LAKEVIEW PROVES HOW TO GREEN BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT

INTENSIFICATION WORKS BEST WHEN SELF-DIRECTED, SAYS JOHN STEWART

"We have been unable to find another example of bottom-up planning from a community that has led the call for designing its own urbanization.

"We are proof of what a community can achieve when they come together."

With those measured words to Mississauga planning committee, Lakeview Ratepayers' Association Deborah Goss recognized the remarkable context of the historic approval of a complete community plan for the former Lakeview Generating Station.

After 16 years of ratepayer diligence, triggered by the dynamic duo of Jim Tovey and John Danahy who launched Lakeview Legacy to plan their neighbourhood's key property before City planners could, official endorsement was finally at hand.

The denouement was somewhat muted — as if no one could believe what had been accomplished.

The density is higher (8,050 units, 20,000 people), the buildings are taller and the affordable housing element is less (five per cent) than ratepayers desired, but the plan's bones look suspiciously like what University of Toronto landscape architect Danahy and his grad students and prepolitical ponytailed Habitat for Humanity carpenter Tovey developed back in 2007.

City planner David Breveglieri outlined the key elements: 67 acres of public waterfront including the 600-metre pier, 27 acres of parkland including a linear spine, a 14.5acre innovation corridor for science, tech and research, a four-acre school site, up to 1.5 million square feet of employment lands and 180,000 square feet of commercial.

But it's the complete communities "bonus" features that reverberate: district energy using heat from the neighbouring sewage plant to heat and cool, a potential garbage vacuum system like the Swedish one that captivated the late councillor, architectural competitions for key elements, freeing of Serson Creek from its 60year underground prison below the sewage plant, 5.5 km of separated, protected bike lanes (a novel concept here) and a potential pilot with Artscape to provide public art and create art studios and affordable housing.

Artist and teacher Joanne de Graaf commented, "arts could be the heart of, not an add-on, to the community."

Lakeview Community Partners has already engendered much goodwill via sunflower fields, splashy hoarding exhibitions and Sunsets, Sunflowers and Sounds concerts.

As Goss reminded us, it was Lakeview's rejection of its supposed natural selection as the home of nextgen gas-fired power and its will to not just talk about next-gen sustainable communities but shape them that kindled this remarkable process.

A lot of factors had to come together, including receptive planners and politicians, a willing developer, a dynamic vision and incredibly dedicated residents.

Lakeview ratepayers know the real process; translating the vision to the ground, is far from over.

They'll press for an educational campus, paddle centre, arts incubator, Indigenous cultural centre, Great Lakes study centre https://bit.ly/3oosayr and urban studies school.

"Almost two years of COVID-19 has shown us that social well-being in community is paramount," Goss said. "We have a blank canvas and the amazing opportunity to do everything right in Lakeview."

When the process started, things looked stacked against Lakeview.

Instead of accepting its fate as Mississauga's garbage can, Lakeview authored its own future.