Making Space

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BV3093gAA5U/

Some stray thoughts:

1. I had a conversation last week with a lawyer who mainly represents developers in navigating their land-use/development applications and any related appeals. I was mostly looking for clarification regarding the negotiation and use of Section 37 funds or so-called “Community Benefits” (see this and this for why I think about it). I got an answer to my initial question but I also got an interesting insight that made me think about Munk + Evergreen a little bit differently. The lawyer had mentioned that, in their experience, increasingly less of these community benefit dollars are being spent on community space within the developments that are generating the money. They might be funding other worthwhile things, like street repair or storm water resilience measures, but they are not funding community spaces within developments. [Side note: if anyone wants to help me go through this so we know how the funds are actually being spent I’ll buy you a coffee.] This got me thinking about the importance of providing space for the kinds of activities that contribute, in one way or another, to community-based policy making. I’ve done some work in other courses on the state of public space provision in Toronto and it should come as little surprise that the situation is bleak. Unless one is white, rich, able-bodied and a professional (whatever that means), finding somewhere to actually be a community is not about to become easier. Consider Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Toronto, both of which had significant trouble finding an actual, physical space in which they might just…be. The point I think I am making is that when we think about giving people more space, we shouldn’t always be thinking metaphorically.
2. This was going to be a two-point post but point 1 took up so much space (ha…) that I am going to save point 2 for another day. Thanks for reading to the end!