Toronto Zoo wants $5M to hand over land for Rouge National Urban Park

Land slated to host park's welcome centre

Toronto.com
July 31, 2019
Mike Adler

Rouge National Urban Park supporters believe the Toronto Zoo is “holding us hostage for $5 million” by asking that amount for some land, says Pauline Browes, a former Scarborough MP.

Parks Canada wants to build a welcome and visitor centre for the park on the zoo’s Parking Lot 3, a grassy expanse off Meadowvale Road across from the main zoo parking lot and entrance.

The national urban park was officially established in 2015, but the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority continued owning most of the Toronto park properties before handing them to Parks Canada on June 15.

Not surrendered yet, though, is the parcel containing the little-used overflow lot on Meadowvale where the federal agency and zoo agreed to build the welcome centre.

The parcel also includes the zoo’s nearby breeding barn, as well as specialized facilities for breeding black-footed ferrets, eastern loggerhead shrikes and Vancouver Island marmots, all endangered Canadian species.

Though it now supports building it on Parking Lot 3, zoo experts believe the year-round welcome centre “would have a negative impact” on its breeding programs, according to a statement by CEO Dolf DeJong.

Since the zoo planned on building a new breeding centre away from the road in 2031, it wants $5 million to do that ahead of schedule.

“We want this (welcome centre) to happen, but we can’t be negatively impacted by this,” said a zoo spokesperson, Jennifer Tracey.

Parks Canada has offered the zoo $1 million to upgrade the breeding barn to support their shared conservation goals, but the zoo hasn’t agreed.

Browes, president of Friends of the Rouge National Urban Park, and Keith Laushway, chairperson of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, wrote to DeJong on July 19, asking the zoo consent to the land transfer and “uncouple” the request for breeding centre funds.

“We don’t really think it’s up to Parks Canada to be bailing out the Toronto Zoo,” Browes added in an interview.

A July 25 presentation by Browes and Laushway to the zoo’s management board changed nothing.

The board, which includes Scarborough councillors Paul Ainslie, Cynthia Lai and Jennifer McKelvie as voting members, asked no questions, and then went in camera to talk privately.

The board asked DeJong to “reach out” this week to Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna about the impasse, said Tracey, who called funding a breeding centre an investment in endangered species programs the zoo operates in partnership with Parks Canada, and therefore a win for all parties.

Browes, after the meeting, said the zoo “is not being very wise” in refusing $1 million.

The zoo originally wanted the welcome centre in Parking Lot 1, its main lot, a choice Browes and other park supporters argued was inappropriate.

In February, conservationists and members of the TRCA board agreed the new location east of Meadowvale Road is an improvement.

The park needs a place to welcome its visitors as soon as possible, and the Parking Lot 3 location complements the zoo; if the building is put somewhere else, the zoo sees no benefit, Browes argued.

The federal agency, which aims to “complete the establishment” of the park, including new trails and education centres, by 2022, said this week it “continues to work toward a timely solution with all parties in good faith.”

The zoo, meanwhile, is planning a “major revitalization” of its main entrance area, and hired architects for this project in June.