Last week, the Toronto and East York Community Council shot down a plan to build a 24,000-square-foot visitation center in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. This was good news for the Moore Park community, reports the Annex Guardian. Residents there strongly opposed the plan, which would have required an alteration of Belt Line Trail and the removal of 11 mature trees.
Interestingly enough, the community’s opposition to the development seems to have less to do with ensuring deceased loved ones continue to have a pretty final resting place, and more to do with maintaining green space within their community.
“What we’ve heard is that it’s all about convenience…one-stop shopping,” resident Tim Costigan told the Annex Guardian. “This is about whether we should have a party room for dead (baby) boomers or green space for the living.”
While cemeteries are technically private spaces, many people in the city treat them more like public parks, going for daily jogs and leisurely walks along their paths, picnicing under their large trees, or wandering amongst the graves to learn of our city’s past. Andrew Robb explores the public-private grey area cemeteries seem to fall under in the latest issue of Spacing (which will be launched this Thursday night at the Gladstone Hotel).
Read the full article from the Annex Guardian here.
photo by Bouke Salverda
4 comments
> dead (baby) boomers
Well, other people die.
Apparently they’re the only ones who are buried.
Hooray!
There already is huge building for that purpose on Overlea Blvd. …and it looks rather hideous!
Actually, according to Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries’ (MPGC) tree removal application, the total number of trees to be removed is 71. Only 11 are 30 cms in diameter at chest height.
The City also has an easement in its favour for the belt line trail through this particular pieced of land. The City spent $4.5M to create this trail. Why compromise it? In addition, this piece of land is ecologically sensitive in that it is recognized as an “animal migration corridor” for wildlife traversing Toronto’s green space. (Never considered by City Staffers who approved the application.)
Another issue never considered was the impact on the stability of the Moore Park Ravine, located directly south and at a lower elevation. (In fact this piece of land to the north WAS ravine, but for some reason was filled in by the City in the mid 20th Century.) As such, the proposed building and 80 car parking lot would be located directly on top of Mud Creek, which still runs through the Ravine. This past spring there was another substantial slide near the base of the first bridge to the south of this proposed development. No impact assessment was made of the affects of replacing grass, trees and gardens with 2.5 acres of cement and asphalt.
One final point regarding the use of cemetery land: Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries is a Public Trust. The land was originally purchased by the residents of Toronto and is supposed to be held in perpetuity for the citizens. As MPGC has expunged any mention in their current documentation or marketing information of their position as a charitable institution, and instead purport to be a private commercial entity, they are now being investigated by the Public Guardian and Trustee, who reports to the Attorney General’s Office.