Mississauga launches MyMalton - Visioning starts

NRU
May 13, 2015
By Leah Wong

Malton is the latest Mississauga community to undergo a visioning process to evaluate the area’s planning policies. It follows Port Credit and Lakeview. Through an extensive public consultation process the city is seeking to get community buying before it starts rewriting area policy.

Last week the city hosted the first two community visioning sessions for the revitalization of Malton. Through the first phase of the MyMalton project, staff is seeking to engage local residents and businesses to guide future work.

The city retained Urban Strategies in January to lead the engagement portion of phase one. The firrm’s involvement is set to wrap up by the end of the year when staff will present a directions report to committee.

With the initial sessions complete Urban Strategies is working to identify the five major topics raised, these will become the focus of a series of community engagement issue workshops in June. The final set of workshops, anticipated in the fall, will seek public input on the draft vision prior to a directions report to committee.

The demographics of Malton vary from the rest of Mississauga. Staff completed a census document as part of its background review for MyMalton, which will be released later this month.

“The diversity in Malton is very broad, much broader than in [the rest of] Mississauga,”

community planner Teresa Kerr told NRU. “The South Asian population by far dominates, much more than in the rest of Mississauga.”

In addition to being more diverse, the income levels and house values in Malton are slightly lower than the Mississauga average. Malton residents, on average, are also more likely to take transit to work and there are a higher percentage of large households.

While Mississauga does not have an exact count of secondary suites in the city, staff know that there is a higher percentage of second units in Malton than other parts of the city. Not surprising, the issue of property standards was a concern raised by residents through the visioning sessions. While residents raised a range of concerns and desires, a consistent theme was the lack of a central gathering space in Malton.

“[There] is a desire for a public square-type space in Malton,” said Kerr. While Streetsville, Port Credit and downtown Mississauga all have a public square Kerr said this is something that Malton does not have, but residents at the meeting said they would like to see one created. This would give the community a central gathering space and serve as a place for cultural events.

Kerr said the session also showed there is no agreement in Malton about where the centre of the community is located. While a popular destination may be seen as the centre in other communities, there is no single hub in Malton. When asked, responses included Westwood Mall, the Malton Community Centre and Wildwood Park.

Phase two will include preparation of the draft area policies and the associated consultation process. The third phase, following approval of the draft policies by council, will focus on implementation, including a zoning by-law. In the future council may also direct staff to initiate a community improvement plan for the area.