How the city wants to bring Chinatown residents into the conversation about the neighbourhood’s future
THE GREEN LINE
DOCUMENTERS NOTES
How the city wants to bring Chinatown residents into the conversation about the neighbourhood’s future
City of Toronto staff held a meeting on Dec. 7 in Xing Dance Theatre to update community members on the urban planning study, Chinatown Tomorrow Planning Initiative.
The Chinatown Tomorrow Planning Initiative meeting on Dec. 7, 2024 opened with a lion dance at Xing Dance Theatre.
: Karen Chan/The Green Line.
Karen Chan
A Chinatown-based artist, graduate of University of British Columbia and a bunny mom. She is interested in storytelling to build community.
Dec. 8, 2024
These city meeting notes are part of Documenters Canada. Learn more about our program here.
What comes to your mind when you think of Chinatown?
Well, city planning staff asked some version of this question to over 500 Chinatown residents for the Chinatown Tomorrow Planning Initiative, which is an urban planning study that aims to determine how the city can preserve the unique characteristics of the neighbourhood and respond to increased development pressure.
The City of Toronto Planning and Development staff held a meeting on Dec. 7 in Xing Dance Theatre to update the Chinatown community on the progress of the study and next steps in the process.
The meeting opened with a lion dance and was attended by about 50 people. City staff presented a brief history of Chinatown — highlighting the displacement of Chinese residents and the history of exclusionary policies by the Canadian government — before presenting the findings from the Chinatown Tomorrow Planning Initiative.
According to the presentation, over 500 participants were surveyed between August 2023 and August 2024 in community consultations, round tables and meetings. In one of the survey questions, participants were asked what Chinatown meant to them. City staff shared highlights of the responses: Chinatown is a meeting place, a refuge for all and a home for Chinese-Canadian identity. Common topics brought up in the study were the importance of community values, affordability, solidarity with the working class, informality, mutual aid and micro-enterprise.
Sharon Hong, an associate at ERA Architects, emphasized that Chinatown is a place of local and national significance that needs to be preserved.
Deputy Mayor Asuma Malik, councillor for ward 10 Spadina-Fort York which includes Chinatown, spoke about the importance of investment without displacement emphasizing that “everything is already here” and that the city can just work alongside the community to amplify assets and goals.
What were the outcomes of the discussions?
City staff invited attendees to sign up to join a community working group that will look into the feedback and insights from the study. The goal of the working group is to create a platform to continue building relationships with the community. Attendees were strongly encouraged to stay engaged and to send comments at any time to city planning staff, specifically planner Patricia Cho and senior planner Ran Chen.
This stage of consultations will wrap up in January 2025. The city staff will then give an update on progress as well as recommendations to get another round of community feedback before finalizing the Chinatown Tomorrow report, which is to be shared with city council in the fourth quarter of 2025.
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