East Gwillimbury Master Plan
Active Living Upcoming

NRU
Oct. 18, 2017
Daniel Taylor

Growth and changing demographics has East Gwillimbury focused on leveraging partnerships to enhance active living.

With a projected population of 150,000 by 2050—up from the current population of 22,000—and an increasingly culturally diverse population, East Gwillimbury plans to make it easier for residents to live both physically and socially active lifestyles by creating a health and active living plan and plaza.

As part of the East Gwillimbury official plan review, staff is preparing an innovative health and active living plan, which focuses on leveraging a wide array of local and regional partnerships to provide expanded and enhanced community services. Among its policies, the plan will include programming guidance for a health and active living plaza.

East Gwillimbury community parks recreation & culture general manager Aaron Karmazyn told NRU how the number and range of partnerships proposed in the plan make it an innovative method for enhancing the quality and capacity of community services.

“A lot of master plan processes look at what sort of facilities, parks and trails to build. ... What we wanted to do with this process was different than any other community that we’ve seen across Ontario or in York Region.”

Karmazyn explained that staff is looking to organizations that provide services in four priority areas—health services, public and social services, learning arts culture & diversity, and active living—to address the community’s needs. The intention is to increase the amount of services available to everyone and take a holistic perspective on community services. Partners already identified include York Region Community Health, Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, York Region Arts Council and Community Home Assistance to Seniors.

“This is an approach that’s really more about [providing] well-rounded and holistic services to residents and really broadening our approach. We’re saying we may not be able to provide the services, but we can be service coordinators.”

At one of the last public consultations for the master plan, NRU sat down with David A. Clark Consultants facilitator David Saad to talk about the proposed plaza and why it is unique.

The plaza will be located in Queensville at Leslie Street and Doane Road and is being developed in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Toronto. It will include the new location for the town’s public library, a variety of indoor and outdoor parks, recreation, social, arts and cultural services, as well as a much needed aquatic centre.

The plaza is expected to open in 2020 when the municipality is anticipated to have reached 40,000 people, at an estimated cost of $38-million.

“I think the most unique aspect of [the health and active living plan] is the proposed plaza. What they’re looking at there, in terms of the scale and the scope of these partnerships, is,... if it’s not unique, then it’s very, very different,” said Saad.

He told NRU that the depth of the consultation and community engagement process to inform the plaza’s programming was unlike anything he’s seen before as a facilitator.

“[Staff is] taking a look at who are the local champions in the community and bringing them all under one roof [in the Plaza.] There’s less of an independent approach and more of an interdependent approach.”

East Gwillimbury mayor Virginia Hackson, whose previous career was in parks and recreation, told NRU how different the town’s approach has been to creating the plan and plaza.

“I’ve spent 30 years in parks and rec and usually when a community is building a new recreation centre, they decide what to build, such as pools, rinks and programming rooms. We’ve started there, but we didn’t stop there. We decided there needs to be a holistic approach to healthy living and public health ... and when we talk to potential partners about our unique approach by looking at public and community health and not just physical activity, they get really excited to get involved.”

Public consultations for the master plan end today and staff anticipates presenting council with a draft master plan before the end of June, 2018.