Watch the video above: City staff recommend 31 priority neighbourhoods in Toronto. Mark McAllister reports.
TORONTO – Toronto could soon increase the number of so-called “priority neighbourhoods” from 22 to 31 if contentious staff recommendations make it through city council.
Since 2001, the city has focused private and public funding on a collection of “priority” neighbourhoods – though the areas have since been renamed “neighbourhood improvement areas.”
Some of the neighbourhoods recommended to receive the designation this year include Black Creek, Flemingdon Park, Regent Park, Weston, Downsview, York University Heights and Kingsview Village-The Westway among others.
Some neighbourhoods, like Black Creek, were marked priority neighbourhoods in 2005 and are still on the list, while others like Dorset Park and Malvern, have been removed.
But that doesn’t prove the program is working, according to Chris Brillinger, the city’s executive director of social development. Brillinger said the framework used to analyze the neighbourhoods has changed significantly.
“The point I want to emphasize is the analysis we’ve done this time is different than what we did in ’05. There is no comparability between the two,” he said in an interview Monday. “So just because a neighbourhood has emerged in this analysis in no way means it was worse off than it was in ’05. You can’t draw that conclusion from this research.”
In 2005, the city looked at a host of socio-economic factors when determining what is – and what’s not – a priority neighbourhood. Those factors included proximity to infrastructure such as libraries, schools, community centres and employment centres.
In the most recent proposal, set to be discussed at city council in April, the city has expanded their analysis to include the rate of diabetes, voter turnout and income level. In total, the city used 15 factors to determine the new set of 31 neighbourhoods.
And with the new standards, the city will be able to see whether or not the programs are working.
The city analyzes each of the city’s 140 neighbourhoods and gives them a benchmark score. If the neighbourhood falls beneath the bench mark of 42.89, it’s recommended as an improvement area.
Thirty-one neighbourhoods scored below the new benchmark, with Black Creek ranking the lowest at 21.38. For reference, Lawrence Park North scored the highest with 92.05.
Approximately $12 million in capital funding was included in the 2014 budget for the new set of priority neighbourhoods. If council approves the recommendations, the city will start to identify exactly what’s needed in each neighbourhood.
While the recommendations are likely to pass through council in some form, the issue is bound to be contentious. Mayor Rob Ford suggested Monday that the city “has enough” at 21 neighbourhoods to focus on.
Prince Sibanda, a project coordinator at the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, said he was “astounded” when he learned Thorncliffe Park wasn’t a priority neighbourhood within the 2005 criteria. Since it meets the new criteria, Thorncliffe Park could soon receive a boost in funding.
“There’s a need to invest much more in communities like this so that they thrive,” he said. “They don’t have access to services. They’ve got all sorts of barriers; language barriers, family size composition, housing… mental health stuff.”
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