AS OFFICIALS AT Downsview Park inch closer to releasing the Downsview secondary plan report, which will outline how the North York park will be developed, work has commenced on other projects on the site.
Workers have already completed work on new sanitary sewers, water and hydro, to support existing housing on the site, and the finishing touches on a geothermal system — an environmentally friendly heating and cooling system — that will service the newest building at the park, 70 Canuck. Ave. are being added this spring.
Workers are currently constructing a pond that will double as a storm water management system for surface runoff from precipitation on the park site.
“There will be boating, canoeing and skating if it gets cold enough,” said David Soknacki, chair for the Parc Downsview Park corporation. “There will be all of those things — paddleboats, model sailboats.”
But some North York residents are critical of the way the project is being advertised.
Michael Calabrese, the executive secretary for the Downsview Lands Community Voice Association, said officials are putting more emphasis on the water feature aspect of it ratherthan what it will be used for.
“It’s a storm water management facility,” Calabrese said. “PDP officials will call it a pond. They can call it that. But we know what it is.”
Calabrese’s group works to voice the concerns of local residents to the officials at Parc Downsview Park and to local councillors that represent the three wards in the area.
Their major concern is that park officials are selling off too much parkland to developers, which will intensify the neighbourhood. Areas that are closer to the subway stop at the park, which will be constructed as part of the Spadina TTC extension, will have denser populations than areas further away. Calabrese said he’s worried that the people who eventually move into the area won’t be taking the subway as much as planners think.
“The planners are working on the assumption that 45 per cent of these people will take transit,” he said. “But what if only 25 per cent use public transit?”
Coun. Mike Feldman said his constituents expressed a similar concern.
“In the city, infill is the thing, and I’m not opposed to infill, and there’s going to be a subway going somewhere up there, if ever, and you have to have ridership and all hat. But having said that, everybody’s obviously concerned about the more people, more cars, more traffic congestion.”
Formerly a federally run military base, Parc Downsview Park Inc. was established in 1996 as a Crown corporation. Its executives were granted administration authority over the property, with the stipulation that the park be self-financing. Residents like Michael Calabrese thought all of the lands would be turned into parkland but were disappointed to discover that land would have to be sold off to finance any park development.
“I don’t envy Mr. Soknacki because he has a big job ahead,” Calabrese said. “We hope for the best, we really do, but we fear the worst.”