Sheppard West

TTC proposes #RapidTO on Jane Street

2023-03-17T14:00:00.001-04:00

Anyone who has been driving or taking the bus on Jane Street knows that it's been in need of traffic relief for quite a long time now. Finally, the City of Toronto is coming up with some ideas and you get a chance to express your view.

CityTv has a quick presentation on RapidTO on Jane St (also: tcn-trtjs) as well as zone-based transit fares. Steve Munro discusses the removal of stops (part of the proposal) as well as a few other important issues on his blog (sm-rl4js), and there is even a Reddit discussion (rdt-rtojstcons).

The City of Toronto page (tc-rpdtjnst) is by far the most important, having the PDF presentation, the survey that can be taken before April 3, the virtual meeting minutes from March 8 (soon?), as well as public drop-in events:

The public drop-in events are an in-person opportunity to review display panels and detailed drawings at your leisure. Members of the project team are available to help answer any questions and record your comments. You may drop in and leave at any time.

Date: Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Time: 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Location: Driftwood Community Recreation Centre, 4401 Jane St.

Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Time: 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Location: Clairvaux Hall, 1795 Lawrence Ave. W.

These are wheelchair-accessible venues. Please contact us at rapidto@toronto.ca or 416-338-7797 72 hours in advance if you require additional accommodation.

Get involved!

Sources / More info: tc-rpdtjnst, tcn-trtjs, sm-rl4js, rdt-rtojstcons

SWNA, #transit, #transportation, #ttc, #metrolinx, #traffic, #infrastructure, #commuting (Tags)

Happy Thanksgiving and Judy Sgro BlackFace Spin

2019-10-14T20:00:00.004-04:00

The elections are almost here and we would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We are also covering Judy Sgro blackface Trudeau love scandal and her retraction, remembering that she was the main supporter of a project that a lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic had found racist.

For the 2019 federal election, the incumbent MP Judy Sgro (Liberal) is being challenged by NDP’s Maria Augimeri, who, until the 2018 municipal election, has represented part of the ward as city councillor for a significant number of years. There is also a model representing PPC (chariina), adding some spice to this fight.

In the September 28 interview with GBKM FM, interviewer Jacquline Dixon asked the Liberal MP what sort of reaction she had received in the federal riding of Humber River-Black Creek surrounding Trudeau’s “blackface” incident.

Sgro defended the Liberal leader for “something that was done 20 years ago,” adding that all of us at one time or another have “made poor choices.” Furthermore, “in knocking on doors and talking to people to make sure that I’m as sensitive as I need to be if I’ve missed something, those in the black community have told me how much more love they have for the Prime Minister, that he wanted to have a blackface, that he took great pride in that too,” said Sgro, adding that it’s the media that have “blown this into something that it shouldn’t be.”

As CBC explains, Christie Blatchford rants and cpac debates, Sgro apologized on October 9, when her comments gained notoriety following their rehashing by Andray Domise (fbjs-apology).

We were reminded, in all this fracas, that MP Judy Sgro was the most vocal supporter of the racist project that our association opposed, a project also considered racist by a lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic.

Sources / More info: cbc-sgro, ml-sgro, w-hrbc, w-augimeri, w-sgro, chariina, fbjs-apology, np-sgro

SWNA, Judy Sgro, election, elections, liberal, liberals, federal politics, cdnpoli, blackface, racism, propaganda (Tags)

Andrei Zodian for City Councillor!

2018-09-13T14:43:00.001-04:00

We learned that our president and founder is considering running for office.

In our long history, we have met with virtually every candidate in our ward and attempted to ensure that the electorate is aware of their choices and make an informed decision when in the voting booth. While Mr. Zodian is technically not a candidate yet as he cannot file his papers until September 24, we wish him best of luck in an election that is now more controversial and unpredictable than the most populist candidate, just like we did we every other candidate in our Ward, and we will do so to every candidate in our Ward when the candidates list (and ballot) are finalized.

Sources / More info: Andrei Zodian

TPA blames Police Chief Mark Saunders

2018-02-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

The story of police understaffing has been somehow dominating the headlines for quite a while. Although there are far more police per capita in Toronto than in London for instance, Toronto police officers are reportedly so “demoralized” that they took a symbolic vote against Chief Mark Saunders.

There are many stats involved in assessing police performance and the need to hire (or fire) police officers.

According to StatsCanada (gn-stats), Toronto is behind other large Canadian cities, with “only” 189.8 officers per 100000, with a crime rate of 3290, compared to Vancouver with 196.3, 8176.62 and Montreal with 292.2, 4101.92. Yet police officers regularly make the sunshine list (public servents making more than $100000/year). Even in Ontario, Thunder Bay (199.5, 6362.44) and Windsor (196.6, 4790.56) seem to be worse off.

