Peterborough Utilities has a new Mobile Drinking Water Station! The PTBO H2O drinking water station can provide municipal tap water at your summer event. The accessible mobile station has 8 water fountains and 8 water bottle refill stations. Event patrons can have a drink or fill up their water bottles with refreshing cold tap water.
For full details, including rental fees, please visit their website.
The Peterborough Renovates Program provides financial assistance for low to moderate income homeowners in the City and County of Peterborough for necessary home repairs and upgrades, including energy efficiency and accessibility projects, to assist people to remain in safe and healthy homes. Some types of building repairs that may be eligible under this program are: fire and life safety related; heating systems, windows, exterior doors, roofs, septic systems, and accessibility projects.
This program, which is one of several housing programs offered by the City of Peterborough, supported by the City’s 10 Year Housing & Homelessness Plan, provides funding to qualified applicants in the form of forgivable loans and/or grants. Applications will be accepted until fall 2019, and will be processed as funding is available. Funds have been provided by the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario.
Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region is the delivery agent on behalf of the City of Peterborough for applicants from the City and County. For information please contact Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region by telephone (705) 750-1456, toll free at 1-855-750-1456 or by email .
The Peterborough Renovates Program 2016 Backgrounder, included below, provides a summary of the program requirements. This information is also available online with the City of Peterborough as well as with Habitat for Humanity at the following websites: www.peterborough.ca AND www.habitatpeterborough.ca.
Plan It Peterborough, Peterborough’s Official Plan Review, is beginning its next phase of public engagement with the launch of Part 1 of the Draft Official Plan.
The Official Plan Update is being released in two parts which together will form a draft new Official Plan. Part 1 contains strategic policies for the City, connecting to several themes that were previously identified as priorities by the public and stakeholders through Plan It Peterborough while Part 2 will contain more detailed land use policies that implement the policy direction of Part 1. Part 1 is now available for your review:
Part 1 of the Draft Official Plan
Please check the City’s Official Plan Review website at the end of April for the release of Part 2 of the draft Official Plan.
The goal of this public engagement is to re-connect with the community to ensure that the proposed policies are on the right track for realizing the community’s vision for Peterborough’s future. Public and stakeholder input will be used to finalize the new Official Plan for Council’s approval which is anticipated for fall 2016.
A survey is available for you to provide feedback on Part 1 of the City’s Draft Official Plan. Once you have had the opportunity to review Part 1, please tell us what you think by completing the short questionnaire which can be accessed on the City’s Official Plan Review website and here:
Survey for Part 1 of the Draft Official Plan
All responses and feedback will be considered. The survey should take approximately five to seven minutes to complete.
Should you have questions or wish to provide further ideas and comments, you may do so by emailing or by calling 705-742-7777 ext 1886.
Please visit the Official Plan Review website for details on what has occurred to date, and what events to expect in the near future: http://www.peterborough.ca/Business/Studies/Official_Plan_Update.htm
Even from the outside Holy Cross Secondary School doesn’t seem like a typical high school. Once a medical supply factory, the building was “repurposed” in the late 1990s as a school and the Catholic school board’s head office.
Think of it as a large-scale example of recycling – a view that meshes nicely with a bone deep emphasis on environmental responsibility that makes Holy Cross anything but typical on the inside.
Julia Taylor and Mike Halloran are science teachers who help cultivate that green vision. They teach environmental science, organize an Eco School club and appear to function as the school’s environmental conscience at the staff level.
Their enthusiasm has spread across the school community. As a result, Holy Cross has qualified for platinum designation by the Ontario EcoSchools program.
EcoSchools success is based on school-wide commitment. Points are awarded for performance in each of a variety of categories and the total number of points earned translates to bronze, silver, gold or platinum status.
Holy Cross has been an EcoSchool for six years. Five straight years of gold certification qualified the school to apply for the platinum level when it was introduced for the first time last year.
There are nearly 1,800 registered EcoSchools in the province. Holy Cross is one of about 70 designated platinum.
Kyle Morton had a direct hand in that success. A Grade 12 student, Morton spent the fall term working on the EcoSchools certification application and other green projects as his co-op placement.
Morton and Grade 10 students Jose Uy and Emmanuel Pinto are members of the Holy Cross Eco School club. During a late afternoon interview in the empty school cafeteria they talk about some of the projects they’re involved in.
Morton steps out to retrieve one of their composting mini-bins. Attached to the sides of large blue recycling barrels that sit in the cafeteria during lunch periods, the mini-bins are wrapped in green construction paper and emblazoned with the Eco School club name. Students who are already recycling paper and plastic toss food scraps into the mini-bins.
Cafeteria composting is one result of an ongoing waste audit overseen by two Trent University environmental science majors. During the audit Jose and Emmanuel were garbage pickers – mining the school’s garbage for organic waste. A weigh-in of their collected treasure showed that composting would make a difference and the green bin project was born.
It’s one of many the school has taken on. A $1,000 grant from Toyota (students wrote the grant application) paid for 10 native shade trees that were planted behind the bleachers next to the track and athletics field. Water fountains that refill personal drinking bottles and record the number of disposal bottles saved are expected to arrive soon.
There is a butterfly garden on the property and a green roof garden accessible from a second floor hallway. Coming soon: a beehive for the green roof that Taylor said will “have a huge educational component. That leads into our pollinators and importance of pollinators and plants on the property.”
But the project with the biggest impact is a community garden developed in partnership with Calvary Church and the Peterborough Community Garden Network. It is located on the church property next door to Holy Cross.
Special education students collect compost that fertilizes the garden. A construction class built the garden shed. Students start seedlings in the school greenhouse and dozens more are involved in spring planting. Kawartha Food Share and various food banks reap some of the harvest.
Taylor and Halloran estimate that as many as 180 students – nearly a third of the entire school population – are involved in some way.
They say the real benefit of the Eco School approach will come as students inspired by something like the garden project develop a life-long interest in environmental stewardship.
“I kind of see what we are doing as planting seeds,” Taylor explains. “You eventually hope that some of the kids … who hadn’t given that a thought before, maybe it’s something they’ll consider down the road.”
This is one of a series of articles commissioned and paid for by Sustainable Peterborough and published in partnership with The Peterborough Examiner. By Jim Hendry, Peterborough Examiner, original article published Saturday, March 14, 2016.
May 07, 2016
Doors Open Peterborough: Our Past, Our Future . . . Our Legacy
Celebrating heritage and sustainability
Peterborough’s stories, traditions and activities express our heritage daily. The people of Peterborough are proud of the creative ways in which they are preserving their past by re-imagining and adapting heritage buildings for current and future use. Their actions encourage the sustainable growth of the local economy and responsible stewardship of the city’s environmental and cultural resources.
Doors Open is a free day of fun for people of all ages. Join us on May 7 to visit an exciting mix of sites that celebrate and explore the role of heritage in building sustainable communities.
Check out the Doors Open Peterborough website and stay tuned for more details!