Plan your Parks! Kitchissippi Parks Participatory Plan - Consultation

Our office is pleased to announce the launch of our ward-wide Cash-In-Lieu Consultation, facilitated  by Wesley Petite. The consultation will take place over a number of rounds, each with two sessions, at venues around the ward. We are very excited to hear what you have to say about our parks, and your ideas on how you would like to see our Ward's Cash-in-Lieu funds spent. Please find more details prepared by Wesley below:

Plan Your Parks in the Kitchissippi Parks Participatory Plan

The Kitichissippi Ward is gifted with a large amount of parks and recreational facilities that are highly utilized by residents for walks, sports, exercise, and enjoying the summer sun with friends and family, including pets. The funds necessary to maintain and improve these parks are divided among these many community treasures in an effort to keep all parks green, safe, and useful. To ensure that these parks are being maintained and improved in ways that residents find valuable, Councillor Jeff Leiper welcomes you to take part in the Kitchissippi Parks Participatory Plan.

This in-depth consultation will help develop a course of action for how to improve parkland over the next  six years. No matter how great these parks already are, some require improvements to invite more community use and perhaps creating additional green space would also help to improve access for all residents.  If you have ideas on how parks in Kitchissippi can be improved come out to the participatory sessions to envision, discuss, and prioritize how these ideas can be implemented.

This Kitchissippi Parks Plan will be composed of a three-round sequence of sessions. To ensure these sessions are accessible to residents, there will be an afternoon and an evening session for each round. These rounds are meant to help identify the ideas that residents have, develop them into feasible proposals, and prioritize how these proposals will be financed through the Cash-in-lieu of Parkland Fund. Please visit the City of Ottawa webpage on Parkland Fund Policy to learn more about what projects are eligible for this account.

Once again, your participation throughout each of these rounds will help your ideas transition into a plan. The session facilitator and city staff will work together to give participants feedback on their proposals to ensure participant proposals are indeed doable.

The first round of sessions:

Will take place on November 26th, 1:00-3:30pm at the Van Lang Field House (29 Van Lang Pvt) and December 1st, 6:30-9:00pm at Kitchissippi United Church (630 Island Park Drive).

In this round, participants will discuss what is needed in Kitchissippi parkland generally, and what themes of interest exist across the ward. Specific ideas for specific parks will then be explored through discussion with other participants. The end goal of this session is to have a list of initial ideas and themes, which will be further specified in the second round of sessions.

The second round of sessions:

Will take place on January 26th, 6:30-9:00pm at Churchill's Senior's Centre (345 Richmond Rd) and January 28th, 1:00-3:30pm at Tom Brown Arena (141 Bayview Rd).

This round will include a revisiting of the general themes of interest and how the specific ideas contributed in the first round fit within these themes. Participants will then be able to review feedback on specific ideas from city staff including price estimates and eligibility for the fund being accessed. Participants can then further specify these ideas or suggest new ideas that were not mentioned in the first round. The end goal of this session is to have a confirmed list of themes of interest, a more specific list of ideas for improvements, and to begin the conversation of how these specific ideas can be prioritized and funded over the next six years.

The third round of sessions:

Will take place on March 2nd, 6:30-8:30pm at Champlain Park Field House and March 4th 1:00-3:00pm at the Hintonburg Community Centre (1064 Wellington St W)

This round will once again return staff feedback on ideas to enable participants to decide which ideas they would like to support. Based on the list of ideas accumulated through the prior sessions, participants will be able to present why they believe certain ideas for improvements are important and what percentage of each dollar in the Cash-in-lieu of Parkland Fund they believe it deserves. Participants will work together to plan how ideas will be prioritized over the next six years by discussing how long-term, more expensive projects (a recreation centre) can be financed alongside short-term less expensive projects (installation of benches). The end goal of this session is to have the information necessary to put together a six year plan on how the Cash-in-lieu of Parkland Fund can be used to improve Kitchissippi parkland in a way that residents find valuable.

The success of this process relies on participant attendance and creativity, so please encourage your neighbours and friends to attend one session from each round. Online contributions will also be welcomed but the in-person sessions will enable a richer dialogue and development of clear, collective goals. Refreshments will be made available at each session. Thanks in advance for your participation. 

Thank you
 

Please don't hesitate to contact our office with any questions, comments or concerns!

Fiona