Tanya Cunnington – Change in Orillia

What is one thing that you would change about Orillia if you could wave a magic wand?

Were I in charge of Orillia..

When we were in Toronto I walked everywhere. Here – and we knew this would happen – we are in our car all the time. Running errands, we have to come in from outside of town. I’m a little bit concerned about Orillia’s urban sprawl.

And I know development is good and we need that to move forward,
I just feel that some of our urban sprawl has been very badly developed.

If I could change something about Orillia, I would change the way the buildings are laid out. I find that there’s no pedestrian-friendly access. If you need to go from store to store, you have to get in your car. You’re kind of forced that way because there’s a parking lot, there’s a concrete barrier, there’s a road. I just feel like they’ve been very badly planned.

There’s got to be a better way to involve some more green space and have people be able to park their car and walk from space to space. If there’s any way that we could make a pedestrian-friendly urban sprawl. On that same note, I would love to see Pedestrian Sundays in the downtown core, maybe once a month.

What is one thing that you would never change?

I have to say it’s the art scene. 10 years ago if you asked me that, I would not have known, but moving back it’s been so pleasantly surprising how supportive the art scene is here.

Every day I see a new initiative for artists and there’s new businesses coming about, new things being built, new things being talked about. I just love that support here and so I really hope that continues. I wouldn’t change it.