Flex Street / Andrew Graham
There’s been a push for certain names to be changed around London. Deemed racist or insensitive, names like Dundas or even Ryerson Elementary have raised eyebrows among the community.
At the Civic Works Committee meeting of November 23rd, London’s process of addressing these names was brought up.
Matt Feldberg, Manager of Subdivisions, is keenly aware that there are a lot of opinions in the community.
“There’s a number of different perspectives out there on how we approach this and we really want to get input from the public.”
Aside from what the public has to say, Feldberg says there are a few other factors they will be considering.
“There’s operational matters looking at when it comes to street naming, for example. Repetition, continuity and ensuring that we have general Wayfinding for EMS and others . . . We want to look at the historical recognition component as well. So who was the person? Why are they being recognized? And what was their contribution to London? And then, of course, our anti racism, anti oppression approach. How do we celebrate the cultural differences that we have?”
“We recognize that our commemorative naming policy or street renaming policy does have some limitations. It was adopted in 1994. And we really haven’t looked at it since then. So this is certainly timely and an important thing to do.”
Another factor in their renaming policy is continuity. The city will be looking at what other municipalities will do.
Mayor Ed Holder jumped in to weigh his own thoughts, and brought up the price that a project like this might cost. London isn’t the only city looking into this.
“Toronto at one point [was considering] renaming Dundas Street . . . Mississauga indicated to me that Dundas is an extension of the Toronto street of course . . . and I recall that the mayor of Mississauga cited the price tags associated with that.”
That price tag was about $6 million. Whether or not London is willing to pay a cost like that will be seen sometime in 2022, when the public participation meeting is planned. Feldberg says it won’t be until 2023– at the earliest– that any findings will be put in practice.
“We are certainly very early days, we still have a lot of work to do to consult with the public and determine where they sit on this.”
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