Fwd: inquiry about participating as a neighbourhood association in an MBA project

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Elliott de Launay

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Feb 4, 2014, 8:51:13 AM2/4/14
to ran...@googlegroups.com, doverco...@gmail.com, tho...@gmail.com
Hello,

I was forwarded your contact from the Beachhill Neighborhood Association.

I am a student at Ryerson University who is working on a platform for geotagging local news items, and contributed items from neighbourhood associations in the GTA.

I am doing this work as part of Major Research Paper (an individual capstone project) in the Ryerson MBA program this summer. I'm hoping to pilot a public participatory geoweb information system this summer as part of this project.  One of the goals is to engage the the public on local issues between neighbourhoods, government (mostly city in this case) and property developers and other commercial interests like retailers.  

Is this something that members of RANACA would be receptive to working on?  The role of the association would be to assist with the initial development and to attend a one day conference with several other neighbourhood associations from other parts of the GTA.  

This would be a great contribution both to the development of a new social enterprise aimed at city building, and might also be a chance to have an impact on greater collaboration and communication amongst and between neighbourhood associations and other citizen and commercial groups.

Thanks for considering this,

Elliott de Launay
416-575-9056


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Beach Hill Neighbourhood Association <bhnac...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: inquiry about participating as a neighbourhood association in an MBA project
To: John Doran <johnn...@rogers.com>
Cc: Kimberly A Bates <kimb...@ryerson.ca>, Elliott de Launay <edel...@gmail.com>


Hi Kim,
Yes, we remember you as the couple that found the first lost dog!
This is indeed an intriguing idea. Just a few notes though:
  • The new condo while something the association supports due to the fact it will bring more people to the area and help Gerrard's rejuvenation, is not something that we had a lot of input into. While there were some consultations, it was pretty much set to go when the developer first came on the scene. (Looks like they'll start breaking ground in a few months).
  • Here's the rub: Our Exec is stretched pretty thin right now so even though I can see you do not need an inordinate amount of time devoted to this, I think even a bit would be too much right now. We are having our monthly exec. meeting tomorrow night and I will see if there are any takers to be a point person on this but I think if you do not hear back by Wednesday from us, it probably would mean we couldn't take it on right now, however positive and helpful it would be.
A suggestion: 
There is a new Neighbourhood Association umbrella group in Toronto that is just getting off the ground, with I believe a general meeting coming up in early March. They may indeed be interested and / or helpful to you. Here is the contact info I have:
Kim, I hope these are some good leads for you.
And, Elliott, if you'd like to check out a neighbourhood association in action, you are more than welcome to come to our AGM on March 4th,  info found here: http://www.beachhill.org/p/upcoming-bhna-events.html

Good luck to all.
Kim, 'hope to see you and / or John soon in the 'hood.
Sincerely,
Kate Tennier - Chair




On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 7:18 PM, John Doran <johnn...@rogers.com> wrote:
Hi,

I'm a member of the Beach Hill Neighbourhood Association, but I'm a emailing in my work capacity, which is as MBA Program Director at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson.

I am working with a student who is working on a platform for geotagging local news items, and contributed items from neighbourhood associations in the GTA, Elliott de Launay, who is preparing to complete his Major Research Paper (an individual capstone project) in the Ryerson MBA this summer.  I've copied him on this email, and my work address as well.  Elliott is hoping to pilot a public participatory geoweb information system this summer as part of this project.  One of the goals is to engage the the public on local issues between neighbourhoods, government (mostly city in this case) and property developers and other commercial interests like retailers.  

I immediately thought of the Beach HIll Neighbourhood Association, due to the group's successful history with the developers of the Beach Hill condos, and the earlier work with the city and original property developer by neighbourhood members, including those who spoke for the neighbourhood at the OMB (I was one).

Is this something that members of the BHNA would be receptive to working on?  The role of the association would be to assist with the initial development and to attend a one day conference with several other neighbourhood associations from other parts of the GTA.  

This would be a great contribution both to the development of a new social enterprise aimed at city building, and might also be a chance to have an impact on greater collaboration and communication amongst and between neighbourhood associations and other citizen and commercial groups.

Thanks for considering this,

Kim
On 2014-02-03, at 5:22 PM, Beach Hill Neighbourhood Association <bhnac...@gmail.com> wrote:

From members regarding local happenings:

From Kyle Duncan:
  • The School Council of Danforth CTI, as part of their "Starting the Conversation" project, invites all interested parents to an evening presentation by Michael Eisen on "Cracking the Teenage Code: Building Conscious Communication with your Teen". Thursday, Feb 20th at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:30 pm. 
  • Beach Hill is in the school's catchment area but you do not need to have a student at the school to attend. Please see the attached flyer for more information.
From Jane Irwin, BHNA Tree Team (Residential trees, off Gerrard):
  • The Beach Hill Neighourhood Tree Team is happy to announce that an Urban Forest Management Plan has been completed for Beach Hill. It was researched and developed by four graduate students from the Faculty of Forestry at U of T. Of special interest are: 
  • The Beach Hill Canopy cover and condition of the cover (pre ice storm) p. 17 
  • City of Toronto tree reguations and policies, including trees on city streets, private tree protection, inspection and removal of infected trees, p. 21.
  • Tree Care, p. 33.
  • The Tree Team now has its own website and the report can be found there: http://www.treeteambeachhill.org/p/home.html
  • If you have any questions or would like to attend one of our meetings, please contact us at: organ...@treeteambeachhill.org
Finally, more businesses than not in Beach Hill have been doing a great job of clearing their ice and snow - it makes a real difference and we want to say a big, huge, emphatic THANKS! 