Ontario tops provinces in police spending, at $320/capita, which is $35 more than Alberta, $56 more than BC and $24 more than Quebec (amo-pdf). The factors involved in assessing police performance are complex, but di Matteo found in 2014, in a study for the conservative Fraser Institute (fraser-pdf) that Quebec has the most efficient staff / spending levels (tst-matteo). CBC has also interactive slides on policing, last updated in 2013 (cbc-policing).

The full article states that the Toronto Police Association has held a “vote of no-confidence” in the Chief while understanding that they cannot vote him out, while the Mayor is supporting the Chief (cbc-tpa).

The Toronto Police Association has launched a no confidence vote against Police Chief Mark Saunders, according to an internal memo to its members.
"Despite numerous attempts by the association to address relief measures for our members, the Chief has continuously failed to put forward any meaningful solutions to relieve the stress on you," the memo reads. "The association has lost confidence in the Chief's ability to address these issues with any urgency."

Officials at police headquarters have refused to comment on the vote but say that it will not affect day-to-day operations in any way.
The move comes amid an ongoing clash with top brass at the Toronto Police Service over what the association calls critical understaffing. Tensions have been brewing for months, with officers donning ball caps in protest last September.
The police board appoints Toronto's police chief and association president Mike McCormack says the union is aware that it can't simply vote Saunders out of his job. But, he says, they're determined to make a statement.
"This puts him in a position where he's now being notified that the membership has no confidence in him at this point and that he can either fix that or continue in a way which the membership will not follow him in," he said in an interview.

Members of the police association will vote online until Feb 21.
CBC Toronto published exclusive interviews with officers, one of whom is a 20-year veteran of the force who says staffing levels are "dangerously low," leaving frontline officers feeling vulnerable and endangering the public. It has also resulted in a marked drop in morale among officers, the staff sergeant explained.

'Dangerously low' staffing puts public safety at risk, Toronto police staff sergeant warns

Toronto police officer says he's 'at risk' as only cop on patrol in his division

The chief responded to those comments with an internal email to Toronto police saying, "I am aware that some of you are concerned that moving from the old policing model to a new model is not easy. I want you to know that you — the members — are my priority every day."
Saunders appeared on CBC's Metro Morning in January to defend the lower staffing levels — a part of his modernization efforts — saying it is "absolutely wrong" to suggest police staffing issues endanger the public or compromise the safety of his officers.
'Absolutely wrong' to suggest police staffing issues endangering public, chief says

He explained that the ongoing effort to modernize police operations is meant to ensure that highly trained officers can focus on priority calls instead of "doing absolutely everything."
Saunders suggested that resources that are already available to the force will be used more efficiently as the process matures. Last year, for example, frontline officers spent some 47,000 hours dealing with low-priority calls involving people living with mental illness, and some 10,000 doing crossing guard duties, according to Saunders.
"In the cold spell, we had officers guarding broken water mains," he explained.
As for reports that morale is at a nearly all-time low, Saunders says the issue "has to do a lot" with a changing discourse between communities and police.
Mayor voices his support for chief
Mayor John Tory, who also sits on the police board, said he has "complete confidence" in Saunders and remains committed to modernizing the force.
For the second straight year, that work has allowed the city to flatline the police budget.
Still, Tory says there are plans to bolster the force.
"At this very moment, more than 80 new police officers are being hired and staffing is being significantly increased at 911," Tory said in an email statement.
"Responsibilities are being taken on by the city so police officers can be deployed where they are needed most instead of directing traffic or answering noise calls."

Yet Canada does not even begin to compare to European countries. UK for instance, has an unarmed police force and the gun fatality rate is 40 time lower than in the US (pf-fatality).

Sources / More info: cbc-tpa, gn-stats, amo-pdf, fraser-pdf, tst-matteo, cbc-policing, w-countries, w-lawenfca, w-crimeca, pf-fatality

SWNA, police, toronto police, tpa, mark saunders, mayor tory, john tory (Tags)

Tree planting and TCH closure

2017-04-23T21:17:00.001-04:00

The major news of the week is the closing of a housing project at Jane and Finch.

Today, trees were planted at Downsview Park in a special event.

