The City of Toronto, in collaboration with Waterfront Toronto, conducted an urban design guidelines study for Production, Interactive, and Creative (PIC) districts in the Port Lands, transforming 33 hectares of industrial land into creative industry hubs anchored by film and media campuses. Media City and Turning Basin districts will feature vibrant, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes and waterfront promenades, focusing on creative industry uses. LURA led the public engagement strategy, employing various techniques to gather broad input.

Public meetings, workshops, and Stakeholder and Landowner Advisory Committees were used to engage key representatives and gather in-depth feedback. Online surveys and feedback forms broadened participation, ensuring inclusivity. Interactive mapping and visualization tools allowed participants to engage directly with the design proposals, providing spatially specific input.

LURA maintained transparency by producing detailed summary reports, ensuring feedback was integrated into the design plans. The outcomes shaped community-supported guidelines prioritizing pedestrian-friendly environments, creative spaces, and waterfront access. These guidelines will guide the transformation of Media City and Turning Basin into thriving creative industry centers, contributing to Toronto’s economic and cultural growth.

Over the past several years, LURA has worked closely with the City of Toronto’s Planning Division on multiple heritage conservation studies and plans. Since 2017, our facilitation services have been applied as part of the Kensington Market Heritage Conservation District Plan; Weston II Heritage Conservation Study; Cabbagetown Southwest Heritage Conservation District Plan; Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan; Cabbagetown Southwest Heritage Conservation District Study; Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Study; Casa Loma Heritage Conservation District Study; and Old Millside Heritage Conservation District Study.

Each project has used a similar engagement approach – with multiple Stakeholder Advisory Committee/Group (SAC/SAG) and Community Consultation Meetings (CCMs). During the pandemic, traditional in-person engagement events have been replaced with online engagement through virtual engagement sessions, surveys and other forms of community outreach.

In 2017-2018, LURA also facilitated City-wide community and stakeholder consultations for Heritage Toronto on the City of Toronto’s heritage approach and policies. Through facilitating heritage consultations in Toronto and other Ontario municipalities, LURA has developed a strong familiarity with local heritage preservation and planning issues, as well as community perspectives and concerns on heritage matters.

LURA worked with the City of Guelph on their Growth Management Strategy (GMS) and Official Plan Review consultations. The engagement consisted of four rounds of virtual engagement on various aspects of the GMS as it progressed. These included town hall events, online questionnaires, targeted stakeholder workshops, and a targeted community-specific workshop for the Rolling Hills area of the City.

Several engagement approaches were used throughout the process and interest-holders represented many interests. The Official Plan Review engagement included workshops, public meetings, and online questionnaires. In addition, LURA and the City worked with an Indigenous engagement consultant to engage local Indigenous residents and First Nations communities. LURA prepared a summary of the feedback for each round of engagement, which the City and its technical consultants used to inform the planning work.

LURA was initially retained in 2002 by Waterfront Toronto to design and lead its public consultation programs. LURA’s contribution included developing the overall strategic approach taken on community consultation by Waterfront Toronto as well as its public consultation policy. LURA also conducted Waterfront Toronto’s public consultation programs for the East Bayfront and West Don Lands precinct planning processes.  Waterfront Toronto’s approach to community consultation is often held up as a model for effectively engaging stakeholders and the public in planning processes. LURA developed the Corporation’s initial public consultation strategy and policy and, over the past decade, has worked closely with Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto to engage waterfront stakeholders and communities in over 20 waterfront revitalization projects.

LURA has provided consultation and facilitation services to Waterfront Toronto on the Queens Quay Revitalization Project, Lower Don Lands Revitalization Project and Precinct Plan, Villiers Island Precinct Plan, and Port Lands Planning Framework.  We continue our work with Waterfront Toronto on the engagement and consultation for Waterfront East LRT, Parliament Slip, and Quayside Public Realm Plan, as well as working alongside Waterfront Toronto and Quayside Impact Partners on engagement for the Quayside Development.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) is a rapidly growing region in North America, and four major plans regulate its growth and environmental protection. The Province undertook a simultaneous review of all four plans between 2015 and 2017, which involved two formal consultation stages with affected provincial ministries, municipalities, non‐governmental stakeholder organizations, and individual Ontarians. LURA was retained to provide advice, independent facilitation, and third-party analysis and reporting for both stages of stakeholder and public engagement of the Coordinated Review.

LURA worked with Provincial staff to develop an engagement process to ensure broad participation from the public and stakeholders across the GGH. This included providing multiple avenues for engagement, analyzing and summarizing feedback obtained at stakeholder and town hall meetings and presenting an overview of the feedback received to the Advisory Panel appointed to develop recommendations on how to amend and improve the plans.

LURA also prepared a written Record of Consultation, a high-level summary of the feedback received through the engagement process through various mechanisms. The Coordinated Review engagement process was one of Ontario’s largest and highest-profile consultations in the last decade. With design, facilitation, and reporting support from LURA, it successfully engaged hundreds of stakeholder organizations and thousands of individual Ontarians in helping to shape the Ontario government’s revisions to the four key plans and associated policies.