OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR-AUGUST 17TH.2023
Mayor Chow:
The changes in High Park have myriad and significant negative impacts that you may not have considered. We ask that you do so now.
To begin, the City’s Budget arrears will not be solved by closing your tenants’ businesses.
The closure of the High Park on August 5th. will destroy the Grenadier Café. How can they pay the City rent and donate $50,000.00 a year to the Western Beaches Fund for High Park, if you have removed their customer base? Affected seriously since Covid, the Grenadier Group have managed to keep their doors open till now. With no customer base they will be forced to close, and the park will lose an icon loved by generations. They participated in the High Park Movement Strategy stakeholder zoom meetings, but since then we understand they have not been contacted by anyone from the City regarding these serious changes.
Friends of High Park Zoo, who have donated over $1.1 million to the City and Park since 2012, now struggle to raise funds for their current projects, with their weekend visitor base depleted (Family time to take the Children to the Zoo) and their inability to run fundraising activities at the zoo without car access. Again, they attended every stakeholder virtual meeting but no one reached out to hear their individual concerns.
High Park Little League already expressed their concerns to the Infrastructure and Environment committee in April 2023 regarding the integrity of their organization with over 600 players registered. They have been in High Park for 75 years but if their families can no longer safely attend the games, they talked of moving their group to a new location.
The City Permits must be affected, High Park requires a permit for a gathering of over 25 and used to be busy 7 days a week in summer with company parties and family gatherings, now rarely seen, without car access you cannot have an event due to the number of supplies required.
Maybe we should address safety here, the City is encouraging the public to walk on the roads in the park on weekends, more room for all. BUT there is a TTC bus using that road at twenty-minute intervals, not to mention that the bus enters the park on Colborne Lodge Drive and heads south on a north bound one-way road till it reaches the first turn right at Spring Road. So much for a safer park! Then there are the recreational cyclists who, as the park is closed to cars, ride both ways on the roads.
High Park is a family park and not an appropriate place for the Cycling Speed Track that has been installed. Speed cyclists do not utilize High Parks many attractions, they do not patronize the Café or visit the Zoo, support The Nature Centre, Children’s Garden, Colborne Lodge Museum, Swimming Pool, Tennis Courts, Team Sports, The Dream, The Dog Park or grow vegetables in the Allotments, visit the Labyrinth, picnic in the green places, or walk the Nature Trails.
If the closures continue these attractions may simply cease to exist. And the City will have an empty 399-acre park.
Let us begin with two suggestions:
1. Please keep High Park open and accessible to cars so Toronto's citizens and visitors can enjoy it safely and to the fullest
2. Please find the training speed cyclists a more appropriate place. Perhaps Exhibition Place has some suitable areas.
Please give us back our beautiful, peaceful High Park. "Access for All Seven days a week" - There are over 8,200 signatures to date on our petition, many with comments that we ask you to please take the time to review: www.change.org/equalaccess-highpark
We would be happy to give you a tour of our Park. Please let us know your availability.
We also request a private meeting with you to discuss these serious concerns.
Diane Buckell
EQUAL ACCESS FOR ALL