The sacrifices made by the 117,000 Canadian servicemen and women who gave their lives in military conflict since Confederation will never be forgotten, and a new initiative coinciding with Earth Day festivities aims to ensure their loss will remain front of mind.
Trees were planted in honour of each and every one of those soldiers along Highway 401, with 2,000 being planted in Downsview Park on Sunday, April 23.
Those trees – known as the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute – are part of two million native trees planted in recognition of Canadian military men and women.
At a tree planting ceremony at Downsview on Sunday, Highway of Heroes Living Tribute chair Mark Cullen said the plantings will take place between CFB Trenton and the Coroner’s Office at Keele and Wilson, a stretch of highway known as the Highway of Heroes. Fallen soldiers have been driven along that route and honoured by Canadians overlooking their journey from bridges along the way.
“It became a place of special significance when thousands of Canadians stood silently and they contemplated our cost of freedom,” he said. “158 times during the Afghan conflict this happened – Canadian personnel flown home to be repatriated here on the soil of their homeland.”
The two million trees will all be planted within a kilometre of the Highway of Heroes.
Cullen pointed out that the trees will add greenery along the stretch of road and stand as a living memorial to Canada’s fallen military members. He noted the plantings will consist of “native trees that will mature into a beauty, a reminder for generations to come of the sacrifice for peace made by so many.”
Ken Jewett of Maple Leaves Forever, a charity that promotes the planting of Canadian maple trees across Southern Ontario and that contributed to the Living Tribute initiative, said he was moved upon visiting Europe and seeing rows of gravestones for fallen soldiers.
“It’s so important we remember all the men and women who gave their lives to preserve our way of life,” he said. “Highway of Heroes brings those losses to our doorstep.”
York Centre MP Michael Levitt noted Downsview Park is an ideal site for the plantings as a former Air Force base.

Firefighters successfully fought a fire at Jane and Finch.

Firefighters have knocked down a fire at a commercial building near Jane Street and Finch Avenue.
The fire began on Eddystone Avenue around 4:45 a.m. and was extinguished by 5:20 a.m. on Thursday.
The building contains a religious gift-supply store as well as an accounting business.
The building was having work done on the roof, police said, and that may have sparked the fire inside the Hindu gift shop. The fire is not criminal, police said.
No one was hurt.

TCH is preparing to close a subsidized housing complex at Jane and Finch because it’s in a state worse than previously thought.

Mayor John Tory's executive committee reluctantly approved the closure of a Jane and Finch area housing complex Wednesday, but not before getting an earful from a tenant and former mayor.
The committee unanimously approved a motion to allow Toronto Communty Housing (TCH) to close a crumbling townhouse complex on Firgrove Crescent. In total, 134 units will be shut down in the next 12 to 18 months, with TCH hoping most of the residents will move out this summer.

The race is on to build affordable housing, as TCH units close

No Fixed Address | These are the stories that define renting in Toronto

Tenants were given eviction notices earlier this year, but several people connected to the area said they're shocked by TCH's move.
Former Toronto mayor John Sewell ripped the city for failing to make sure replacement buildings were ready before residents are displaced.
"This is a major failure of the city's leadership," he told the committee.
Tory, firing back, said the city is spending some $250 million on affordable housing this year, and said Sewell should be demanding that the province match that funding.
"Your voice will carry some weight … We need you there," said Tory.
The city had allotted money to repair the complex, but once work began TCH realized the buildings were too damaged to do the work.
Lottery system dictates what residents get first pick of future homes

Barry Rieder, a community minister in the area, said the idea of fixing the buildings was "honourable but flawed." He also took issue with the way TCH decided which residents would get the first pick of available units elsewhere in the city — a lottery, held last week, that was complete with numbered ping-pong balls.
"I think it's crazy," he said, suggesting TCH should be able to come up with a better way to prioritize the list of those being displaced.
TCH CEO Greg Spearn, facing questions from Tory, defended that practice, saying his organization has to be "absolutely fair and absolutely transparent" during the relocation process, and the lottery helps accomplish that.
Spearn did say, however, that his organization could have done a better job of communicating with schools in the area.
Toronto District School Board Trustee Tiffany Ford says she's worried some 100 students could be leaving local schools. That could be problematic for the schools, which have already set their staffing for next year, as well as the students.
"We don't really know where they're going to be moving," Ford said.
'I don't think they know what they're doing'

Edna Rose, a 75-year-old tenant and school crossing guard, previously told CBC Toronto that she doesn't want to leave her apartment — a well-maintained unit among many boarded up ones.
She was at city hall Wednesday hoping for a reprieve, but said she didn't hear anything that put her at ease.
"I don't think they know what they're doing," she said.
Holding a list of buildings where she could move, Rose said none of the options would work for her.
TCH is vowing to work with her one-on-one, as it will with many of the affected tenants. Spearn said the goal is to keep as many people in the area as possible.
"The last thing we want to do is close a home," he said.
Spearn said he hopes to have a plan by the end of the year to revitalize the area, which could see a mix of social housing and purpose-built apartment rentals in the area.
City council gets the final say on whether or not to close the units at an upcoming meeting.

The closing of housing units is never easy, but it should be particularly difficult in this environment of peak real estate prices and low vacancy rate. On the other hand, TCH has long been the worst landlord in Toronto.

Sources / More info: ins-trees, jf-shots, cn-jffire, cbc-tch

SWNA, downsview park, tch, housing, projects, community housing (Tags)

Sexual Assault perp on the loose

2017-03-28T20:16:00.001-04:00

Shots were fired and a kid forced another kid using a replica gun.

