Posts

Showing posts from May, 2022

New Parkette coming to River St area in 2024

Image
A new parkette is coming to the River street area. The parkette is expected to open in 2024 as part of a residential development project at 1 Defries Street, located just east of River Street and Shuter Street, between Marks Street and Labatt Avenue. The new parkette at 1 Defries Street will be about the size of a basketball court. A portion of the parkette will be located on the existing Labatt Avenue and will be part of a residential development. The parkette will be accessible and include various amenities and seating areas. A dogs off-leash area will not be included in the design due to the parkette’s limited size. The parkette’s design will evolve through consultation with nearby schools, area residents and the general public in order to design a space that meets the needs of the growing community. If you have ideas for this new, take the online survey to share your thoughts. The design team will use the community feedback to help develop design options for the new parkette. T...

Report on May 18th All Candidates Meeting – Toronto Centre 2022

Image
In Regent Park, a community that is in the process of a massive transformation, from Canada's largest social housing complex to a mixed income/mixed use neighbourhood, the outcome of elections, be they Municipal, Provincial, or Federal is of profound interest to area residents. The Community Civic Engagement Collaborative (CCEC) is a grassroots collective of agencies and residents in Regent Park, Moss Park, St. James Town and Corktown neighbourhoods, working to increase civic engagement in elections and beyond, through non-partisan community organizing. On Wednesday May 18, 2022, the CCEC organized and hosted an all-candidates meeting (held at the Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas St E, Toronto) and invited candidates to share their respective party's platforms regarding the key issues facing the Toronto Centre riding, which includes Moss Park, Regent Park, Cabbage Town, Church Wellesley Village, and St. Jamestown.  The meeting was moderated by Ina Labuschgne and Walied Khogali. ...

Toronto’s Regent Park singer-songwriter Mustafa wins alternative album of the year at Juno Awards 2022

Image
At last weekend Juno Awards 2022, Regent Park community singer-songwriter Mustafa de Poet won the award for alternative album of the year. Mustafa’s 2021 debut album When Smoke Rises is a meditation on the grief he experienced after losing several friends to gun violence.   At the event, Mustafa said backstage. “I am because of Regent Park. I am nothing without my community,” he told media backstage after accepting the award on opening night. “Every experience, every death, every building that was buried, every argument. It shaped me and it shaped the way that I write, and it’s the reason that I write.” At Sunday’s Juno Awards broadcast, he went a step further to bring visibility to Regent Park, pulling up to the red carpet with an entourage of friends from his area, including rapper Lil Berete. Later that evening, for his live rendition of “Stay Alive,” those close confidantes joined Mustafa on stage to sing the final chorus of the song with him, ...

The World Urban Pavilion in Regent Park

Image
A spotlight on the Regent Park Revitalization, celebrating the successes locally and globally. The arrival on Thursday, April 21st, 2022, of the United Nations World Urban Pavilion in Regent Park, locates the Regent Park Revitalization on a global stage. More than twenty-five years in the making, the transformation from an area known only for being Canada's largest social housing complex, to listing as of “Toronto's Top Neighbourhoods,” (Macleans Magazine) is still another tens from being completed. Nonetheless, the bold experiment of combining social housing with market value housing has for the-most-part paid off. But it is not only this mix of public and private-sector funding that has worked, but it is also the input from residents groups that has had an equally significant impact. In recognition of these successes, the United Nations Habitat and UrbanEconomy Forum have partnered with Daniels Corporation (one of the development partners of Regent Park) and Canada M...