HILLCREST LIBRARY - Building Grounds
Parkette, above average overall (score 41, rank ~80th percentile). Strongest: edge activation; weakest: enclosure.
Photo by Toronto Public Library - Hillcrest Branch via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026
HILLCREST LIBRARY - Building Grounds scores 41.4 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.72 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 63%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Street context
Park polygon highlighted on the citywide map. Connectivity, transit, and edge conditions read at a glance.
Top-down view
City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px. Reads the park’s footprint, paths, treed area, and edge conditions from above.
City of Toronto Orthophoto · cot_ortho most-current MapServer
Explain this score
Where did the 41 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
What limits this park
Most distinctive characteristic
Jacobs reading
Performance in context
- A modest overperformer for its parkette typology (+5 vs the median in small Parkette).
Typology classification
Classified as Parkette: small (7192 m²) with strong building frontage (13.6 per 100 m)
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 8 active uses (retail, transit_stop, restaurant) and 2 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 16 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 4 street intersections within 100 m; 7 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~366 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
No amenities recorded — score is 0 until inventory is loaded.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: ~5.6% effective canopy (3.8% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~670 m; 8 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (8.0/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: treed_area, waterbodies, street_trees. 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
50 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (0 mid-rise, 50 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 4.8 m (~2 floors); 13.6 buildings per 100 m of 366 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 0 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" — they 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 (0)
No amenities recorded for this park.
Nearby active-edge features (23)
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop — Castlebury Crescent30 m
- transit stop — Clansman Boulevard34 m
- retail — Galati Market Fresh46 m
- retail — Superior Dollar66 m
- retail80 m
- retail — The UPS Store84 m
- restaurant — Ko-Sam89 m
- parking lot93 m
- retail94 m
- retail109 m
- retail — Karats Fine Jewellery113 m
- retail117 m
- parking lot121 m
- retail — Freedom Mobile121 m
- retail — Kitchen Food Fair125 m
- retail129 m
- restaurant — Subway163 m
- cafe — Tim Hortons166 m
- restaurant — Pizza Pizza168 m
- retail179 m
- retail185 m
- retail192 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality80th
- Edge activation93th
- Connectivity54th
- Amenity diversity39th
- Natural comfort43th
- Enclosure37th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- City Wide Open SpaceParkette42
- Etobicoke Hydro Green SpaceNeighbourhood Park44
- Glen Park ParketteParkette41
- Etobicoke Hydro Green SpaceNeighbourhood Park42
- Riverside CemeteryNeighbourhood Park40
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- High ParkRavine / Naturalized Park47
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
Visitor signals
Public attention measured by Google Places aggregates. This proxies attention, not occupancy. Aggregate-only — no usernames, no review text, no extra photos beyond the cached hero.
p43 citywide · p43 within Parkette
Source: Google Places API · match medium (0.65 composite confidence) · last refreshed 5/9/2026. Privacy contract. Measures public attention, not occupancy.
Human activity signals
Programming, social attention, temporal rhythm, and nearby pedestrian / cycling flow. An experimental aggregate layer that complements the spatial scores — partial coverage, partial confidence.
Activity reading: no inputs available. The strongest signal is consistent rhythm across the day. Source coverage: google-places.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of HILLCREST LIBRARY - Building Groundsmatters. 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.
- Activate the edges: encourage cafés, retail or community uses on the streets that face the park; replace blank or parking-lot edges where possible.
- Add or open more entrances and improve sidewalk continuity around the park. More permeability means more spontaneous use.
- 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.
- 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.