A kid threatened another kid with a replica gun (tst).

Here’s the full text:

The gun used in the alleged assault was later found to be a replica. Anthony Pulido, 18, is wanted on seven charges.

Toronto Police are looking for an 18-year-old man wanted in connection to an alleged sexual assault near the Jane and Finch area.
Police say a 17-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by Anthony Pulido in an apartment close to Jane St. and Sheppard Ave. W.
She was then forcibly confined to the apartment after the suspect held a firearm to her head. The girl called police upon being able to leave.
Police later found the gun to be a replica after executing a search warrant at the residence.
Pulido, of Toronto, is wanted on seven charges including sexual assault and secretly recording a person for a sexual purpose. He is described as 5’4” tall, with a medium build, dark hair, and a light complexion.

In separate news, shots were fired elsewhere on Sunday.

Toronto police are investigating after shots were fired outside of a banquet hall in the Weston Road and Finch Avenue West area.
Police said it happened outside of the Blue Diamond Banquet Hall just before 5 a.m. on Sunday.
A car was found with bullet holes in it.
There have been no reports of injuries and no word on suspects.
Anyone with information is asked to call police.

Let us hope all perpetrators will be caught.

Sources / More info: tst

SWNA, anthony pulido, gun threat (Tags)

Shooting in Downsview at Keele and Wilson

2017-03-23T11:47:00.001-04:00

Yet another shooting, luckily no death, this time at Keele and Keelegate.

Here is the text of the news item.

A man is in hospital with a leg wound following a shooting in Toronto’s Downsview neighbourhood early Wednesday morning.
Police were called to the scene just before 3 a.m. in the area of Keele Street and Wilson Avenue.
Police said they located a man with a gunshot wound to the leg and was transported to hospital with serious injuries.
Authorities believe a shotgun may have been used.
Police said several witnesses were questioned but no charges have been laid.
There’s no word yet on any suspects.

UNKNOWN TROUBLE:
Keele St + Keelegate Dr
-2 suspects at large
-May be wielding shotgun
-Evidence of gunfire found
^dh
— Toronto Police OPS (@TPSOperations) March 22, 2017

We hope for a quick recovery of the victim and apprehension of the perpetrators.

Sources / More info: gn

SWNA, shooting, wilson, keele (Tags)

Social Housing Demolitions at Jane and Finch

2017-01-16T14:10:00.001-05:00

Social Housing, otherwise known as subsidized housing or TCHC projects is a subject fraught with controversy. Conversely, the news of “upgrading” such apartments at Jane and Finch will be met with various degrees of approval in our community.

The story is compelling.

Edna Rose prides herself on the flowers that bloom in the garden of her Jane and Finch-area apartment, but next door there are boarded up windows and construction fences.
Toronto Community Housing (TCH) has announced plans to tear down Rose's building and six other "rapidly deteriorating" townhomes near Jane Street and Fingrove Crescent, according to a letter sent to tenants.
Rose, who has lived in her unit since 1986, will be forced to move out this summer. She doesn't know where she'll wind up — she's heard Regent Park or Lawrence Heights — but the 75-year-old said moving away from her doctor, church and job as a school crossing guard will take everything out of her. She's also skeptical of TCH's claim that her building will be replaced.
"If they can't find the money to repair it, how are they going to rebuild it?" Rose asked during an interview with CBC Toronto.

Read more about the 550 housing units boarded up in the link below.

Sources / More info: cbc-edna

SWNA, social housing, housing, housing projects (Tags)

Downsview Park, future Central Park?

2016-12-21T11:23:00.001-05:00

The Downsview Park has taken decades from promise to existence and it seems like it will take a few more. It is nonetheless entertaining to read the “visions”.

While parts of the land has already been given to developers, here’s a few ideas for what’s left – but don’t hold your breath!

