Skip to content
Toronto Parks Atlas
Participate
Bennington Heights Park — site photograph
Back to map
Ravine / Naturalized Parkcluster ·Walkable Mid-Rise Neighbourhood Parks (large-scale)Leaside-Bennington (56)confidence moderatereal Toronto data

Bennington Heights Park

Ravine / Naturalized Park, in the top tier overall (score 43, rank ~85th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: edge activation.

Photo by phraseography via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026

Bennington Heights Park scores 43.2 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and natural comfort. Weakest: edge activation (0). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.

Best for:escape into nature

Area · 1.00 ha

Vitality Score
43/100

Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 72%

Data Confidence
43.2 / 100
Citywide
85th
of all 3,273 parks
Among Ravine / Naturalized Park
89th
same primary typology
Expected for similar parks
36
median in medium Ravine / Naturalized Park ravine (n=213)
Performance gap
+8
raw − expected · context confidence high
modest overperformer

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

cached 5/9/2026

City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px. Reads the park’s footprint, paths, treed area, and edge conditions from above.

Bennington Heights Park — aerial / top-down view

City of Toronto Orthophoto · cot_ortho most-current MapServer

Explain this score

Where did the 43 come from? Each weighted contribution against a neutral 50 baseline. Green = pushed up; red = pulled down.

Download JSON
What pushed this score up or down vs a neutral 50weight × score
Edge Activation0 · p31
-12.5
Border Vacuum Risk0 (risk)
+5.0
Amenity Diversity35 · p97
-3.1
Natural Comfort59 · p73
+1.3
Connectivity56 · p67
+1.3
Enclosure / Eyes on Park62 · p47
+1.2

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

Bennington Heights Park works because its amenity diversity score (35) is one of the city's strongest and its natural comfort (59) is also above-average.

What limits this park

Bennington Heights Park is held back by edge activation (0, below-average)— the surrounding streets carry too few active uses to spill into the park.

Most distinctive characteristic

Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high amenity diversity (35, top decile).

Jacobs reading

Bennington Heights Park is an ecological retreat. The urban-vitality numbers are low because the park exists outside the everyday city — that's the point of it.

Tradeoffs

  • The park is enclosed by buildings (62) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0) — frame without animation.

Performance in context

  • A modest overperformer for its ravine / naturalized park typology (+8 vs the median in medium Ravine / Naturalized Park ravine).

Typology classification

confidence 75%
Ravine / Naturalized Parkalso reads as Athletic / Recreation Park

Classified as Ravine / Naturalized Park: 44% ravine overlap, 7% canopy. Secondary read: Athletic / Recreation Park (50% of amenity types are athletic (sports_field, tennis)).

Edge Activation

25% weightpartial 60%
0.0 / 100

Within 100 m of the park edge: 0 active uses (none) and 4 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

20% weightmeasured 85%
56.3 / 100

Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 1 mapped paths/walkways and 20 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 8 street intersections within 100 m; 9 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 1 estimated access points across ~531 m of perimeter. moderate edge density — small superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.

Streets within 25 m3
Intersections within 100 m8
Paths/walkways (50 m)1
Sidewalk segments (50 m)20
Transit stops (400 m)9
Estimated entrances1
Edge connections / 100 m perimeter0.56
Park perimeter531 m

Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops

Amenity Diversity

20% weightmeasured 75%
34.5 / 100

4 distinct amenity types in the park (playground, sports_field, tennis, washroom). 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

15% weightmeasured 75%
58.5 / 100

Natural-comfort components for this park: 7.2% estimated tree canopy; 43.5% inside the ravine system; nearest waterbody ~447 m; 4 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (4.0/ha). Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: treed_area, ravine, waterbodies, street_trees. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).

Canopy coverage7.2%
Canopy area0.07 ha
Inside ravine system43.5%
Water surface inside park0.0%
Nearest water (if outside park)447 m
Estimated green100.0%
City-mapped trees inside polygon4
Tree density4.0 / ha
Cover diversity (Shannon, 0–100)82.0
Sample points used69

Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory

Enclosure / Eyes on Park

10% weightmeasured 80%
62.4 / 100

39 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 38 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 6.1 m (~2 floors); 7.3 buildings per 100 m of 531 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are low-rise (mostly 2–3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 1 mid-rise edge buildings.

