LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds
Neighbourhood Park, below average overall (score 29, rank ~26th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: natural comfort.
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LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds scores 29.1 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (36). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 2.39 ha
Getting around
No walking paths mapped in OpenStreetMap.
No seating mapped in OpenStreetMap.
Parking inside the park. None of the 12 nearby lots records whether it has accessible spaces.
Path, seating and parking data comes from OpenStreetMap and reflects what volunteers have mapped, not a survey. Absence here means nobody has recorded it. This section does not assess wheelchair access: the relevant OpenStreetMap tag is present on well under 1% of Toronto paths.
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 59%
Data confidence: moderate
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Loading map…
The parks map is loading.Grounds of a City building, not a designated park. It is left out of park rankings.
Explain this score
Where did the 29 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
LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds works because its connectivity score (53) is middle of the pack and its edge activation (0) is also above-average.
What limits this park
LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds is held back by natural comfort (38, below-average): only 0% canopy means little summer shade; border-vacuum risk is also elevated (36).
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally low natural comfort (38, below-average).
Jacobs reading
LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds is currently underperforming on both axes: neither integrated into the city nor offering deep natural respite. A candidate for design intervention.
Tradeoffs
- The park is enclosed by buildings (63) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0): frame without animation.
Performance in context
- Reads as a modest underperformer relative to comparable parks (gap -11; cohort: medium Neighbourhood Park).
Typology classification
Classified as Neighbourhood Park: 2.4 ha, framed by 1 mid-rise vs 0 towers
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 3 active uses (transit_stop, retail) and 5 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: OpenStreetMap: cafes, restaurants, shops, schools, community centres, transit, parking, highways, rail. All data sources.
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; 3 streetcar or LRT stops, 5 bus stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~621 m of perimeter. moderate edge density, small superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops. All data sources.
Amenity Diversity
No amenities recorded.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags. All data sources.
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: ~5.0% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~994 m; 17 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (7.1/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: 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. All data sources.
Enclosure / Eyes on Park
104 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 103 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 4.8 m (~2 floors); 16.7 buildings per 100 m of 621 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 1 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights). All data sources.
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Ford Performance Centre Parking, parking_lot, 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: OpenStreetMap: highways, rail, parking. All data sources.
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: Not loaded yet: Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles. All data sources.
Amenities (0)
No amenities recorded for this park.
Nearby active-edge features (18)
- transit stop: Kipling Ave at Birmingham St0 m
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot22 m
- parking lot: Ford Performance Centre Parking36 m
- transit stop: Kipling Ave at Birmingham St37 m
- retail: Tom's Milk43 m
- parking lot81 m
- parking lot100 m
- parking lot135 m
- transit stop: 327 Kipling Avenue142 m
- parking lot149 m
- parking lot153 m
- transit stop: New Toronto Street154 m
- parking lot163 m
- parking lot174 m
- transit stop: New Toronto Street178 m
- parking lot183 m
- parking lot: Ford Performance Centre Parking187 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality26th
- Edge activation62th
- Connectivity65th
- Amenity diversity51th
- Natural comfort32th
- Enclosure55th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Gustav ParketteParkette33
- Scarborough Hydro Green SpaceNeighbourhood Park32
- Highland Memory GardensNeighbourhood Park22
- Public Access PropertyCorridor / Linear Park32
- Bishop Allotment GardensNeighbourhood Park32
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park76
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette73
- Bellevue Square ParkCivic Square73
- Toronto ZooWaterfront Park68
- Shaw ParkParkette70
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 LAKESHORE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE - Building Grounds matters. 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.
- 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.
- Mitigate border vacuums (highways, rail, parking) with active programming on the still-permeable edges and treat the hostile edge as a design challenge.
Data sources
- City of Toronto Open Data: Green SpacesPolygon boundaries, official names, land classes. 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.
- OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.