Does Downsview Park have a future as Toronto’s version of New York City’s Central Park?
This idea was shown to me — literally — on a recent tour of the park in a golf cart. We were there, planting trees for the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute (check it out at hohtribute.ca) on one of the beautiful, clear days we’ve had this past fall.
David Anselmi, a director with Canada Lands Company, the crown corporation in charge of the park, offered to drive me across the 291-acre swath located in northwest Toronto, at Sheppard Ave. and Keele St. For nearly 50 years it was the military base CFB Toronto before closing in 1996.
Canada Lands has invested $45 million in a new chapter for the park that will make the property into a multi-purpose urban centre. In its 20 years as a city park, progress has been quiet. Among Downsview’s biggest achievements was hosting 800,000 in 2002 for Pope John Paul II’s World Youth Day. Today, things are quieter but progress is underway with some iconic features such as the Lake, the Meadow and the Mound. And Anselmi is clearly proud of it. This past year, 125,000 visited the park that hosted 22 major events.
One of the first things on our tour that I spied were new public washrooms. “OK — good start,” I thought. If I’m going to visit a public park, I want washrooms and I want the doors to not be locked as they are so often are in places like this.
Next: The Orchard, a variety of 400 specially chosen apple trees. This wonderful idea reminds me of a similar park in Strathcona, AB., where large planters of edible flowers and vegetables include a sign that reads: “Help yourself.”
Then we motored over the hill to a magnificent view of a nine-acre man-made lake. This is actually a stormwater retention pond that serves more than 400 surrounding acres of land. The lake is full of waterfowl, water plants and has a walking/running path that goes around it.
Other features of the new Downsview Park:
WILLIAM BAKER WOODLOT: This 27-acre park is the perfect place for kids to play and adults to absorb some oxygen. The 1856 homestead of the Boakes family was located here, and the forest provides a reminder that the property provided a real home to real people long before it became an Air Force base in the late 1930s.
LOVE SPORTS? Chances are you will find a sport to your liking at the park’s Hangar Sports Complex. Soccer, basketball, volleyball, ball hockey and other recreational sports activities are all accessible to the public. Details at hangarsportevents.com
LOVE WILDLIFE? This park is teaming with wildlife. The lake provides a magnet for much of it, but everywhere in the almost-300 acres there is evidence that Mother Nature is making a home here for herself. Song birds and beneficial insects are enjoying the substantial wetland areas that have formed naturally through a disciplined approach to development of the land.
LOVE TO WALK, RUN AND/OR BIKE? The Circuit Path stretches 2.7-kilometres along the outer ring, with paths criss-crossing through it, to The Meadow in the middle. Most of the paths are well lit and wide enough a baby-stroller, a runner and a bicyclist to share.
TREES: As well as the mature trees in Boake’s Grove, thousands of new trees have been planted across the property. Nothing man-made can match the contribution trees make to our social and recreational while also enhancing the health of our natural environment. The only problem is that they need time to grow. And time will make this park spectacular.
LIVING THERE: Mattamy Homes is building there now, in their Stanley Greene community. Many more units are to come over the next 10 years.
Will Downsview become to Toronto what Central Park is to New York City? A few comparisons:

Central Park is 843 acres. Downsview is almost 300 acres.

Central Park has a 22-acre lake.

Central Park took 25 years to build and is now 160 years old. That is, give or take, about seven generations.

I have no doubt that in seven generations Downsview Park will hold a significant place in the hearts of Torontonians. While the park is not currently well known and not travelled nearly as much as it could be, the new subway station at the park (on the Toronto-York Spadina extension) and growing awareness of this gem will change all of that.
As all of us are told when we try and grow up too fast: “It takes time.” The pre adolescent Downsview will no doubt grow into a beauty.

Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, Order of Canada recipient, author and broadcaster.

Let us hope that these ideas are not just a filler in-between more land donations to developers.

Sources / More info: ts-dwnsvw

SWNA, toronto, downsview park, central park, urban park, uban planning, real estate (Tags)

Giorgio Mammoliti Hypocrisy on Toll Roads

2016-12-15T18:25:00.001-05:00

Toll Roads may not be an optimal solution, but with Toronto willing to maintain the lowest property taxes in the are while cementing its reputation as a world class city, alternate sources of financing have to be found.

What is interesting is not that John Tory is proposing toll roads – some experts claim that this had to be done sooner or later, as the city is running out of land to build roads and highways and it is also trying to improve air quality – but how although everybody wants it, there are those opportunists who try to capitalize on a possible public backlash against it.

The protagonist here is Giorgio Mammoliti who attacks the Mayor on toll roads, conveniently forgetting that he himself supported toll roads only a few years back when he ran for that same office.

Now magazine presented the match in a reasonably detailed article.

