Two new parks are coming to the William Baker District (also known as Arbo) near Sheppard Avenue West and Keele Street as part of the Downsview Secondary Plan.
Park A will be 4,840 m2 – roughly the size of a baseball diamond and five basketball courts. Park B will be 10,636 m2 – about the size of three baseball diamonds and three basketball courts. The designs for both parks will be shaped through future community engagement.
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The timeline is subject to change.
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This project has been classified as an Involve project based on the International Association of Public Participation Spectrum. This means we aim to work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered in developing design options and identifying a preferred design.
In this phase, the City will work with the community to develop a vision statement and guiding principles to inform the development of design options in Community Engagement Phase 2.
The anticipated community engagement activities in this phase include:
The vision is co-created with the community to describe the ideal future parks. It is a big-picture statement that should inspire everyone toward a common understanding of the project’s overall goals and objectives.
The guiding principles are high-level directions that reflect the community’s most important values and ideas for how the parks should look and feel. They help to clarify the vision statement and guide how the parks should be designed by describing the desired outcomes.
In this phase, the City and its design consultant will work off the outcomes of Community Engagement Phase 1 to develop two to three design options for the new parks. These designs will be presented to the community for feedback and will be used to develop a preferred design for each park.
The community engagement events anticipated in this phase include:
In this phase, the City will share the preferred design on this page and with the subscribers on the project mailing list. The project will then move into the detailed design phase, where the design team will finalize the design by working through the technical details and developing detailed plans and drawings for the construction contractor.
The anticipated outcome of this phase is a refined preferred design for each park.
The William Baker/Arbo District will span 25 hectares at Sheppard Avenue West and Keele Street, situated between Downsview Park to the south and the Downsview Park TTC/GO Station to the north. The District Plan aims to create a mixed-use, transit-oriented community that emphasizes the preservation of its existing natural heritage.
Two new parks will be developed within this neighbourhood, with designs guided by a Community Development Plan created during engagement with Indigenous, Black, and other equity-deserving groups from 2022 to 2024.
