Montclair Avenue Parkette
Urban Plaza, one of the city's strongest overall (score 54, rank ~97th percentile). Strongest: enclosure; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Montclair Avenue Parkette scores 53.9 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and edge activation. Weakest: amenity diversity (21). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.02 ha
What's here
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 65%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
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The parks map is loading.Explain this score
Where did the 54 come from? Each weighted contribution against a neutral 50 baseline. Green = pushed up; red = pulled down.
Sum of contributions = the headline score. A negative bar means that dimension dragged the park below the city-wide neutral baseline.
Why this park works
Montclair Avenue Parkette works because its enclosure score (98) is one of the city's strongest and its edge activation (70) is also top decile (24 mid-rise buildings frame the edge with passive surveillance).
What limits this park
Montclair Avenue Parkette is held back by natural comfort (24, bottom quartile): only 0% canopy means little summer shade.
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high enclosure (98, top decile).
Jacobs reading
Montclair Avenue Parkette is a dense urban social park. Jacobs would recognise it: lots of eyes, lots of streets, lots of edge life; not where you go to escape.
Tradeoffs
- Connectivity (50) significantly outpaces natural comfort (24): well placed in the city but offers little shade or ecological respite.
Performance in context
- This park is a strong overperformer for its cohort: raw 54 versus an expected 38 for similar parks (pocket Urban Plaza) (gap +16).
Typology classification
Classified as Urban Plaza: 183 m², paved (0% canopy), 55.0 buildings/100 m
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 21 active uses (restaurant, retail, cafe, transit_stop) and 1 dead/hostile uses (parking_lot). Active edges keep "eyes on the park" through the day; parking lots, blank institutional walls, rail and highway frontages drain street life.
Source: OSM POIs (amenity/shop) + Toronto Building Footprints + land use
Connectivity
Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 0 mapped paths/walkways and 7 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 9 street intersections within 100 m; 16 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~53 m of perimeter. edge density is healthy, no superblock penalty. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops
Amenity Diversity
2 distinct amenity types in the park (bench, garden). Diversity, not raw count, drives the score so a park with many distinct activity types can outrank a larger park that repeats the same use.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: 0.0% estimated tree canopy; nearest waterbody ~724 m. Reading: exposed. Source coverage: waterbodies. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).
Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory
Enclosure / Eyes on Park
55 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (24 mid-rise, 31 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 10.0 m (~3 floors); 55.0 buildings per 100 m of 53 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3 to 7 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 24 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: parking_lot. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" that suppress foot traffic and isolate the park from its neighbourhood.
Source: Toronto Street Centreline (highways) + rail layer + OSM landuse + building footprints
Equity Context
Equity Context requires inputs not yet loaded for this park (Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles). Score is held at a neutral 50 with low confidence. Read with caution.
Source: Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles
Amenities (2 types · 4 records)
- bench
- garden
Nearby active-edge features (35)
- parking lot7 m
- cafe: Cafe Landwer23 m
- retail: Niro & Orna Hair Design25 m
- retail: Platis Cleaners27 m
- restaurant: Wilsetti29 m
- restaurant: Subway31 m
- restaurant: Mashu Mashu41 m
- retail: Tina's Health Centre42 m
- retail: Forest Hill Cigars43 m
- retail: Lunaloom Boutique45 m
- restaurant: Village Juicery48 m
- retail: Kitchen Table50 m
- retail: Forest Hill Barber Shop51 m
- transit stop: Lonsdale Road67 m
- restaurant: The Village Chill69 m
- restaurant: Sushi Lovers69 m
- retail: Excellent Custom Cleaners71 m
- retail: Francesca Salon & Spa76 m
- restaurant: Banfi81 m
- transit stop: Lonsdale Road94 m
- cafe: Second Cup95 m
- restaurant: Greenhouse Juice Co.95 m
- retail: Village Market102 m
- restaurant: What A Bagel!106 m
- transit stop: Heath Street West108 m
- restaurant: Edo-Ko111 m
- retail: Mix Beauty Lab111 m
- retail: LCBO113 m
- retail: Type Books122 m
- cafe: Starbucks125 m
- cafe: Le Petit Pain129 m
- retail: Forest Hill Pets132 m
- transit stop: Heath Street West134 m
- parking lot185 m
- parking lot187 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality97th
- Edge activation99th
- Connectivity59th
- Amenity diversity73th
- Natural comfort6th
- Enclosure100th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Paul Garfinkel ParketteUrban Plaza59
- Bernard Avenue Road AllowanceUrban Plaza57
- Ed And Anne Mirvish ParketteUrban Plaza48
- Ontario SquareCivic Square49
- Davisville Tennis ClubUrban Plaza48
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
Human activity signals: not available
No activity signals have landed for this park yet. The model has scored its physical form but it can’t yet say how often it’s programmed, photographed, or walked through. See /data-ethics for what we will and will not collect.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Montclair Avenue Parkettematters. We’re testing whether the model lines up with how people actually use the park. Submissions are stored locally; no account needed.
Tell us how this park feels
We measure structure (canopy, edges, connectivity). You measure feeling. Both matter, and disagreement is itself useful civic data.
What would improve this park?
Generated from the weakest measured dimensions: a starting point, not a prescription.
- Diversify what people can do in the park (playground, washroom, water, shade, performance, sport, garden): even small additions raise this score.
- Increase canopy and reduce paved area. Shade and water features extend usable hours and seasons.
Data sources
- City of Toronto Open Data: Parks (Green Space)Polygon boundaries, official names, types. Boundaries are reconciled against OpenStreetMap (ODbL) for new and updated parks.
- Parks & Recreation FacilitiesInventory of in-park amenities (washrooms, fields, rinks…).
- Toronto Pedestrian NetworkSidewalk segments around and through parks; estimated park entrances.
- Toronto Centreline V2Street segments + intersection nodes near park edges; trails and walkways.
- Toronto 3D MassingBuilding footprints + heights for edge-building counts, frontage density, and tower-in-the-park risk.
- Toronto Treed AreaTree canopy share inside park polygons via stratified-grid sampling.
- Toronto Waterbodies & RiversWater surface inside parks + nearest-water distance for cooling.
- Ravine & Natural Feature ProtectionRavine overlap as a cooling / natural-comfort signal.
- Toronto Street Tree InventoryTree count + density inside park polygons.
- Neighbourhood Profiles(Pending) Equity context proxy.
- OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.