At 9:30 pm Tuesday, when Mayor John Tory held a media availability to boast of his success getting city council to support road tolls (well, a request to the province to allow tolls), his voice was uncharacteristically hoarse. Given that he had spoken no more than usual during the day's meeting, this was presumably attributable to the full-throated smackdown he had delivered councillor Giorgio Mammoliti two hours earlier.
Mammoliti, of course, is the clown prince of city council, the quintessential municipal blowhard forever in search of a headline-grabbing cause. Where even Rob Ford, for example, had a loose guiding ethos, Mammoliti instead flings his blustery passion behind whatever supposed conviction suits him politically at a given moment.
The past couple weeks, it's been a (largely one-man) fight against tolls, with the councillor even going so far as to display a "HONK for NO TORY TOLLS" banner over the Gardiner in a reasonably effectivepublicity stunt. So it was not at all surprising that Tuesday's day-long council debate — concerning the city's long-term financial direction and revenue strategy, of which the proposed tolls are but one part — came to be dominated by the Ward 7 (York West) councillor's unhinged theatrics. He used every opportunity available to him to rave about the matter and issue dire warnings of the electoral consequences for those who would support tolls, slinking only slightly beneath his usual depressing standard for discourse.
Remarkably, however, the debate climaxed with a stunning moment of catharsis, delivered by Mayor Tory, of all people. Through the dark magic known as a Staffer Using Google, he read passages from a Toronto Star report from the 2010 election in which Mammoliti — then running for mayor on a platform of explicit outrageousness — proposed tolling an expanded Lake Shore Boulevard to fund the conversion of the Gardiner into a series of elevated parks.
"And he says, and I quote, 'None of them would mind paying $2 if it is going to something meaningful,'" Tory announced. "That's what you said, or this has been the grossest misquotation in the history of Toronto politics, and I am prepared to join you in going up there [to the press seats] right now and saying, 'I never said that! I'm going to sue you!'"
Now, digging up past statements proving Mammoliti a hypocrite is almost so easy as to be a cliché — the inevitable upshot of having parlayed a lack of principles into a long career in politics. But seldom has one been thrown back at him so effectively, the drama magnified by the physical proximity. (Tory unsuccessfully tried to change this at the start of the term.)
Chastized, Mammoliti later rose to apologize for how heated things got and to falsely claim that he had only been advocating for tolls on new, not existing, roads.
Goodness knows this was all a distraction from the larger issues at stake in the debate, and from the fact that tolls, though welcome, are at best a partial solution whose revenues will be significantly eaten up by needless, politically motivated mega-projects.
But given the general overbearing awfulness of the world, and the endless muck through which we wade on a daily basis, we think it important to celebrate and embrace those things in life that are really, truly good.

As long as it was, the article leaves out a few important points.

Giorgio Mammoliti legally changed his name many years ago. One would think that he tried to distance himself from Saro Mammoliti, the “playboy of Castellace” boss of ‘Ndrangheta who switched allegiances by becoming a “pentito”. However, he only changed his first name, from George to Giorgio.
Giorgio Mammoliti changes his opinion to suit whatever political wind blows harder. Some call him a blowhard, while Torontoist calls him “local opportunist”.
He has an obsession with prostitution at Hanlan Point, gays, pedophilia and brothels on the Toronto Island.

His highest profile position was chairman of the Toronto Zoo, undoubtedly because of his theatrics, reminiscent of an intelligent primate.

Sources / More info: tst-mammoliti, gds-mammo, toist-gm, tl-gm, tst-gm, ihr-gm, tors-shirtless

SWNA, traffic, road, transit, ttc, mammoliti, john tory, giorgio mammoliti, post-truth, demagogue, demagoguery, controversy (Tags)

Shooting at Jane and 401

2016-12-10T10:53:00.001-05:00

What would Friday night be without a good ol’ shooting?

Here’s the news from CBC.

A man in his 20s was rushed to a trauma centre in serious condition after he was shot Friday night in North York.
Toronto police officers are sweeping the area around Jane Street and Highway 401 for two possible suspects in the attack.
Const. Allyson Douglas-Cook said police were called to the area at 7:41 p.m. and found one man seriously injured. She could not say where he had been shot.
Investigators were searching for two people suspected to be involved in the shooting, but Cook could not provide a description.

Shooting: Jane St/ Gordon Mackay.. units are OS. 1 male victim located. No info on ext of injs / or suspect(s) at this time. #2185336.^adc
— @TPSOperations

We hope that the victim makes a full recovery.

Sources / More info: cbc-shooting

SWNA, 401, shooting, highway 401, jane and 401, 401 and Jane, jane & 401, 401 & jane (Tags)

Where in the world was Vitaliy?

2016-12-06T12:15:00.001-05:00

A recent gruesome murder around the Jane and Finch area saw a stabbing victim seeking help in the closed Humber River Finch hospital. ERS came to the closed hospital but they were too late – he died of his wounds shortly thereafter. Now Police is asking for the public’s help.

I remember being a few years back at a consultation with the area MPP, Mario Sergio, and everybody asking him if the hospital would close. He assured people that the hospital will stay open. This is technically true, the hospital closes at 6pm, as it is no longer critical care.

