Key Advantages:
•Our plan will restore the south block of Brunswick Avenue to its original heritage configuration, which is in keeping with the Harbord Village Heritage Conservation District.
•These restorations will greatly enhance the character and attractiveness of the south end of the street.
•Our plan accommodates ample parking on the west side for the entire length of the block.
•Because Brunswick Avenue would be one-way south from Ulster to College, this will increase safety for children and residents of Kensington Gardens.
(From competitor's text)
The only submission by a local resident, one who believes, as does judge Mitch Kosny, that a parkette may never work on this site. Because of that, rightly or wrongly, this is the only submission to ignore the competition brief which is to make the parkette site more, not less welcoming than it is at present and to a greater number and diversity of people ("local residents - including those of Kensington Gardens as well as people who work or own businesses in the neighbourhood".) Bring Back the Boulevards opposes that remit by abolishing the parkette altogether. (The design includes no benches or any other park amenity.) Bring Back the Boulevards will likely cost less to build and maintain than any other submitted design. This is an important attraction but it can only happen if its boulevards are not made of grass. Even if they are meticulously maintained in this heavily trafficked area (a process that is tremendously costly in terms of re‐seeding, watering and mowing) grass boulevards will be very quickly transformed into rutted strips of mud or hard dirt. This will be the case, especially, on the west side, where trucks are frequently unloaded into the deli on that corner. For this reason, Bring Back the Boulevards can only work if itsboulevards are made, not of grass - unless, perhaps, that grass is protected by a curb ‐ but of something else, embedded boulders, perhaps, or flagstones that will contrast in colour and texture with the surrounding concrete -simple modifications that might make this design feasible. Otherwise: Bring Back the Boulevards is vague about the most troublesome part of the existing parkette - that which belongs to Kensington Health Centre. This scheme proposes it be simply fenced in with metal railings. What might be done otherwise to the existing "bunker wall" to reduce its squalor is not addressed. Nor is there any attempt to open up the west side of the KHC building to non‐medical retail or café uses, as recommended in the competition briefing and included in other submissions.
Comments of judge Mitch Kosny (who rates this submission as #1): My WINNER is BRING BACK THE BOULEVARDS. I thought it was simple and cost efficient. I also appreciated that this submission was in keeping with the Harbord Village Heritage Conservation District ideas. My biggest reason, however, is that I'm not convinced we need to 'force fit' this area to function/work successfully as a parkette. Everyone seems to be trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: again...as I wrote above...the good news is that we now have a Parkette...the bad news is that it doesn't work so we'd better force it to work. I'm not convinced of that, and for that reason I think that we should accept it's inadequacies, and the BRING BACK THE BOULEVARDS offers the 'most for the most' in terms of giving something to the entire community. I'm guessing that this might not sit all that well with some in that...damn it all...we have a park so let's make it work because you never give up park space. I simply think that discretion is the better part of valour here, and let's look at it for what it is...and with that in mind, I very easily reached my conclusion that BRING BACK THE BOULEVARDS works.
(From jury comments)
