Community Workshop: Co-Creating a Climate-Resilient St. Lawrence Neighbourhood
Join us in shaping a flourishing, healthier, greener, more connected St. Lawrence neighbourhood – block by block. This event is hosted by University of Toronto Scarborough’s Professor Patricia Romero-Lankao and Professor Yu Chen, University of Toronto’s Lawson Climate Institute, and the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association.
Pre-registration is required. Attend one of two dates at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (27 Front Street East, Toronto, ON M5E 1B4).
- Dec 3 5:30-7:00pm
- Dec 6 10:00-11:30am
WHY: A Resilient Neighbourhood Starts with Us
The climate crisis, rising living costs, and aging buildings are placing new pressures on urban communities like ours. Building-by-building retrofits are slow and expensive – but what if we took a different approach?
Together, we can reimagine the St. Lawrence neighbourhood as a model of community-driven, block-by-block transformation, enhancing the people’s capacity to promote energy efficiency, public health, comfort, affordability, and resilience in a way that reflects our shared values and the needs of those who live, work, and play here.
This is about more than infrastructure. It’s about shaping a livable future – together.
HOW: A Collaborative, People-Centred Process
This workshop brings together residents, workers, local businesses, building owners, youth, elders, planners, and researchers to (re) imagine the future by exploring:
- What block-level retrofitting could look like in the St. Lawrence community with a focus on Toronto Community Housing (TCH) buildings, including the public spaces that connect them such as the sidewalks, bike lanes, roads, parks and green spaces within the community
- How to ensure climate action is also inclusive social action, benefiting everyone, not just a few
- What it means to co-create a plan that includes stakeholders and rightsholders, especially those whose voices are often left out
We’ll use a mix of storytelling, mapping, scenario building, and design thinking to surface priorities, share knowledge, and lay the foundation for a community-led retrofit plan.
WHAT: A Workshop to Kickstart Action
By the end of the day, we aim to:
- Identify shared values and concerns across the community
- Map opportunities and barriers for block-level retrofitting
- Begin drafting a Community Retrofit Vision & Roadmap
- Build connections that power long-term collaboration
This is the first step in a larger journey – a platform for deeper partnership with governments, researchers, and funding bodies to make retrofit dreams a reality in ways that are just, inclusive, and scalable. An important outcome will include a plan that can be used to engage funding agencies to support further development towards achieving the community’s vision.