Towering above Toronto’s Lake Ontario waterfront, the Scarborough Bluffs offer strikingly beautiful natural greenspaces and support increasingly rare habitats for a wide variety of fish, birds, and other wildlife.
The Challenge
As experience has shown in cities worldwide, nature in the city needs to be effectively managed or it will decline.
For the Bluffs, that means balancing the realities of being located among millions of people, building and maintaining infrastructure that offers a high quality of life to all, protecting natural features and wildlife habitats, and ensuring that future generations will be able to enjoy the Bluffs and the Scarborough waterfront as well.
The Vision
As Toronto continues to grow and evolve, the Scarborough Waterfront is a place for safe and enjoyable waterfront experiences accessible to all who want them.
These experiences are supported by a system of greenspaces along the Lake Ontario shoreline that respects and protects the significant natural and cultural features of the Bluffs, and enhances wildlife habitats on the shore and in the water.
As Toronto continues to grow and evolve, the Scarborough Waterfront is a place for safe and enjoyable waterfront experiences accessible to all who want them.
These experiences are supported by a system of greenspaces along the Lake Ontario shoreline that respects and protects the significant natural and cultural features of the Bluffs, and enhances wildlife habitats on the shore and in the water.
Environmental Assessment
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), in partnership with the City of Toronto, initiated a study in 2014 under the Environmental Assessment Act (EA Act), with a vision of creating a system of public greenspaces along the Lake Ontario shoreline between Bluffer’s Park and East Point Park.
The system will respect and protect the significant natural and cultural features of the Bluffs, enhance terrestrial and aquatic habitat, and provide a safe and enjoyable waterfront experience.
While the Scarborough Bluffs are an iconic feature of the Lake Ontario shoreline, due to limited public access and existing public safety hazards, the water’s edge along this section of the waterfront is not formally accessible to the public.
The Scarborough Waterfront Project has the potential to provide formal public access along a currently inaccessible area of the Scarborough waterfront between Bluffer’s Park and East Point Park, while comprehensively addressing the risks to public safety and public property and enhancing the natural heritage system.
The study was undertaken in accordance with the Provincial EA Act (1990), as an objectives-based Individual EA, where the Project Vision and Objectives were established early in the planning process through extensive public and stakeholder consultation, and were used to describe the Project and structure the development and evaluation of Alternatives.
Ultimately, a “Preferred Alternative” was identified that best meets the Vision and Objectives of the Project.
Select image to view full-sized map.
The EA was completed in two stages, as required by the EA Act:
- Stage one included the completion and approval of a Terms of Reference (ToR), which was approved by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) on December 15, 2015.
- Stage two of the Project included the completion of the EA and preparation of the EA Report in accordance with the approved ToR. TRCA received approval for the Final EA Report from the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) on November 5, 2019.
TRCA, in partnership with the City of Toronto, will proceed with the initiation of detailed design works for the SWP starting in 2020.
Detailed Design
In Fall 2020 the Detailed Design of the West Segment of the Scarborough Waterfront Project will commence. The West Segment design focuses on safe access to Bluffer’s Park via Brimley Road South, as well as shoreline erosion protection features and a separated multi-use trail between Bluffer’s Park and Meadowcliffe.
The first phase of the West Segment work will be Detailed Design of a separated multi-use trail for Brimley Road South. This component will address concerns for pedestrian and cyclist safety that currently exist along Brimley Road South, through the design of a new paved trail proposed on the east side of the existing roadway from Barkdene Hills to access Bluffer’s Park.
In addition, the West Segment shoreline works include enhancements to the east end of Bluffer’s Park. Two expanded headlands, a temporary groyne, and a raised berm will be designed to facilitate the expansion of the Bluffer’s Park sand beach.
This will provide a sufficient land base for the implementation of a new separated multi-use shoreline trail along the base of the bluffs through Bluffer’s Park. This multi-use trail will be extended to connect to the proposed Central Segment of the SWP.
Once the implementation of the West Segment is underway, Detailed Design of the Central Segment is expected to commence.
For more information on the Preferred Alternative, please see the Refined Preferred Alternative mapping and the Final EA Report in the Documents Library.
GET INVOLVED
We invite you to contact our project staff with comments, questions and feedback. Public engagement opportunities will be advertised on the project website.
- Email: ScarboroughWaterfrontProject@trca.ca
- Phone: (416) 661-6600
- Fax: (416) 667-6278