East York Councillor Janet Davis defended her desire for a city master plan on improvements to Taylor Creek Park after one of her constituents spoke against it recently.
The councillor, who has the park in her ward, wants a report on how a plan could be developed detailing future work in the park, and which city department or other agency is responsible for fixing each type of problem there.
Davis has asked other councillors to back her idea, and received the Parks and Environment Committee’s support, but not before Brenda MacDonald asked members to reject "this poorly-conceived proposal."
MacDonald suggested Davis’s proposal was being rushed without public consultation into the final city council meeting of the term next week, suggesting "unusual urgency."
The main feature of the park is Taylor-Massey Creek, a part of the Don River that MacDonald said is "vulnerable to small-town thinking."
Why label the section of the creek through the park – from the Don’s eastern branch to Victoria Park Avenue - as more important or deserving than the others, she asked.
Though much of it is quite constricted or underground, the creek runs south from Hwy. 401, passing through Warden Woods, Farlinger Ravine and other green spaces in three Scarborough wards before reaching the park.
MacDonald said councillors from those other wards should also be involved in Davis’s project.
Much work is planned or proposed along the creek, and a geomorphic study looking at erosion of its banks is underway.
Davis said a tunnel tank to contain storm runoff is planned under the creek in the park, and a study for that project is coming soon.
A volunteer group called The Taylor Massey Project has expressed frustration, however, that neither the city nor the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has approved the package of projects, Reach by Reach, it proposed five years ago to improve the creek’s health.
Davis acknowledged the desire to look at improving the entire Don Watershed or Taylor-Massey sub-watershed, but said she chose the section in Taylor Creek Park so people, despite "all the overlapping jurisdictions" could understand who is accountable for what.
Such a plan could be a model for other parks, she said.
Davis said a recent walk she took through the park with conservationists and other park users found many concerns – broken benches and signs, blocked culverts, erosion on pathways, strange smells in the creek, and runoff leaching from old landfill sites – that show "there hasn’t been sufficient attention paid to the park over the years."
A master plan to fix Taylor Creek Park’s problems over the next decade will not change the priorities of other studies in the watershed, she added, saying the TMP’s proposals are "still all on the table."
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