| why wabash
Need
Health and Fitness
Arts & Culture
TDSB Joint Ventures Not Working
Beautification and Safety
For Youth
We've Worked Hard For It
A Stronger, Healthier, More Vibrant Neighbourhood
Need
• In 1994 City Council approved a recreational needs study that showed our ward was underserved compared to other parts of the city and required new recreational facilities.
• In November 1995, the city’s Neighbourhoods Committee listed a recreation facility for this neighbourhood as the No. 2 priority across the old City of Toronto. This recreation centre was to be built in conjunction with the new Sorauren Park. (The #1 priority was St. Jamestown, which is now built.)
• More than 1,000 residents were consulted for a mid-1990s plan for new services and facilities for the recreation centre. Report adopted by City Council.
• Ward 14 (population 54,000, with the majority renters) has no indoor public pool owned and operated by City of Toronto Parks and Recreation.
Health and Fitness
• Widespread concern over lack of recreational opportunities for kids due to budget cutbacks at schools.
• A huge population of kids, aging boomers and seniors in this neighbourhood needing readily accessible recreation and fitness programming.
• Long-term health and fitness investment will eventually reduce costs for health care services.
Arts & Culture
• The community vision for the Wabash Community Centre calls for a facility that will foster arts and culture
• The neighbourhood has a high population of artists and musicians who support the development of a "hub" for developing and encouraging talent
• The City of Toronto has identified arts and culture as key to its future prosperity ("Imagine a Toronto" report, July 2006). The Wabash Community Centre would be a model neighbourhood facility serving the needs of residents and the long-term goals of the City
TDSB Joint Ventures Not Working
• The existing policy of joint recreational facilities owned by the Toronto District School Board but operated by the city’s Parks and Recreation department is not working.
• Parks and Rec has little control over the facilities and cannot always get the programming it wants, meaning the investment is wasted (e.g. Parkdale pool closed throughout fall 2003, TDSB unable to fix it, all Parks and Rec aquatic programs cancelled).
• Senior Parks and Rec officials say the TDSB deal "is not cutting it" after many years of trying to make it work. A more cost-effective long-term investment is city-owned and operated recreation centres.
Beautification & Safety
• The Wabash site, bought by the city for the purposes of building a rec centre, sits derelict in the heart of a neighbourhood that is revitalizing itself.
• The graffiti-covered old factory with smashed windows is a dangerous eye-sore, adjacent to a well-loved and popular park filled with kids and families.
• "So, as a Council, let us leave Toronto a cleaner place. Let us commit to beautifying our neighbourhood parks. Is there any reason why a city of Toronto's wealth should not have clean, beautifully landscaped parks?"
—Mayor David Miller, inaugural address, Dec. 2, 2003
• "Let us work together, and with city employees, and with business improvement associations, and with all members of the community, to clean up the litter and graffiti that contribute to the sense of decay in the city."
—Mayor David Miller, inaugural address, Dec. 2, 2003
• "Members of Council, let us move forward into the new term with respect for the people of Toronto, with confidence in ourselves, and with the resolve to leave this city better - more beautiful - than we found it."
—Mayor David Miller, inaugural address, Dec. 2, 2003
For Youth
• Toronto Police Services spends hundreds of millions of dollars dealing with youth crime, and recognizes that prevention is one of the most effective strategies for dealing with youth crime. (The police run a program called "Cops and Kids," with programs "for kids looking for a safe place to go.")
• A community recreation centre designed for kids will keep them engaged in healthy, positive activities and help to build their own sense of community.
We've Worked Hard For It
• The rise in housing values in Parkdale has poured millions of tax dollars into city coffers while the well-served suburbs have seen assessments decline or remain stable.
• We have waited 15 years for the community centre. Countless volunteer hours have been invested in getting it built. The kids of those volunteers have grown up and missed out.
• We cannot let another generation of kids grow up in the neighbourhood without adequate and accessible recreational facilities.
• On Oct. 7 and Nov. 25, 2003, more than 120 families attended neighbourhood meetings to give the Build Wabash Now committee a clear mandate to lobby the City for $21 million to build Wabash now.
• The community has founded the Wabash Building Society (2006), a non-profit corporation, to raise funds and speed up development of the site
A Stronger, Healthier, More Vibrant Neighbourhood
• From the beginning, plans for the Wabash Recreational Centre have focused on the need to build a "new heart of the community."
• The rec centre will become more than just a fitness facility. It will become a community meeting place, a place for the arts and community events (Sorauren Park banquet!), a hub of life tied to Sorauren Park and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
• There is a separate plan to build a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks, and some of the railroads tracks themselves are being turned into the "Railpath" recreation trail leading into the heart of downtown. The Wabash Community Rec Centre will become our neighbourhood’s link to this exciting new project. (Ryerson University working on planning project envisioning the park's connection to Railpath, 2006)
• The wild success of Sorauren Park — remember, the city at first wanted to turn the property into a garage for garbage trucks — proves the new community centre will be embraced by the neighbourhood and surrounding neighbourhoods.
"Members of Council, I am honoured to be elected alongside you. I will ask you to cast your minds ahead three years. I will ask you to think about what, at the end of this term, you will want Torontonians to see that we have accomplished as a team. What will we 45 do together to make Toronto a magnificent place to live?…
"My friends, in this term of office, I will urge us as a Council to be thinking about our great city in terms of its neighbourhoods and its communities…
"Neighbourhoods are what make this city great. We must value what is distinct about our neighbourhoods, recognize that which has value beyond its cost.
"I believe that same passion exists in neighbourhoods across this city, and we must encourage it - ignite it - by making it easier for residents to participate in building their city.
"Our challenges are great. The opportunities are greater - let us start today."
—excerpts from Mayor David Miller’s inaugural address to council, Dec. 2, 2003
| | wabash community recreation centre,
40 wabash avenue at sorauren avenue (beside sorauren park), toronto, ontario, canada Location Map
Next meetings
Sept. 26, 2006
RMRA update
Oct. 24, 2006
RMRA update
Nov. 28, 2006:
RMRA update
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