Class of 2023 Capstone Projects

Class of 2023

Capstone Projects for Masters in the Science of Planning (MScPl) Candidates

On behalf of the Master of Science in Planning program at the University of Toronto, I would like to congratulate the Class of 2023 on completing their capstone projects!

Each student in the program completes an individual Current Issues Paper (CIP) and participates in a Planning Workshop project, both of which aim to support the transition from the academic to the professional world of planning. CIP is a year-long course that scaolds an independent, culminating research project exploring the complexities of a specific planning issue. Students have the option to present their arguments in the format of a professional report, research paper, urban design project or architectural model, or a popular/community-based communication tool (e.g. handbook, zine or other multimedia product). Workshop in Planning Practice engages second-year students in teams to address a unique planning problem on behalf of an external client. Each team must prepare a planning report that includes recommendations suggesting the best way to implement proposed solutions or conceptual frameworks.

The MScPl curriculum delivers core skills-based and foundational knowledge-oriented courses in the first year of the program, upon which students draw over the second year for developing these capstone projects. This scholarship is also supported by specialized training in one of six Planning Concentrations, namely Economic Development Planning, Environmental Planning, Social Planning and Policy, Urban Design and Spatial Planning, Transportation Planning and Infrastructure, or a breadth option.

At U of T Planning, we believe at the heart of planning lies a commitment to humane city-regions, healthy environments and social well-being for everyone (especially, for those who have been historically marginalized through traditional development practices); we strive to foster places that are livable, equitable, and sustainable. The projects described here express these commitments and showcase the vision and hard work of a varied, representative, experienced, creative and critical student body

Congratulations to the graduating students!

Katharine Rankin Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Geography and Planning Director of the Graduate Planning Program

Workshop: Climate Change Policy & Active Transportation: A guide for Canadian municipalities

Students: Claire Champagne, Yu-Chen Chuang, Lauren Foote, Sarah MacKinnon, Nazhia Nasrin, Mia Trana

Climate change has become a crucial issue across various jurisdictions at the level of provincial and municipal governments. Planners and policy-makers who work in climate mitigation face challenges in bridging the gaps between divergent expectations, goals, and means from dierent jurisdictions. With a focus on active transportation planning, this report explores how municipal climate change policy can be linked for better operationalization of active transportation planning. Through the investigation of cases from Ontario, Canada, and beyond, both the current best practices and gaps in existing literature are addressed. This report highlights the discrepancies in connectivity while also showcasing exemplary case studies between climate policies and the implementation of active transportation infrastructure. Five main key themes emerge as prevailing best practices in municipal policy implementation: Plan and Policy Connectivity; Infrastructure Development; Access to Active Transportation; Transportation System Resiliency; and Policy Implementation/Programming. Recommendations for small, medium, and large municipalities are proposed, due to the dierence scales in resources, physical conditions, and political institutions. Ultimately, the report provides a framework of recommendations for policymakers, non-profit organizations, and municipalities to implement active transportation planning that better aligns with climate policies in the Ontario, Canadian, and international context.

Workshop: Improving Road User Safety at Level Railway Crossings

Students: Kosta Diochnos, Marjan Fadaei, In Chan (Ian) Hwang, Lakshmi Soundarapandian, Michelle Zhang

pedestrian safety at level crossings within its rail network. Utilizing findings from literature reviews identifying Vulnerable Road User (VRU) types and needs, an interjurisdictional scan of safety measures, and interviews with rail safety experts, the Team has developed three sets of recommendations designed to improve safety at Metrolinx’s level railway crossings. The Team recommends that Metrolinx:

(1) build its internal capacity and expertise on road user safety at level railway crossings;

Rapid development around existing rail infrastructure in the GTHA and lack of adequate safety treatments for pedestrians have led to an increase in unsafe pedestrian behaviour at the 132 level crossings in the Metrolinx GO system.

Metrolinx has engaged this Team of University of Toronto Masters of Science in Planning students to produce research on

(2) develop public education and awareness campaigns through social media and targeted community engagements; and

(3) implement global best practices in collaboration with other rail authorities to standardize improvements at all level crossings.

