Street Park.
• Utilize the large green spaces currently edging the railway lines
• Examining creative use possibilities for the long-empty TTC barns on Lansdowne Avenue
• Enact inventive ways to calm traffic
• Revitalize Wallace Emerson Park as a park for everyone.
• Ensure that new development improves and relates positively to the area.
• Develop new approaches to paving, road construction, heat in the area etc…
• Work towards making the area green, clean, safe and civil.

also

• Community police officers active in reducing violence, drugs, prostitution and out-reaching to residents within a multi-cultural context.
• Support and pressure for the people who are engaged in crime to help them to change their lives.
• Problem housing inspected and forced to improve.
• Clean, bright, safe streets laneways and parks

an initative of
Dyan Marie with DIG IN: Dupont Improvement Group: Improving the Neighbourhood and Christy Ossington Neighbourhood Center
With the founding support and/or participation of
Then Councilor Mario Silva’s Office Ward 18 City of Toronto with Ana Bailao - now Mario Silva Member of Parliament for Davenport
Dupont Area residential, business and cultural community
The Ontario Arts Council (Artist in the Community/Workplace, Community Arts Program)