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David Barnes

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Feb 4, 2014, 9:54:12 AM2/4/14
to Elliott de Launay, ran...@googlegroups.com, doverco...@gmail.com, tho...@gmail.com
Hi Elliott, I will be the first to admit I had to google "geotagging" not sure if there is a tangible benefit to an Association.

There is map functions with seeclickfix (for 311 service issues)  eventbrite (for events) Doodle (for meetings) not sure how useful would knowing the exact location of a neighbourhood issue be.

This would yet be another platform to post to post on, but if it turns out to be a useful tool I am sure it will get used.

If Ranaca has a general meeting in March this may be an opportunity to explain further,  but a one day seminar might be a little demanding on the time available to the association reps.

A youtube and powerpoint presentation might save some time.

Just my thoughts only. but thanks for your work, we need all the tools we can get.

David Barnes

Midland Park Community Association
   


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Elliott de Launay

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Feb 4, 2014, 12:37:18 PM2/4/14
to dunda...@gmail.com, ran...@googlegroups.com, Kim Bethke, Todd Hofley
Thanks for your reply David,

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of seeclickfix. For my project I am also looking at aggregating from the different sources (groupon, eventbrite, etcs) to be a one stop shop for that information, but I'm trying to learn more about how seeding a site with information pulled from other sites will affect community engagement with the existing content.

The seminar would be optional, at this point I am more looking to get feedback (similar to this email) to better understand how community groups can collaborate and communicate using maps.

I have a youtube video explaining the concept here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js1LPI50TBA

I am still in the proto-typing and development phases as I round out more of the site, so the youtube videos will most likely need to be updated.

Nick Schefter

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Feb 4, 2014, 2:36:50 PM2/4/14
to Elliott de Launay, dunda...@gmail.com, ran...@googlegroups.com, Kim Bethke, Todd Hofley
Hi Elliot,
 
I have to comment as well on your idea and it's possible development.
 
Our area boundaries are College, University, Queen W. and Spadina.
 
Each neighbourhood has it's own set of issues but generally those issues will be management of new development and management of the existing residential neighbourhood through the existing zoning and property standards by-laws.
 
I think that any tool that fosters awareness of community and city issues as well as possibly offering an 'incident' timeline as well as overlays that allow interaction based on incident types and also what follow-up occurred would be great.
 
Needless to say however, in order to have a real effect on problems a deep understanding of community issues and their causes and solutions ( easier said ) is required.
 
You use the term 'news' which sounds a bit fleeting. The issues we in the Grange are dealing with have been decades in the making and solving them means fighting it out with an intransigent Municipal Licensing & Standards Dept. and a similarly disposed Transportation Right Of Way Management Department.
 
The kinds of issues we are talking about are of the neighbourhood killing variety and yes it includes massive development multiple times over allowed zoning involving hiring our own lawyers to fight at the OMB in the face of developers million dollar legal budgets.
 
We are under attack not just from over scale development but a disembowelling of our R3 zoned streets as MLS stands by and watches as fifty percent of our residential houses along with our streetscape is being eaten by opportunistic slumlords stuffing from between 12 to 20 students into old and mostly illegally converted housing.
 
So we are losing long term residents living in proper apartments to a transient population living in types of converted housing that remove those types of apartments from the market. 
 
All of this is contrary to the published zoning and municipal code for our neighbourhood and yet the problem has become so massive and chronic that no one apparently is able to address it at City Hall.
 
Even our Councillor, one of the hardest working representatives the city has, is struggling to deal with these issues.
 
A map, while great only shows what research has provided. It's the research and compiling of arguments that will be effective in persuading the City to enforce the existing rules.
 
What I am saying is that your idea is sound and if you were to link with other individuals and agencies that also use mapping as a tool perhaps you will contribute to a product that is accessible and has an east to use GUI and is timely and relevant.
 
There are only a handful of active residents in the Grange and the time to do the necessary groundwork is spread thin.
 
I am open to anything that will help display a real picture of our community as long as it is based on sound data and is useable.
 
If you have the bodies willing to research I can provide a list of issues and their criteria but pavement pounding is required.
 
I have included some names and links below that might be useful because they are doing similar things.
 
Most importantly you might communicate with the councillor's offices. The more progressive will already be employing interactive maps.
 
The City ( linked below ) also has an emerging interactive map presence.
 
 
Best Regards,
 
Nick Schefter
 
Grange Community Association
 
Board Member, Community Standards
 
 
 
 
Here are some names and links to ongoing mapping/event projects ( not all may be current )
 
Andrew Millward, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Geography
Principal Investigator, Urban Forest Research &
Ecological Disturbance (UFRED) Group
Ryerson University
 
  • Keith McDonald, Supervisor, Information Management Training, Open Toronto
  • Scott Webb, Senior Spatial Specialist, Geospatial Competency Centre
  • Gina Porcarelli, Spatial Products Analyst, Geospatial Competency Centre
  • Mark Kuznicki, Director, Remarkk
  • Marcel Fortin, Map & Data Librarian, University of Toronto
 
Harvey Low, Acting Manager, City of Toronto Social Research & Analysis Unit  ( 2011 )
 
  • John Danahy, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Toronto
  • Gunho Sohn, Assistant Professor of Geomatics Engineering, York University
 
 
 
 
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