Workshop: Opportunities for Homeowner-Led Intensification in Neighbourhoods on Major Streets in Toronto

Students: Madeline Barnes Planer, Lizzy Marcus, Haron Qudoosi, Celia Wandio, and Ryan Wilkinson

The City of Toronto is exploring ways to encourage gentle density in areas designated as Neighbourhoods through the Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods initiative. For this project, students focused on homeowner-led multiplex (re)development on Major Streets in Neighbourhoods. Students conducted interviews with planning sta in Victoria, Edmonton, and Mississauga and developed a journey map to understand the barriers homeowners may face in carrying out these projects

Overall, it was found that there are numerous informational barriers related to understanding building permit and design processes; the City of Toronto could help mitigate those barriers by developing resources targeted at homeowners, such as a comprehensive how-to guide and a sample pro forma template. However, prior research and experiences of other municipalities indicate homeowner-led multiplex development may not be financially viable in most cases. This report recommends implementing low-cost actions to address informational barriers and considering financial incentives if key market factors change.

Workshop: Keeping the Streets Open: Strategies for expanding and sustaining OpenStreetsTO

Students: Ariella Barmash, Jane O’Brien Davis, Brian Eng, Travis Van Wyck, Christa Yeung

OpenStreetsTO (OSTO) is an independent organization that transforms Toronto’s streets into spaces where people can safely walk, cycle, and play. As a small but mighty operation with unpredictable funding opportunities, OpenStreetsTO is challenged with finding ways to sustain its operations and programming. Through conversations with key stakeholders and a review of best practices in the U.S., this project identifies a range of opportunities, strategies, and partnerships that will allow OpenStreetsTO to maintain its operations, expand its programming, and continue to provide equitable access to public space. Highlighted recommendations include strengthening funding and governance structures via closer partnerships with the city.

CIP: Emerging Needs, Constrained Funds: Lessons for/from the City of Toronto’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition Program

Celia Wandio

Cities across Canada have an important role to play in responding to the housing aordability crisis; however, they lack the revenue tools necessary to fulfill that role. This report uses the City of Toronto’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition (MURA) Program as a case study to examine, first, the need for direct municipal funding of non-profit aordable housing; and second, the ability of municipalities like the City of Toronto to generate adequate and appropriate own-source revenues to fund these programs.

This report finds that despite the lack of financial support or enabling legislation, municipalities like the City of Toronto have been playing a more direct role in using own-source revenues to fund the development and acquisition of non-profit aordable housing; however, the sources currently enabled by provincial legislation are inadequate to allow municipalities to respond to local housing needs. The challenge of funding and expanding the MURA Program demonstrates the need for revenue tools that are compatible with local fiscal autonomy and responsiveness to emerging needs.

CIP: Moving Community Bonds Forward

Suzanne Faiza

Moving Community Bonds Forward is a client report for Tapestry Community Capital, a social finance intermediary that works with a tool called community bonds or les obligations communautaires. Community bonds are a type of debt-financing tool that allows not-for-profits to raise capital from their communities and transform their social capital into monetary capital My project asks what community bonds need to scale – here scale entails making community bonds mainstream and more trusted. This report interviews key stakeholders within the community bond sector what is needed in order to build trust and thereby scale. The key findings of this report can be boiled down to five key themes: (1) Building a Better and Consistent Supply of Community Bonds, (2) Building on Supply: Considering Demand, (3) Developing Trust with and Trusting Financial Institutions, (4) Developing Partnerships with Foundation and Academic Institutions, and (5) Developing Pan-Canadian Communities of Practice (& Legal Advocacy).

CIP: Golf is No Longer Permitted: Imagining the Future of Toronto’s Municipally Owned Golf Courses

Ryan Wilkinson

This document discusses the possibility of replacing Toronto's five municipal golf courses with alternative land uses like high-rise condos, public parks, or indigenous cultural spaces. It draws on research and interviews with planning professionals to help stakeholders understand the challenges and opportunities associated with redeveloping these spaces. While the city is unlikely to make changes until the current contract for the courses' operation expires, recent consultations show a shift among Torontonians in favour of equitable public access. The document oers valuable insights and recommendations for planners and community members alike interested in redeveloping the golf courses for more environmentally sustainable and publicly accessible land uses, aiming to be a helpful resource for anyone looking to understand the possibilities and challenges of such a project.