Buildings within 25 m39
Buildings within 50 m39
Avg edge height6.1 m (~2 floors)
Tallest edge building10.7 m
Mid-rise (3–7 floors)1
Low-rise (< 3 floors)38
Towers (≥ 13 floors)0
Frontage density7.34 per 100 m perimeter
Mid-rise share of edge3%
Tower share of edge0%
Blank-edge share (proxy)0%
Park perimeter531 m

Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)

Border Vacuum Risk

10% weightpartial 60%
0.0 risk

Park edges face the city — no significant border vacuum detected.

Source: Toronto Street Centreline (highways) + rail layer + OSM landuse + building footprints

Equity Context

contextinferred 15%
50.0 / 100

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 (4 types · 4 records)

  • playground
  • sports field
  • tennis
  • washroom

Nearby active-edge features (16)

  • parking lot50 m
  • parking lot51 m
  • parking lot91 m
  • parking lot97 m
  • parking lot105 m
  • parking lot107 m
  • cafe — Starbucks119 m
  • parking lot129 m
  • rail — North Toronto Subdivision140 m
  • rail — North Toronto Subdivision144 m
  • parking lot166 m
  • retail — WhitePia Cleaners166 m
  • restaurant — Dhillon's Karahi170 m
  • retail — Mount Pleasant Pet Grooming171 m
  • transit stop — Bayview Ave at Nesbitt Dr178 m
  • parking lot195 m

Park profile

Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.

Edge ActivationConnectivityAmenity DiversityNatural ComfortEnclosureBennington Heights Park

Citywide percentile ranks

Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.

  • Overall vitality
    85th
  • Edge activation
    31th
  • Connectivity
    67th
  • Amenity diversity
    97th
  • Natural comfort
    73th
  • Enclosure
    47th

Most similar parks

Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.

Most opposite parks

Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.

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.

high-confidence match
Visitor signal score
39/ 100
38.6 / 100

p38 citywide · p46 within Ravine / Naturalized Park

Volume (saturated)8
Density / ha31
Rating contribution88
Match dampener×1.00
Average rating
★ 4.5
out of 5
Ratings collected
44
total reviews
Photos uploaded
10
total contributors

Source: Google Places API · match high (0.99 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.

confidence 50%
Overall activity
9/ 100
8.8 / 100
Programming / events
0unknown
Social attention
14real
Temporal rhythm
13real
Pedestrian / cycling flow
8unknown
Cultural significance
29unknown

Activity reading: no inputs available. The strongest signal is public attention / mentions. Source coverage: google-places.

Does this score feel accurate?

Your read of Bennington Heights Parkmatters. 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.

Rate this park on as many dimensions as you have an opinion about. 1 = not at all · 5 = strongly. Skip the ones you don't feel sure about. Aggregated only — no comments stored at the row level.

feels socially active
feels comfortable
feels safe
feels connected
feels welcoming
feels ecological / natural
feels good for lingering
feels family-friendly
feels culturally important

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.

Data sources

  • City of Toronto Open Data — Parks (Green Space)
    Polygon boundaries, official names, types.
  • Parks & Recreation Facilities
    Inventory of in-park amenities (washrooms, fields, rinks…).
  • Toronto Pedestrian Network
    Sidewalk segments around and through parks; estimated park entrances.
  • Toronto Centreline V2
    Street segments + intersection nodes near park edges; trails and walkways.
  • Toronto 3D Massing
    Building footprints + heights for edge-building counts, frontage density, and tower-in-the-park risk.
  • Toronto Treed Area
    Tree canopy share inside park polygons via stratified-grid sampling.
  • Toronto Waterbodies & Rivers
    Water surface inside parks + nearest-water distance for cooling.
  • Ravine & Natural Feature Protection
    Ravine overlap as a cooling / natural-comfort signal.
  • Toronto Street Tree Inventory
    Tree count + density inside park polygons.
  • Neighbourhood Profiles
    (Pending) Equity context proxy.
  • OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)
    Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.