PAUL COFFEY PARK REDEVELOPMENT: IMPROVING RECREATION

NRU
June 14, 2017
Dominik Matusik

The City of Mississauga is seeking public input into the future of Paul Coffey Park in Malton. The park’s role as a community hub has been compromised over the past few decades and city planners are seeking to rejuvenate it into a community asset.

Located at 3430 Derry Road, Paul Coffey Park—renamed from Wildwood Park just last year—has served the Malton neighbourhood since 1965. The park spans 45.5 ha and contains numerous recreational facilities, including the Paul Coffey Arena, baseball and cricket pitches, soccer fields, and tennis courts. However, increased traffic and development near Pearson Airport have left it wedged between two industrial parks, cutting it off from residential communities. And recently, the park has lost a significant portion of its tree canopy to insect infestations.

Mississauga Ward 5 councillor Carolyn Parrish told NRU that she has been working on improvements to Paul  Coffey Park since first elected to represent Ward 5 in 2014, using a combination of city funds and private fundraising. These improvements include refurbishing the hockey arena, building a castle-shaped playground (complete with dragon and princess) and fixing up the CF-100 fighter jet displayed in the park.

“I’ve been impatient enough not to wait for the redevelopment,” Parrish says.  “It’s needed work for 25 years and it’s been ignored. When I got elected up there, I made up my mind that I would get [the improvements] kick started before we waited for the park redevelopment. We’re all working hand in hand right now and the city is doing the infrastructure on the playing fields and I’m taking on the sexy stuff like the playground, the arena and the CF-100.”

Parrish says that Malton residents like the park the way it is, but she recognizes the potential for the redevelopment process to further enhance it.

“I hope the park... will be way more welcoming. You’ll get a lot more people in there. What happens now is [people] book the fields, they go in, use their booked time and then they leave. ... What I’d like to do is cater to the people who live there and make it very welcoming [to them].”

Paul Coffey Park has the potential to be a tremendous asset to the city, Mississauga long-term planning team leader Olav Sibille told NRU. Sibille is heading a team that will develop a master plan for the park’s redevelopment.

“We want to see something that works well for the community,” he says. “Something that reflects the current needs of the community in terms of recreation, open space, natural areas, [and] in what ways we can make the natural heritage more robust to be able to protect it better.”

Staff is considering a myriad of issues as it plans for the park’s redevelopment. These include determining and improving the state of the recreational facilities, enhancing accessibility and connectivity both within the park and with the surrounding communities, improving safety, and rebuilding the tree canopy. The consultation process will also determine who uses the park and whether it should be considered a neighbourhood, city or regional destination.

The master plan will also consider the park within the context of the surrounding areas. Recognizing the challenge of planning a park that is surrounded by industrial uses, Sibille says a goal of the plan is to improve connectivity and the park’s relationship to abutting streets. There is also the potential to enlarge the park by acquiring provincial lands to the south.

First and foremost, Sibille says, the park has to serve the needs of its users.

“We want to plan for all ages, all abilities, and all races. That’s something that is kind of our mantra for this park... It’s an exercise of how to make a better quality of life for residents. When they use the park [it should] satisfy their needs and they will feel ownership of the park... Yes, with parkland comes assets and facilities and amenities and whatnot, but we want to talk about people—what they want to see, what helps them, what is really meaningful to them.”

City staff is currently considering public feedback and anticipates having a draft master plan completed in the fall.