Parks Master Plan

This section summarizes the recommendations related to actual land area needed for parks and recreation facilities. Appendix B – Parkland Needs Assessment provides the supporting needs assessment, which includes a description of the City’s parks classification system and seven park typologies, the number of existing and planned municipal parks to 2031 by transect, as well as the current and 2031 per capita provision rates for parkland by transect. Appendix B collates the needed parkland, generated by the individual facility needs assessments in Appendix A, to identify the total additional parkland required to provide new facilities beyond those which are

planned to 2031.

Appendix B also provides a summary of the citywide distribution of small and large parks, benchmarks the City’s provision rate for parkland against other Ontario municipalities, and presents information gathered through the consultation process.

Together, the information in Appendix B, generates the following recommendations

related to parkland:

The current citywide provision level for municipal active parkland is 2.35 hectares per

1,000 residents.

1. Set the citywide provision rate for municipal active parkland at 2.0 hectares per 1,000 residents and apply this provision rate to each transect.
2. Prioritize the acquisition of new parkland in transects and neighbourhoods that do not meet the 2.0 hectares per 1,000 people target.
3. Set a transect level ratio of large to small parks at 1:5.
4. Prioritize the acquisition of large parks in transects where the ratio of large to small parks is higher than 1:5.

In the next 25 years, through the Official Plan (2021), the City will encourage the development of denser neighbourhoods, in both developing and existing areas of the city. The policies for residential density and intensification, and accompanying population increases, will impact the per capita provision levels of parks and recreation facilities. This section explains the impacts of some of the Official Plan (2021) policies, Transect policies (Section 5) and Overlay policies (Section 5.6) in the Official Plan (2021) direct the significant transformation of many neighbourhoods. The Official Plan (2021) Plan B-Series Schedules illustrate the Transect and Overlay areas, and tables 3a and 3b identify minimum density requirements. Table 3a identifies the minimum residential density requirements for areas defined as Hubs, Corridors and Protected Major Transit Station Areas. These range from 120 – 350 dwellings per net hectare.

Table 3b provides the residential density requirements for areas defined as

Neighbourhoods and Minor Corridors. This is expressed as a target residential density

range by transect as follows:

• Downtown Core: 80 – 120 dwellings per net hectare
• Inner Urban Transect: 60 – 80 dwellings per net hectare
• Outer Urban Transect: 40 – 60 dwellings per net hectare
• Suburban Transect: 40 – 60 dwellings per net hectare