CIP: Housing First and Harm Reduction: Place-based Approaches to Designing Supportive Housing that Lasts for People Who Use Drugs

Madeline Barnes Planer

Toronto is experiencing drug toxicity crisis, the harms of which are significantly exacerbated for individuals experiencing homelessness and housing instability. This research examines harm reduction as a place-based approach to the design of permanent supportive housing, and explores opportunities to design spaces that promote autonomy, safety and a sense of community for residents. Through case-study interviews with service providers, and a literature review of studies that interview residents of supportive housing and people who use drugs, this research examines what has worked well in previous interventions, and what mistakes we cannot aord to make again This research sits at a pivotal moment of opportunity to change the way we enact Housing First in Toronto, and the ability of housing providers to meet the needs of people who use drugs and individuals with complex care needs.

CIP: Black Hands, Pink Paint: Transforming Public Memory in Canada

Jane O’Brien Davis

ImageSource:MichelePeasrsonClarkeviaCanadianArt

How can spatial justice be enacted through built heritage in Canadian cities? By resisting hegemonic commemoration practices, Black activists have highlighted the ways in which colonial monuments and other systems of built heritage are failing. Understanding the actions of Black activists groups such as Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLM-TO) as a method of inquiry and commentary, this paper seeks the investigate the future of built heritage and public memory in Canada. Urban planning has a legacy of enacting violence against Black communities on these lands using many tools, colonial monuments included. Using Toronto as a case study, the actions of BLM-TO will be used to confront hegemonic understandings of Canadian history and resist implications of colonial futurity. The municipal response to the actions of BLM-TO will be juxtaposed to the response to the calls to rename Dundas Street. Interrogating municipal heritage policies in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and operating within a reparative planning framework, this paper seeks to understand how heritage and commemoration policies can work to transform the landscape of violence enacted through built heritage into spaces empowerment, hybridity, and truth.

CIP: Weathering the Storm: Assessing Urban Flood Risk and Mitigation Plans for Public Transit in Toronto

Sarah MacKinnon

A highly functional public transportation system is vital for the ecient and sustainable movement of people across a city. However, urban flooding is threatening the dependable operations of transit systems in Toronto during extreme weather events, as seen through the historic rainstorm events of July 2013 and August 2018

This report aims to understand the spatial distribution of urban flood risk, identify the TTC public transit routes that are most at-risk to urban flooding, and investigate how the TTC is planning for the mitigation of flood risk.

Through a spatial analysis, seven surface transit routes are identified as high-risk routes to urban flooding based on historical counts of service disruptions caused by flooding. Key flood readiness and response plans at the TTC were reviewed to assess the organization’s current state of practice in mitigating the eects of urban flooding and preparing the system to be climate resilient. While the plans adequately address protocols for responding to a flood event, all plans fail to address flood mitigation strategies being undertaken at the TTC Based on my analysis, 13 recommendations are provided in this report to mitigate flood risk and improve flood mitigation initiatives at the TTC. Priority actions include to conduct a flood vulnerability assessment of TTC routes, infrastructure, and assets and to develop a flood/climate resiliency plan to centralize mitigation goals, projects, and monitoring.

Photo Captured by Shlomi Amiga (2018)

CIP: University of Toronto Urban Agriculture: Cultivating the Future of Sustainable Universities

Claire Champagne

Urban agriculture is one of many necessary pathways to furthering the resilience of urban areas and ensuring global sustainability The uptake of urban agriculture has begun to play a larger role in the planning industry, helping tackle matters of food security, urbanization, and climate change from a localized perspective. Understanding the existing practices on urban campuses specifically provides the opportunity for post-secondary institutions to contribute to mitigating these issues and their impacts on both the built and natural environment. This report analyses the role of urban agriculture in producing sustainable post-secondary campuses An environmental scan of urban agriculture initiatives from post-secondary institutions throughout Ontario, Canada, and the United States outside of the University of Toronto context will assess the current attributes and challenges related to on-campus urban agriculture tactics and identify practices that can aid in enhancing current methods at the University of Toronto.

