{"id":18305,"date":"2017-09-13T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T19:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18305"},"modified":"2017-09-21T12:11:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T16:11:31","slug":"community-engagement-coming-for-next-phase-of-library-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-engagement-coming-for-next-phase-of-library-square\/","title":{"rendered":"Community engagement coming for next phase of Library Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Community engagement on the future of development of Library Square could resume as early as next week following Council’s approval.
\nSitting at the Committee level last week, Council members gave the green light to retaining the services of The Planning Partnership in preparing a design and site plan for Library Square.
\nWorking hand in hand with that, they also approved giving notice to the public that Council will consider allocating a portion of Aurora\u2019s Hydro Reserves to fund the further development of the larger downtown Cultural Precinct.
\nBoth decisions are up for final ratification this week and, if they clear the final hurdle, public engagement will be among the first steps in coming up with a site plan, and the consultants are ready to hit the ground running.
\nIf all goes according to plan, this week will include a visioning exercise, the development of design principles, and a review of options surrounding a conceptual design, before moving next week into engagement of \u201ccommunity, stakeholders, Council and staff.\u201d
\nWhile this week\u2019s Council meeting could be a very different story, when these long-discussed plans came up for a General Committee level vote last week, it passed with barely a ripple of discussion.
\nThe one question asked pertained to the cost of the Planning Partnership, which raised an eyebrow from Councillor Wendy Gaertner.
\n\u201cWe have got in trouble in the past, in my opinion, accepting RFPs with the lowest bid,\u201d she said. \u201cI do believe it is said in the report that this is the lowest bid.\u201d
\nWhile it was indeed the lowest bid, CAO Doug Nadorozny said that final bid cost only accounted for 15 per cent of their score in the final evaluation.
\n\u201cThe Planning Partnership has an impressive record, but I don\u2019t see that they have actually done main street downtown revitalization,\u201d concluded Councillor Gaertner. \u201cThey have certainly done a lot of work for us and they are very familiar with our Official Plan, our Promenade Plan, etc.\u201d
\nThe Planning Partnership\u2019s bid clocked in at $132,635, and they scored an overall 82.5 per cent on their bid. The money to fund the next steps will be taken from Council\u2019s Discretionary Reserve Fund.
\n\u201c[They are] a multidisciplinary firm comprised of landscape architects, urban designers, urban planners and communication professionals,\u201d said Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, in a further report to Council last week fleshing out why The Planning Partnership made the grade.
\n\u201cIn the last five years, the Planning Partnership\u2019s work has been recognized with over 20 awards and citations, both from peers and professional organizations, including the Canadian Institute of Planners, the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Association of Landscape Architects, the Canadian Association of Landscape Architects, and the Ontario Association of Architects. In addition, the firm has garnered awards from numerous municipalities and government agencies.\u201d
\nIn painting a picture of some of the planning partnership\u2019s notable achievements, Mr. Ramunno cited many redevelopment projects from the City of Toronto, including lead consulting on the development of the West Don Lands, Bellvue Square in Kensington Market, the Distillery District, and something familiar to countless Aurora commuters each day, the Front Street fa\u00e7ade of Union Station.
\n\u201cThe Planning Partnership was the lead public realm designer for the redesign of Front Street in front of Union Station,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno. \u201cThe design intent was to create a grand arrival plaza for one of the country\u2019s most active multi-modal transit terminals. Working closely with the City of Toronto\u2019s urban design, transportation and technical services divisions\u2026the project established a number of innovative precedents for the City.
\n\u201cThey include the creation of a table top pedestrian plaza that spans across Front Street and prioritizes pedestrians over vehicles and the introduction of vehicular calming techniques including cobble paving in the street, narrowed lanes and limited curbside and drop off and pickup.\u201d
\nSimilarly, the Planning Partnership is working with architects on landscape rehabilitation for the Distillery District.
\n\u201cAs a former industrial site converted to residential and commercial uses, this now tourist destination lacked pedestrian realm amenities,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno. \u201cThe design concept preserves the essential heritage values of the place while introducing elements for comfort, safety and year-round interest.
\n\u201cThe landscape plan was based on a simple principle of minimum intervention to preserve the heritage qualities and character of the site, combined with maximum social benefit, creating a series of programmable public squares and laneways that are activated by adjacent uses and active programming.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community engagement on the future of development of Library Square could resume as early as next week following Council’s approval. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Lf","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 16:15:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}