Advocate calls for more accessible Vaughan park

YorkRegion.com
July 21, 2016
Adam Martin-Robbins  

Claudia De Cicco was visiting Mario Plastina Park last fall when she saw a young girl in a wheelchair appearing crestfallen while watching other children swinging, sliding and climbing in the playground.

The scene triggered her memory.

De Cicco recalled being told a year earlier, by a couple of city council incumbents seeking re-election, her neighbourhood park was slated for upgrades.

But as she scanned the playground, De Cicco noticed there were only a few new pieces of equipment including plastic bongos, a pair of artificial multi-tiered boulders and an accessible swing for those with disabilities.

She later learned the city spent $48,000 on those few “upgrades” at the small park in the Keele Street and Major Mackenzie Drive area.

Disappointed, De Cicco says she began calling city officials to request further improvements, including changes to address the lack of accessibility.

Currently, there are no ramps on any of the equipment. There are no curb cuts to allow those with mobility issues to access to the play area and the play pit is filled with sand rather than an accessible surface such as woodchips.

De Cicco, who has a grandchild with albinism, also wants to to see the city install canopies or umbrellas on some of the equipment to protect children from the sun’s scorching rays.

“Why can’t we accommodate the four months that these children are out here so we can try to keep them outside to play instead of being inside playing on iPads?” said De Cicco, who works as a special education teacher in York Region.

She didn’t get anywhere last fall, but was determined to not let the matter go, so she started calling again this spring. And she went straight to the top — calling to the mayor’s office.

Her initial call to Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua was re-directed to Maple/Kleinburg Councillor Marilyn Iafrate, who represents the area.

Iafrate says she and her assistant spoke with De Cicco about a number of concerns such as the need for some sort of sunshade on the playground equipment as well as the need to clean up garbage at the park and cut the grass more frequently.

But she didn’t recall De Cicco requesting further accessibility improvements.

Iafrate told De Cicco she could come to a finance committee meeting to request more money be allocated to install umbrellas or canopies on some of the park equipment and that it would help to get the support of her neighbours.

De Cicco doesn’t feel the onus should be on her to drum up support to further improve the park and make the case to council.

 “I’m not here to change the world or to get a $5 million park,” she said. “Why with (nearly) $50,000 spent did we get so little? Maybe they should have asked us in the neighbourhood what we needed. We don’t need these fake rocks over here.  What are the kids going to do? What kind of engaging and play can they do?”

Melanie Morris, manager of parks development and construction, told The Citizen the addition of the accessible swing and the two other pieces of equipment were just the first phase of upgrades to Mario Plastina Park with more planned, pending budget approval.

“We do have plans to replace the sand with a woodcarpet (a surfacing made of engineered woodchips),” she said. “There was desire from the community to see improvements in the playground and there was a lot of actual unused space within the play pit so there was a project undertaken to address that and that was sort of part one. There is more coming.”

Morris did, however, acknowledge when it comes to upgrading smaller parks, city staff don’t always consult area residents about what they feel is needed.

“It depends on the scale of the park,” she said. “If it’s a small parkette or a small neighbourhood park, there might not be a community meeting, but we have internal processes and an internal accessibility coordinator that we often run ideas and questions by.”

According to at least one accessibility advocate, public consultation around these issues is lacking in Vaughan and needs to be addressed.

“Not involving the community is a huge problem with city staff,” said Meenu Sikand, chair of Vaughan’s Accessibility Advisory Committee.

Sikand says it’s common practice for city officials to bring proposed accessibility improvements to the advisory committee for “endorsement not specifically to seek input”.

And, Sikand says, she’s “strongly” suggested city staff consult residents and people with disabilities before deciding what equipment will be installed in local parks as part of accessibility upgrades.

Once changes are made, she said, any new equipment should be tested out by those who will be using it to ensure it functions properly.

She noted that adding an accessible swing at Mario Plastina Park without changing the play pit surface from sand to a woodcarpet or rubber surface, at the same time, is “not a holistic approach”.

“If people can’t get to the swing then what good is that swing,” Sikand said. “It should be accessible – a path to the equipment is very important.”

Sikand also says the city ought to implement a process where accessibility complaints from members of the public are automatically brought to the advisory committee so it can help implement solutions.

“The community of people with disabilities is the best vehicle they could utilize to assess, to give them feedback,” she said. “And then they can keep (the feedback) on a list so that one lesson learned doesn’t have to be learned all over again on the next project.”