This post is part of a series covering ULI Toronto’s Electric Cities Spring 2017 Symposium which took place on April 24 and 25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. ULI Toronto’s second city building symposium saw over 1,000 industry professionals gather to learn and engage on topics revolving around placemaking, mobility and technology.

On Monday April 24^th, the first day of the Electric Cities Symposium, Jacquelyn Hayward Gulati of the City of Toronto’s Transportation Services division led a panel discussion focused on transformative ways to achieve adaptive reuses of space within Toronto’s laneways, railways, highways and ravines. In rediscovering latent aspects of Toronto’s existing infrastructure and resources, actors involved in city building are able to create new amenities in servicing a growing population. Panelists who participated in the discussion were Marc Ryan, principal of PUBLIC WORK; Geoff Cape, CEO of Evergreen; Helena Grdadolnik, a director at Workshop Architecture; and Scott Dobson of Friends of the Toronto Railpath.

With increasing demand in Toronto’s real estate market, the rate of change in development is accelerating at a rapid pace. The act of reclaiming underutilized spaces within the urban fabric has become common practice for city planners and developers hoping to reinforce a sense of community and reintroduce links between disconnected areas of the city. Workshop Architecture’s Helena Grdadolnik, however, says her work on the Green Line, a proposed linear park in Toronto’s Dupont hydro corridor, was not to abandon current uses but to refocus efforts on infrastructure that is already in good use to connect it to a broader network of parks and trails. Involving community members at the outset of these plans to identify opportunities is crucial to the success of projects, as exemplified by the Green Line, which involved community participation that began at the grassroots level.

In gaining transformative new spaces at different scales, linear public space developments can offer the city short-term benefits in transforming daily experiences as well as contribute to an overall identity through concerted effort and policy direction long-term. Potential economic benefits can be achieved as projects generate revenue that can act as a source of funding to help offset future maintenance, operations and programming costs. The ultimate goal, Evergreen’s Geoff Cape says, is that “economic opportunity is redistributed back into the community as an asset physically” and as an intangible good that comes from the economic spin-off derived from added value in the area. The multi-purpose use of linear space in acting as an amenity to local residents or as an attractive destination to outside users, poses potential risks in balancing conflicting interests. Large-scale linear systems require public consultation, governance and identity formulation strategies at the origin to adhere to community interests.

Grdadolnik says that “the implementation of a plan that has clear guidelines is crucial” in order to ensure all stakeholders are engaged in the comprehensive process. This is challenging, as linear infrastructure tends to extend jurisdictional boundaries or, in some cases, encompass multiple jurisdictions. Referring to the redevelopment of Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works, Cape says that “there is an important role for an advocate to mediate on behalf of the variety of stakeholders engaged in complex ownership situations.” In order to overcome these challenges, the brokering of responsibilities between stakeholders is important to develop a coherent narrative that addresses potential constraints. In the process of navigating the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, each panelist agreed that branding a project can act as a catalyst for increasing the value that is perceived in each space. This constitutes the overall vision for the project, which aids in guiding stakeholders in the delivery of tasks. Understanding each linear system as integral to a broader network of spaces helps to generate vision.

In leveraging Toronto’s existing landscapes and infrastructure, policy changes will need to adjust for new dynamic uses in order to offer broader public benefit. With emerging creative ideas and increasing innovation in city building, partnerships and creative business models will need to be formed and maintained to secure land, reduce costs, create operating agreements and ensure constructability.