Police are asking for the public’s help in tracking the movements of a 32-year-old man who was fatally stabbed in North York over the weekend.
On Sunday, emergency crews were called to Highway 400 and Finch Avenue West at around 3 a.m. where they found a man, believed to be in his 20s, in medical distress.
According to Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Terry Browne, the man drove himself to Humber River Hospital’s Finch Avenue site -- while “bleeding significantly” from an apparent stab wound -- only to find it closed. Browne clarified that the hospital no longer functions as a critical care hospital and had been closed since approximately 6 p.m.
“He was banging on the door, requesting assistance,” Browne told reporters at a news conference Monday. “The security officer that was working called 9-1-1. Emergency medical services arrived in short order and he was transported to another hospital where unfortunately he succumbed to his injuries a short time later.”
Police identified the victim as 32-year-old Thornhill resident Vitaliy Ferynskyy.
They said a post-mortem examination is currently underway.
Browne believes the victim’s “very significant injury” was likely sustained with an “edged weapon” within a short period of time prior to his arrival at the hospital.
“He was conscious and alert when we arrived and was certainly able to provide us some valuable information. Of course, I’m not able to relay what he was able to share with us. That’s just one aspect of the investigation we’re looking into,” Browne said.
“What we’re trying to do is narrow his movements from the evening of Saturday and into Sunday morning.”
Investigators are asking for businesses and residents in the immediate vicinity of Humber River Hospital on Finch Avenue West, just east of Highway 400, who may have surveillance cameras or dashboard cameras on their vehicles to check their footage for the victim’s vehicle.
Fernskyy drove himself to the hospital in a black, four-door, 2010 model Hyundai Sonata.
Police describe the deceased as a white male who is approximately six-foot-three with short hair. He was last seen wearing a dark brown wool bomber jacket with white fleece lining on the inside, a blue jacket underneath, charcoal or black coloured track pants, and “very distinctive” red running shoes.
“If anyone has any knowledge about his movements that evening, if you know him personally and had contact with him, or you own security videos in the areas I’ve just described, please have a look and see if you’ve captured something and we’ll certainly come and obtain the video from you,” Browne said.
“Please do not limit the area just to Finch Avenue. Use the Humber River Hospital as a marker and take about five minutes from there. If you are within that five minute range of a drive, please check your video and let us know if you see something.”
Though it’s still unclear where exactly the stabbing took place, Browne said investigators haven’t ruled out that the incident could have occurred in the vehicle.
Investigators are also looking to speak with anyone who had direct contact with Ferynskyy any time after 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3 or anyone who may other relevant information to this investigation.
Browne added that Fernskyy was known to police but that his history with law enforcement was “dated.”
“There’s nothing that we’ve learned in our investigation at this point that suggests that he in fact would have been involved in any criminal activity that would have put himself at risk,” he said.

If you know anything please call police at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

Sources / More info: ctv-vitaliy

SWNA, finch, finch hospital, hospital closure, stabbing, humber river (Tags)

Stabbing and Condo next to Downsview Park

2016-12-04T16:52:00.001-05:00

Between a fatal stabbing at Jane and Finch and a condo replacing the Shriners building, the news could be better.

Yet another condo next to the park may not necessarily be a good thing, though obviously, the stabbing is far worse.

Here is the news as related by cbc-nystb.

Toronto police's homicide unit is now investigating a stabbing that occurred in the area of Jane Street and Finch Avenue.
Police say the call came in after 3 a.m. Sunday morning, and they found a man with stab wounds.
The man was taken to hospital and later succumbed to his injuries.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact 31 Division at 416-808-3100 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

Stabbing:
Finch Ave W + Jane St
Man located with stab wounds
Taken to hospital
Succumbed to injuries
Homicide now investigating
#2148586
^rm
— Toronto Police OPS (@TPSOperations) December 4, 2016

We hope that the perpetrator is caught and faces justice.

The second newsworthy story is a condo replacing the Shriners Club (ut-condo).

Directly across from Downsview Park's central lake, and three blocks south of Sheppard Avenue, an SMV Architects-designed residential project will replace the Shriners Club—and former synagogue—at 3100 Keele Street. On Keele, the two-acre site will be fronted by a 12-storey condominium building, which steps down from Keele with 10 and 6-storey wings to the west.

Stretching west, the two shorter wings surround a central green space, with a collection of 2-bedroom + den townhome units fronting the condominium. The 325-unit development features a unit mix of one and two-bedroom suites. In total, the plans call for 171 one-bedroom and 154-two bedroom residences. At the corner of Keele and Maryport (below), a retail space may now be planned, though the Site Plan application submitted to the City designates the space for live-work units.

Developed by Decade Group Inc., the project was ratified at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) earlier this year. Initially proposed to the City as a 422-unit project with a height peak of 19-storeys, the developer appealed the project to the OMB after the City failed to make a decision with the statutory 120 day period. Following continued negotiations with the City, a settlement was reach for a scaled down proposal, which was then presented to the OMB, allowing for a relatively straightforward approval.

The plans also call for a total of 383 underground parking spots, making for a high ratio of vehicle spaces to units, reflecting what remains a car-oriented area.

With vehicle access from Maryport Avenue, the garage will be entered from a small forecourt just off the landscaped green space.

As part of the project, a 45-foot mosaic that once fronted the site's single-storey building—which was home to the Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Temple before being taken over by a Shriners organization—will be given over to the synagogue's new space in North York.