CIP: Revitalization or gentrification? Examining the dierent perspectives of transit-induced gentrification in Cooksville, Mississauga

Nick Huynh

Cooksville is a diverse neighborhood located in Mississauga, Ontario. It is currently undergoing construction for the Hazel McCallion light-rail transit (LRT) Line that will run through the heart of this neighborhood With the threat of transit-induced gentrification taking place, this paper explored how to mitigate the displacement of vulnerable residents and small businesses in Cooksville. To answer this question, there are three research methods used: a literature review, quantitative analysis, and primary data research. The findings revealed that dierent stakeholders in Cooksville are being aected by the LRT construction in various ways. Vulnerable residents are forced to confront with the rising rent costs and unethical tactics used by landlords to exploit them. Meanwhile, small businesses have seen a sharp reduction in foot trac, which is hurting their revenue stream and forcing many to close. From a planning perspective, the City of Mississauga and Region of Peel are facing constraints when addressing housing aordability and assisting business owners. Five recommendations were made as some strategies that could help mitigate the eects of transit-induced gentrification in Cooksville

CIP: Too Little, Too Late? CMHC’s Rapid Housing Initiative & Aordable Housing Production

Mia Trana

This Current Issues Paper (CIP) evaluates CMHC’s Rapid Housing Initiative Round 1 and 2 to better understand how much of the promised aordable housing the program has produced, the municipal role in delivering the program, and how this addresses housing need in Canada. This paper contributes to both the academic field of federal housing policy and the extensive advocacy that is currently being done around aordable housing in Canada by providing concrete information about CMHC’s policy implementation. This paper identified significant funding committed by the RHI Cities Stream to create new aordable housing units for those in core housing need. It has largely met its own program goals in terms of unit production, prioritizing NHS priority groups, aordability, and rapidity. These projects have moved forward more quickly than most developments and contributed much needed funding to the social housing sector. However, municipal sta identified a number of challenges with the program design: limited options for viable projects, limited funding, the unreasonable timeline, diversity of local contexts, limited municipal capacity, and challenges coordinating with provinces and other municipalities.

Image Source: Indwell, 2022

CIP: Costs and Benefits of Preserving York Region’s Employment Areas

Harry (Liang Cheng) Zhao

In the latest round of contentious push and pull surround the issue of preserving urban industrial land, Provincial planning policy frameworks are weakening municipalities’ abilities to preserve and promote their Employment Areas This paper contextualizes the historic demand for Employment Areas at the Regional scale, and explores whether urban industrial lands are essential for a knowledge-based economy that is increasingly integrated with local manufacturers. This paper found that from 2010-2019, advanced manufacturers that were located in Employment Areas were associated with far better growth rates than their counterparts that are located outside of lands designated Regionally for employment uses Research findings advocate for the maintenance of the current system of Employment Areas land use conversion policies, and argues for the development of an economic development strategy to further help deter the displacement of local manufacturers.

CIP: Dilemmas in Planning Greener and Safer Futures: A Case Study of Riverine Flood Mitigation in Rockclie-Smythe, Toronto

Yu-Chen Chuang

Green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly being promoted as a climate adaptive solution to mitigate flood risk because of its multi functionality. In addition to managing stormwater flows or improving water quality, GI also contributes to the creation of co-benefits such as biodiversity protection, nature conservation and recreation that involve diverse communities in framing and addressing flooding problems. This research paper examines the Rockclie Riverine Flood Mitigation Project in Toronto to investigate practical challenges in realizing co-benefits through green infrastructure (GI) development. Using data from policy documents, public meeting records, and interviews with community members, I critically analyze how co-benefits were evaluated and identify the barriers to operationalizing nature-based approaches in riverine flood mitigation planning. The empirical findings demonstrate three barriers that make challenge the realization of GI and its co-benefits in practice: the scarcity of available space in a dense urban environment; the planning agency’s emphasis on financial and technical feasibility, and language, technology; and knowledge obstacles to more inclusive community engagement In addition to technical and biophysical aspects that influence the feasibility and ecacy of GI, this research suggests the importance of reducing structural barriers to participation and making decisions rooted in community socio-ecological knowledge and values.

