'Participation' in place-based planning in Kingston Galloway/Orton Park: the case of the proposed Community Planning Board

Place-based participatory planning is an ongoing trend in planning theory and practice, resulting in many policies across Europe and North America, focusing on issues of neighbourhood decline and poverty. In Toronto, the conversations have revolved around 13 designated 'priority neighbourhoods', centring on improving quality of life through place-based solutions and participatory practices. In 2014, the Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020 is being implemented, which has the potential for dramatically changing how poverty is addressed at the neighbourhood level and how 'quality of life' and 'equity' are measured. Kingston Galloway/Orton Park (KGO), a 'priority neighbourhood', has gained significant momentum through place-based initiatives. A group consisting of residents, organisations, community workers, and planning professionals, have begun a conversation to address how the community can deal with potential development and planning initiatives. Embedded in the neoliberal context of racialised poverty and territorial stigmatisation, this research examines how public participation in planning takes place on the ground, in Toronto's inner suburbs. It also focuses on how one neighbourhood is looking to shift the discourse of participatory planning towards a proactive process, led by a largely marginalised community, through the formation of a community planning board. Embedded at the intersection of top-down management and neighbourhood planning, the proposed board provides an opportunity for residents to drive place-based planning and address limitations in current planning practice, by politicising participatory practices through leveraging social networks and political power.