It’s just three-and-a-half little points, but for Toronto’s Westminster-Branson community, it will mean missing out on millions of dollars worth of capital funding and resources.

Under a new ranking system revealed by city staff on Monday, each of Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods has been given an “equity score” based on 15 criteria that includes health, economics, political participation and education. A team of experts set 42.89 as a benchmark score. Communities that fall below the line are designated as a “Neighbourhood Improvement Area,” which replaces the old “Priority Neighbourhood Area.”

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Black Creek scored the lowest, with 21.38. Lawrence Park north was the highest, with 92.05.

Westminster-Branson, ranked 38th overall, came in at 46.57. This north Toronto neighbourhood is one of eight that no longer qualifies as a priority investment area. Malvern, Dorset Park, L’Amoreaux, Yorkdale-Glen Park, Steeles, Englemount-Lawrence and Humber Heights-Westmount round out that list.

Each was part of the city’s original neighbourhoods program, which was launched eight years ago after the so-called Summer of the Gun.

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The designation meant the community of about 24,000 in Ward 10 received a new community hub and health centre development, renovated facilities and additional recreation and employment supports, among other things.

And while no existing resources will be taken away under the new framework, it will mean the additional cash will stop flowing. That’s something the local councillor James Pastnernak plans to fight.

“This is not the time to make a community like Westminster-Branson ineligible for future funding,” said Pasternak. “It’s true we’ve made some good headway over the last few years. This is not a time to cut back, when you make certain headway. You keep the funding to make sure there’s no sliding back.”

This will be one of the battlefronts when the issue comes to council next month.

Councillor Gord Perks explained: “Any time we try to target investments in some areas of the city and not others, there can be a conflict, but I am confident that the research model is so robust it will be easy to convince my colleagues that this is the kind of investment that needs to be made.”

Perks is one of the councillors whose ward will benefit from the new model.

His South Parkdale neighbourhood is one of 16 communities in need that didn’t meet the threshold back in 2005 but do now. A low-income area just outside the southwest downtown core, South Parkdale has high unemployment, a high occurrence of preventable hospitalizations, and a higher than average number of people drawing on social assistance.

But the old criteria didn’t weigh these factors in the same way. Under the priority neighbourhoods initiative, access to services was one of the main issues at hand, and South Parkdale is well served by a library and community centre.

Some socio-economic factors were taken into consideration before, but it was a much more simplistic approach that didn’t always capture what was really happening on the ground.

Take for example Thorncliffe Park: out of 140 communities in Toronto, it is 131st from the top under the revamped criteria, but previously it didn’t qualify.

“The earlier criteria failed to recognize some of the genuine challenges that a community like Thorncliffe faces,” said local councillor John Parker.

The former measures put considerable stock in education levels, as well as the number of single-parent homes, he said. Thorncliffe residents score average in terms of the number of residents who graduated from high school and post-secondary institutions. The difference is that, for many of his constituents, those diplomas were earned outside of Canada and haven’t translated into well-paying careers in Canada.

Instead of single-parent homes, in Thorncliffe, “many families are crowded together in dwelling units,” Parker said. “The new approach tries to address that reality and measure exactly what’s happening on the ground.”

Chris Brillinger, Toronto’s executive director of social development, finance and administration, said the major benefit of the new criteria is that staff will be able to track the impact of investment. The previous iteration wasn’t based on data in the same way, so it was impossible to quantify evidence of progress — even though, anecdotally, it was obvious.

Now, every Toronto neighbourhood is assessed based on the same 15 indicators.

“(The new version) allows us to identify and measure how people are doing in our neighbourhoods … then we can go back, year after year, to track progress,” Brillinger said.

The goal is to one day be able to use the data to track the path a community is taking and know what investments need to be made to head off a crisis before it happens.

Councillor Michael Thompson, who is losing one priority neighbourhood and gaining another, said he plans to support the new model.

“These programs are put in place not so that they will be everlasting; it’s so that they will respond to needs and challenges. And once those are met, we can move on and help where it’s needed,” he said. This was the case in Dorset Park, one of the neighbourhoods dropping off the list.

It’s difficult to measure the financial impact of the priority designation. About $12 million in capital funding has been earmarked for these Neighbourhood Improvement Areas, a similar investment to that made by the city eight years ago. But the actual total is much higher.

The city partners with numerous charitable organizations and community groups to leverage those dollars. And a significant chunk of costs, such as programming and staff salaries, are buried within the normal city budget.

Mayor Rob Ford told reporters Monday he plans to oppose additional priority designations.

Added

Beechborough-Greenbrook

Oakridge

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Elms-Old Rexdale

Regent Park

Thorncliffe Park

South Parkdale

Rockcliffe-Smythe

Rustic

Morningside

Ionview

Downsview-Roding-CFB

York University Heights

Thistletown-Beaumond Heights

Keelesdale-Eglinton-West

Weston-Pellam Park

Kingsview Village-The Westway

Off the list

Malvern

Dorset Park

Westminster-Branson

Yorkdale-Glen Park

L’Amoreaux

Steeles

Humber Heights-Westmount

Englemount-Lawrence