CIP: Unlocking the Lot: An examination of strip mall parking lot activations for public life

Christa Yeung

Private strip malls and their parking lots fulfill critical functions as places for gathering and culturally specific goods and services for many racialized and immigrant communities in Toronto’s inner-suburbs. This study examines and highlights the potential for parking lot activations in strip mall plazas through two emerging models: the PlazaPOPS program and the CaféTO private property patio program What factors enable and challenge these programs in transforming parking lots into spaces for public life? Key findings show that successful activation of parking lots requires multiple components including: policy negotiation and change, social capacity, partnership building, appropriate site conditions, and significant financial and time investments to innovate a new process where there currently is no clear framework to the re-purposing of strip mall parking lots. Recommendations to address challenges include the creation of equitable communications and design guidelines to reduce barriers to activating parking lots.

Image Source: PlazaPOPS

CIP: Professional Sports Teams as Citybuilders: Understanding Motivating Factors Behind the Rise of Stadium Districts

In Chan (Ian) Hwang

Professional sports franchises in North America have been increasingly embracing the stadium district model for new stadium proposals, where they partner with real estate developers to create a mixed-use entertainment district anchored around their stadium. Using Maple Leaf Square in Toronto and Deer District in Milwaukee as case studies, this paper seeks to understand why teams are taking on the role of citybuilders through stadium districts and why cities welcome them despite historic precedence arguing against subsidizing such developments. Based on site visits and stakeholder interviews, it was found that stadium districts represent a convergence of interests between teams and municipalities that are met with good urban design principles. The study recommends municipal governments to understand how stadium districts can benefit their cities and utilize their position and available leverage to secure community benefits from teams where possible.

Image Source: Seerat Sohi, Yahoo Sports

CIP: Feasibility of Building Accessory Dwelling Units in Rádeyılı Kǫ (Fort Good Hope)

Sanjana Sharma

This client report, for PlanIt North, looks at the feasibility of building Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in Rádeyılı Kǫ (Fort Good Hope). Rádeyılı Kǫ is a remote, o-reserve community located in the Sahtú region of the Northwest Territories (NWT). PlanIt North is a community planning firm that works with communities and Indigenous and regional governments across the north.

The analysis in this report is focused on the appropriateness of ADUs as a housing typology and physical design considerations. The report finds that while ADUs can be an eective way to address concerns of overcrowding and to meet the community’s core housing need, there’s more community engagement and financial analysis needed to assess the feasibility.

Image Source: Castner, B (2017, March 6) A Disappearing Home in a Warming World The Atlantic https://www theatlantic com/international/archive/2016/10/canada-globalization-climate-change-dene/5 03672/

CIP: Making Space for Placemaking: Lessons from Canadian Municipalities

Sawdah Ismail

Cities around the globe are increasingly adopting community-led placemaking as a planning approach that can empower citizens to enact change in the public realm. Yet, in Toronto, placemaking is still a relatively underused tool. This paper explores the state of local placemaking by reviewing the City of Toronto’s existing public space policies and their eect on neighbourhood-based inequities. It also examines successful placemaking strategies undertaken in other Canadian municipalities, deriving lessons for Toronto to strengthen its approach. Through a literature review, document analysis, and interviews with key informants, the findings build a compelling case for the City of Toronto to implement a placemaking strategy focusing on community-led placemaking as an area in need of more capacity, funding, and partnership.

CIP: Being Golden: How Multicultural Planning Intersects Community Engagement in Scarborough’s Golden Mile

Grihalakshmi Soundarapandian

Image Source: United Way Greater Toronto

As large-scale redevelopments surge through the City of Toronto and surrounding areas, racialized communities often bear the brunt: gentrified neighbourhoods and displaced neighbours. This report explores the intersections of multicultural planning and community engagement, and how planners can support the empowerment of ethnocultural communities through engagement.

Using interviews, public events, and site visits, this research observes the community engagements undertaken to date within Scarborough’s Golden Mile redevelopments. Community-led engagements at the Golden Mile are surpassing any city- or developer-led engagements in terms of public participation, further indicating that traditional engagement practices are not working. The findings shed light onto the need for creative engagement strategies that center racialized communities.

