On June 7, 2024, the City of Kitchener installed sensors in Willow River Park to collect necessary data for the park’s master plan to improve its facilities.
Willow River Park opened in 1896 and is a famous recreational spot in Kitchener for people of all ages. The plan’s purpose is to help guide the vision and priorities of the park for the next ten years.
The sensors were installed at Willow River Park to gather information on how visitors use the park and how it can be improved to serve the community better. They are a vision-based technology provided by Ramudden Digital, which specializes in traffic management and safety solutions.
These sensors will capture and count the number of vehicles and pedestrians that enter and leave the park and track park user movements.
The sensors do not collect personal identifying information or store video files. They connect to a series of integrated computers that process the video stream in real-time to gather count and classification data and remove raw footage.
According to Karen Leasa, the landscape architect, the master plan has three phases: inventory analysis, engagement and envisioning and document preparation for the overall master plan.
“We’re currently finalizing phase one, then, in the fall, we’re planning to initiate phase two,” she said.
The second phase will last about a year, just like phase one. This phase will also provide a six-month period for public and internal engagement so the citizens and city staff can provide input.
Since Willow River Park is a cultural heritage landscape, the city is working with the heritage committee to review the Ontario Planning Act and ensure they have permission to add structural changes to the landscape.
The project’s scope focuses on infrastructure and maintenance of the park, like safe furnishings, buildings, trails, trees and horticulture.
“We have to focus on what projects we want to prioritize in the park and what areas we want to focus on improving and maintaining,” Leasa said.
However, the project does not focus on social aspects such as park names, encampments or the Queen Victoria statue.
The city is aware of the social issues related to the park, especially how it ties with the Willow River Centre and the Indigenous communities that owned the land previously. However, they are currently focusing more on the physical park space than the social components tied to the park.
Leasa explained the city of Kitchener prefers to deal with social issues in separate projects.
Amy Smoke, co-director of the Willow River Centre and sessional instructor at Renison University College, says the Centre has been conversing with the city of Kitchener-Waterloo and the region to give Indigenous land back to the community. They said they have discussed many aspects of the park that harm the Indigenous culture related to it, such as the Queen Victoria statue, the park’s name and the fire space, which the community protested over in 2021 with encampments for 122 days.
Smoke says the Centre was not aware of the newly implemented master plan, despite their continuous attempts to bring notice to the social issues of the park. But if the city is planning to do work on Indigenous lands in the area, Smoke said they should receive consent from Indigenous communities tied to the land before implementing the master plan.
“ [One hundred] per cent they should be meeting with the Indigenous people of these lands to discuss the development of that site,” they said.
They also said that the city is not open to hearing the voices of the Indigenous communities about the park. They said the City of Kitchener is filtering information about issues and projects related to the Centre, then informing them about ongoing projects and issues related to the community.
“We only receive the information that they’re willing to update us with,” they said.
When discussing the initial steps of the master plan, Smoke said she disagreed with the sensors installed at the park.
“Putting up all those cameras in the site doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a renovation or a positive impact,” they said.
The city is still collecting the data necessary for the Willow River Park master plan, and they’re planning to keep the sensors for about a year to get as much data as possible.
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