10 No Brainers to Make Toronto More Awesome! is a project of the Centre for City Ecology that highlights small, achievable actions at the City-level that would improve life in Toronto’s neighbourhoods, right now. A series of 10 short videos will be released on Spacing Toronto from Sept. 15-19, highlighting 10 No Brainers contributed by a diverse cast of Torontonians. The project will wrap up with a free Pop-Up Event where City Council candidates can pitch which No Brainer they’d champion at City Hall and the public can join in the conversation: October 9 in the East End.
Toronto Park People has a simple motto: when residents get involved in their parks, parks get better. But currently, the City’s permitting system is deterring the kinds of volunteer-led park activities that activate and improve our parks. High fees, onerous application processes, and unclear permitting requirements pose a financial and psychological barrier to park friends groups looking to run community events and activities in local parks.
Here, Dave Harvey of Toronto Park People poses a simple, straightforward solution to encourage volunteer-led activities in our City parks and to support active parks and connected communities.
3 comments
I see no problem with charging private groups money to use public space. That money goes back into maintaining that space for everyone.
Matt – the idea pitched here is to eliminate permit fees for non-profit park friends groups running volunteer-led community events and programming in parks. Park permit fees would still apply to private activities like birthday parties etc. You can read more about Park People’s Free the Parks platform here > http://freetheparks.ca/
Claire – Parks Friends groups are still privately organized groups. Anyone can organize a group that claims to represent the community. The Fords claim to represent the community (which is technically correct, since they were democratically elected), but I still think they should be charged for using the parks for their Ford Fests.