The city has decided that it wants to move one of the four day care centres in its plan for River District from the originally proposed site into the single park in the area, at what will be4 designated as 3010 East Kent Avenue north, effectively destroying the park. Half of the park has already been destroyed in order to build affordable housing, and now they wish to destroy the rest. On May 4th, 2016, the city held an open house at the presentation centre, where they invited the people to come and make their views heard and to submit comments. The reaction to the proposal was almost uniformly negative, but while the city staff attentively smiled and nodded their heads as the community expressed why it shouldn’t happen some city staff had commented that they would likely ignore the community voice and do what they wanted anyway, barring a substantial outpouring of support to keep it. The city staff patiently and politely repeated “zoning” over and over, and it’s clear that this was an exercise paying lip service to the process, instead of being attentive to the community’s wishes. The city staff was collecting reactions and comments, but ultimately the decision will be made by city council.

The community as a whole needs to step up and provide their feedback to the city, because many of the community are unaware of these public meetings. If we do not we will lose the only free green space we have in the area, at the expense of families, children and pets. If you feel that the development of the area is out of control, and you want it to stop, and to keep the park for the community benefit, instead of putting more buildings there, then please show your support by signing this petition.