below are some of notes made from community input concerning neighborhood associations or as commonly called by the populice of Toronto, resident associations.
Below are some of notes made from community input concerning neighborhood associations or as commonly called by the populice of Toronto, resident associations.
section 2.1 row 6, Special Committee on Governance — Consultation with Neighbourhood Associations — Workshop Notes | this text accessed Jan 27 2020 Data last refreshed by city: Jan 24, 2020
An office at City Hall dedicated to supporting RAs. There is a gap of service delivery that has been filled by volunteers – either TANGO, or in all the hours that all the leaders/members of RAs put in for community association. This gap should be filled by this office and this office would facilitate neighbourhoods access to their municipal government.
Register RAs, provide resources, provide small funding to help RAs open, pay for their websites, special events, and pave the way forward to Neighbourhood Councils where neighbourhood issues and initiatives can be resolved and passed in timely manner rather than being delayed for years waiting from Council decisions.
At the very least an office similar to the Office at Civic Innovation with a small number of staff initially (3-10) that will support RAs and to use a neighbourhood lens within City Hall to advocate for neighbourhood initiatives and concerns.
It could be 1 office or at least 1 office in each City Hall or civic centre. It should also provide free meeting spaces (that you could book online in advance). Additionally: Community Councils (of which we only have four that is arbitrary and not related to populations) should be further divided for more efficiency and better access to municipal government on issues that are local to those neighbourhoods and need not be held up for extended time due to bureaucracy.
At their meeting on April 12, 2019, the Special Committee on Governance asked staff to provide targeted engagement opportunities for neighbourhood associations across Toronto to reflect on the impacts to the City’s governance structures and decision-making processes that resulted from a reduction in the size of Council. Neighbourhood associations (NAs) are local, geographically focused groups such as neighbourhood coalitions, groups and partnerships, organizations that receive City grants to support community networking, ratepayer groups and resident associations.
This data set is from a workshop with neighbourhood associations held on 1 October 2019 at Metro Hall in which participants completed two table exercises. In the first exercise, participants prioritized one City program or governance process on a list of twelve that they felt did not work well, and made suggestions for what could be done to improve it. In a second table exercise, participants were asked to write down and discuss what they imagined an Office of Neighbourhoods to be, what it would do, how would it run, and how would it relate to their group.
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