This report provides recommendations for planning consultants, the City, and for a community organization involved at the Golden Mile. The recommendations include: creating a culture shift within the consultant-city planner dynamic, culturally-relevant engagement practices, accountability mechanisms, and stronger Secondary Plan requirements.

CIP: Advancing Pedestrian Realm Inclusion Via Play

Marjan Fadaei

Playing outdoors is crucial for children’s health and well-being Children in Canada have limited access to free outdoor play. Although there are policies and guidelines in Ontario that are aimed at making cities more child-friendly, there are nuances between making cities more child-friendly and creating more playful urban environment for children. The aim of this research was to understand how the Ontario’s planning policy framework treats children’s play and to develop recommendations on how to provide opportunities for creating more playful pedestrian realm for children including those with disabilities. To this end, a review of selected policy documents, and of academic and grey literature was conducted, which was complemented by interviewing subject matter experts. Inattention to the needs of children and their play needs, lack of municipal policies explicitly requiring children to be part of the decision-making processes, and inconsistent treatments toward disability were identified as shortcomings in Ontario’s planning policies Informed by international best practices, eective planning policy recommendations were developed.

CIP: Work Smarter (Not Harder): A Roadmap Towards Collaboration and Data Governance

Michelle Zhang

The Smart City movement has shifted over time from a tech-centred “smart city 1.0” approach – critiqued for de-centering the public good in favour of exploitative private interests – towards a “smart city 2 0” approach which emphasizes the value of data and technology in achieving social outcomes. Data sharing and collaboration are key tools in this new iteration of the smart city.

Toronto adopted the Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework (DISF) as part of its eorts to move towards responsible smart city development post-Sidewalk. While the DISF is a good principles-based starting point, it does not present a clear path forward for data collaboration practices Drawing lessons from Montréal’s Digital Data Charter and Montréal en commun, I present a roadmap for the City of Toronto that moves us from the DISF towards a collaborative data governance framework that maximizes public benefit while minimizing undue risk and harm from data use.

CIP: To CBA or not to CBA: A systematic evaluation of Community Benefits Agreements

Joycelyn Guan

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) through a systematic evaluation of the contents of the agreements in which a digital copy could be located. Community Benefits Agreements are private contracts between infrastructure developers and a community coalition. The use of the term Community Benefits Agreement has expanded to include agreements outside of the traditional CBA concept. This report categorizes 35 Community Benefits Agreements based on an evaluation of their adherence to the four key metrics for implementing successful Community Benefits Agreements: Transparency, Inclusivity, Monitoring & Compliance, and Enforcement. It was found that many of the located CBAs do not strictly adhere to the four key metrics. The inclusion of cities as signatories on CBAs improves the enforceability of CBAs, their monitoring and compliance, and public accessibility of reports. However, it can also decrease the inclusivity of community groups and organizations. This report then recommends overall support for capacity-building for community groups and advocates for an oversight committee that documents and monitors CBAs in Canada.

Image Source: Rexdale Casino Woodbine (https://www.cglarchitects.com/casino-woodbine)

CIP: ‘Do it yourself?’ A Comparison of the Region of Peel’s Housing Master Plan and the City of Toronto’s Housing Now Initiative

Hamza Chatila

The City of Toronto and the Region of Peel in Ontario have introduced the Housing Now Initiative and the Housing Master Plan, respectively, to address the housing crisis. While Toronto's approach relies on private developers to build on leased city-owned land, Peel seeks to build aordable housing on its own This paper investigates why Toronto has yet to build a single unit, while Peel has constructed hundreds. Factors causing delays in Toronto include funding availability, construction rebates, economic trends, community opposition, and stakeholder coordination.

Recommendations for the City of Toronto include integrating CreateTO's functions into the Housing Secretariat, expediting site applications, advocating for additional financial support, and increasing land availability The Government of Ontario should increase funding, empower municipalities, raise awareness, and consider uploading responsibility or creating a regional housing authority. The Government of Canada should oer more forgivable loans, simplify CMHC programs, and explore penalties for provinces not meeting targets.

