A Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan for Vaughan’s Thornhill neighborhood

The City of Vaughan, in partnership with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), will develop a Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan (SNAP) for Vaughan’s Thornhill neighbourhood. The SNAP will aim for transformation across five areas: greenhouse gas reduction through energy efficiency and sustainable transportation; stormwater management and flood prevention; water conservation; waste management; and green infrastructure. The plan will also give direction on climate resiliency, and will integrate social and economic themes including job skills training, quality of life, equity, health and wellbeing, arts and culture, and sense of place. Vaughan selected the Thornhill neighbourhood through a collaborative screening process that mapped all planned infrastructure capital projects, environmental and social priorities, and flooding vulnerabilities across the entire city. Thornhill emerged as a strategic area for coordinated action. The neighbourhood is vulnerable to flooding, includes priority areas for watershed management, has the highest residential energy intensity in the city and has high water consumption. It also has significant inequality, with low-income populations living next to high-income areas. Thornhill’s already planned capital projects for major stormwater management, flood remediation, road reconstruction and park renewal will be integrated into the SNAP’s development. An implementation strategy will identify priority projects, lead implementers, partners, workplans and required resources. A performance monitoring plan will track progress and will include a summary of performance indicators, timeline and data sources for the retrofit actions selected as part of the SNAP. This project coincides with an update to Green Directions Vaughan, the city’s Community Sustainability and Environmental Master Plan. That plan is being revised in 2019 and includes a specific action to develop a SNAP. Innovative aspects: • The SNAP will leverage planned capital projects for Thornhill to achieve better socioeconomic and sustainability outcomes • The plan’s various infrastructure renewal projects will be designed as a system to achieve efficiencies • Co-benefits of integrated sustainable infrastructure renewal will be measured, including socioeconomic benefits • Vaughan will use a number of community engagement approaches to develop the SNAP, such as walks, future-visioning exercises and thought leader workshops that aim to bring together residents and local stakeholders with municipal staff, including Indigenous perspectives • The SNAP will include a climate vulnerability assessment and will provide recommendations for climate mitigation, adaption and resiliency Replicability: • Knowledge-sharing resources such as reports, fact sheets and PowerPoint presentations will be developed and made available online and through conferences, seminars and meetings with other municipalities • Themes for knowledge-sharing materials will include recommendations on how to select the ideal SNAP neighbourhood, methods for a truly collaborative co-planning process, integrating asset-management planning with SNAP development, and planning for climate resiliency (Project description from original funding application)