The GCA Parks Committee is working with representatives of the Lowertown Community Association (LCA) in an effort to give the City’s heritage designations for parks more teeth. Landscaping, maintenance, restoration, rehabilitation and installations (memorial benches and trees, new benches and trees in general, accessibility infrastructure, pathways, etc.) in heritage-designated parks requires a set of standards that staff (often from multiple branches) can use to frame such decisions. We are urging the city to develop such a protocol. Each heritage-designated park need not have its own plan; all of the ‘heritage’ standards for such parks would, after all, in general, be quite similar.
The LCA is particularly concerned about Macdonald Gardens Park and have a formal conservation plan for that park currently under consultation with the city. We have suggested to Councillor Menard and City staff that the principles of this conservation plan could serve as a template for a citywide protocol: the establishment of uniform, pragmatic maintenance standards for all heritage designated parks, with flexibility to take into account the unique aspects of individual parks. We look forward to continuing this work with the LCA, along with Councillors Menard and Plante.