CIP: From Paperwork to Progress: Self-Certification and the Advancement of Equity in Social Procurement

Alexandra Lambropoulos

This study aims to enhance the equity of social procurement programs (SPP) for minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) in Canadian cities. Despite the objective of SPPs to create economic opportunities for equity-deserving communities, MBEs face several barriers, including the high fees associated with certification requirements Alternative and equitable certification methods, such as self-attestation, are available and utilized by other municipalities across North America. Through a jurisdictional scan of 87 US and Canadian cities’ SPPs, case study analysis, and interviews, the paper proposes a paradigm shift from transactional procurement processes to a relationship-oriented procurement culture. Four recommendations are provided to develop an Equitable Procurement Ecosystem that can guide Canadian policy and program development, including accepting self-attestation and oering free certification at the municipal, regional, and/or provincial levels. These recommendations aim to advance low-barrier ways to identify diverse suppliers and promote equitable procurement practices.

Image Source: Bakhtiar Zein

CIP: Thinking Inside the Box: An Equitable Approach to Local Entrepreneurship in Regent Park, Toronto

Brian Eng

This research explores the feasibility of implementing a shipping container market in Regent Park that attends to the social, cultural and economic needs of racialized immigrant women and other local entrepreneurs. It will be useful to policymakers, community advocacy groups, governmental ocials, urban planners, urbanists and designers who have an interest in understanding alternative, equitable, local community-driven models that can result in community, socio-cultural and economic benefits.

In particular, the research attempts to provide a more holistic picture that answers the following questions:

1) How can a shipping container market address barriers to accessing micro-enterprise space and provide equitable economic opportunities for racialized and immigrant women in the Regent Park Women’s Entrepreneur Group (RPWEG)?

2). What can be learned from other shipping container markets and how can these best practices be applied to Regent Park? While other retail opportunities, such as food trucks, street vendors (food carts) and pop-ups exist in Toronto, these alternatives go beyond the scope of this research since these do not fall within the long-term vision or retail strategy of the RPWEG and other community organizations. Using semi-structured and structured interviews, a focus group, online survey, grey literature and case studies of Market 707 in Toronto, Boxville in Chicago and Beltline Marketplace in Atlanta, this study shows that shipping containers fall into a range of solutions since they can oer an equitable, low-cost model that has been successfully used in other contexts.

CIP: More than Books: Public Libraries as Community Health Hubs

Lizzy Marcus

Libraries may be the last place you associate with healthcare; however, they are extremely important vessels for community health. The results of my research indicate that Canadian public libraries play an important role in the addressing health issues of Canadians. Public libraries are one of the last public spaces left the city where one can spend all day and not have to spend any money They are frequented by vulnerable populations, including those experiencing homelessness, substance-use issues, mental health issues, and financial diculties. Public libraries in Canada have embraced this unique position and have used it as an opportunity to provide services to improve the health and wellness of vulnerable populations (as well as nonvulnerable populations).

CIP: Countering Eco-Ableism in Toronto's Green Corridors

Lauren Foote

One in five Toronto residents have at least one disability (Statistics Canada, 2019). Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the City’s green corridors remain accessible to people with disabilities (PWD).

To evaluate accessibility for PWD across Toronto’s green corridors, several on-site green corridor audits were conducted along the East Don Trail, the Green Line, and the Meadoway by seven PWD and the researcher, who is also a PWD. The audits evaluated the green corridor’s compliance to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and Toronto Accessibility Design Guidelines (TADG), and they also highlighted unforeseen accessibility barriers. Three interviews with project managers and project architects of the Green Line and Meadoway projects were conducted to understand how accessibility is considered in green corridor design and implementation.

It was determined that the accessibility needs of PWD are not accounted for in green corridor design Four recommendations are made: 1 Perform regular trail maintenance, 2 Design, implement, and modify accessible signage, 3 When modifying green corridors, ensure that older portions of the corridor also comply with accessibility standards, 4. Work directly with PWD to ensure that green corridors are designed and implemented without barriers.

Statistics Canada (2019) Persons with and without disabilities aged 15 years and over, census metropolitan areas Data Retrieved from: https://www150 statcan gc ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv action?pid=1310075001