We will keep you updated as news become available. In the meantime, make sure to check out our associated dataBase file, linked below. Want to share your thoughts? Leave a comment on this page, or join the ongoing conversation in our Forum.

It looks more and more as if the urban park that never truly happened will be drowned in a sea of condos.

Sources / More info: cbc-nystb, ut-condo

SWNA, development, omb, downsview park, downsview, stabbing, jane and finch (Tags)

The tap water smell and a new tenant law

2016-12-02T19:58:00.001-05:00

Residents were left guessing what may have affected the water taste in the past couple of days and the government is looking to change the landlord and tenant act with a view to improve landlord protection.

It turns out upgrades at water treatment plant were to blame.

Toronto Water says the strange taste and smell some Toronto residents started noticing in their tap water last night is connected to treatment plant upgrades.
Staff investigated the issue overnight and found that the odour was related to system upgrades at the R.C. Harris Treatment Plant on Queen Street East in Scarborough, a statement from the city division said.
Toronto Water uses aluminum sulphate as part of the normal water treatment process, the statement continued, which can generate hydrogen sulphide gas that "resembles the smell of boiled eggs."
"This gas entered into some of the treated drinking water when the basin was put back into operation," the statement reads. "Toronto Water has taken the settling basin out of operation this morning and the taste and odour will dissipate by the end of today."
The odour had no effect on the city's water quality, according to the statement.
"The water remains safe to drink and meets all regulatory requirements."
In addition to the treatment plant work, Toronto Water has also been gradually increasing chlorine levels in the drinking water, as per regulatory requirements.
Residents describe 'chemical' taste

The strange smell worried some Toronto residents.
Ted Gorsline, who lives near Danforth and Pape avenues, said he first noticed a strange smell to the water on Thursday evening.

Is anyone else noticing their tap water tasting of chemicals? #SOTS #topoli #chemicalwaterTO #eaatyork
— @Tedgorsline

"We noticed our tap water tasting of strong chemicals last night at dinner," he told CBC Toronto. "Since then it has been undrinkable. We plan on using bottled water until this is returned to normal."
A neighbour one block away says she too noticed a strange smell.
"It kind of tasted like there was chemicals in it," said Siobhan Fahey, who said the smell and taste reminded her of fertilizer.
Her family has been drinking distilled water since Thursday evening, and they're boiling the tap water for their dogs.
Fahey's mother Moira Callahan says while the water has improved since Thursday evening, it is not yet back to normal.
"I'm still a bit concerned about drinking it," she said.
Gorsline also says neighbours have been posting warnings to local Facebook groups.
Other Toronto residents tweeted complaints to the @311Toronto account, with reports from various neighbourhoods, including Rosedale and Seaton Village.

@CalebWellum @steven_heipel TW investigated, found slight increase in chlorine. Level within regulation, safe to drink. Continue 2 monitor.
— @311Toronto

@neilfaba @GECOtoronto @mary_margaret32 Not too sure, Toronto Water investigating. Results pending^ac
— @311Toronto

With files from CBC's Nick Boisvert, Lauren Pelley

I don’t quite buy it.

Even though rents have been going through the roof and vacancy rates are approaching zero, the province thinks that landlords need more protection.

One day after CBC News published an exclusive story about a Kingston, Ont., man's frustrating experience trying to evict a family who trashed his property, Ontario's minister of housing says he has been gathering input for the last five months on how to improve the province's landlord and tenant legislation.
"I've been meeting with all sorts to look at the whole process, the Landlord Tenant Act and how we can make the system stronger for everyone involved," Chris Ballard told CBC Toronto on Thursday at Queen's Park.
Ballard said he has been hearing from both landlords and tenants about problems with the legislation.
Kingston landlord Simon Andrew told CBC Toronto about his six-month effort to evict tenants who hadn't paid rent and allowed animals to defecate and urinate in the home.

Andrew complained that the process of eviction through the Landlord And Tenant Board took too long.
"You just have to sit back and let it happen, and they would goad me about what they were doing," said the landlord.
Andrew started eviction proceedings in April because his tenants, a couple with their adult son, kept farm animals in the house.
"It just got totally insane. It ended up that they freely admitted in emails that they had a goat in the house. We know they had rabbits. We know they had chickens. We know they had ducks. We know they had pigeons, quails, parrots."
Half a year is a long time to receive a decision, said Barrington Lue Sang, a paralegal who has worked on landlord-tenant matters for almost two decades.
"A lot of landlords depend on their rents to pay their mortgages, so to wait six months.… I mean, the banks won't allow six months to pay your mortgage, so why should the board allow a tenant [to avoid paying rent]?"
Landlord and Tenant Board spokesperson Whitney Miller said in a statement to CBC News that in most cases, the board hears an application within 25 days of filing and a decision is rendered within five days of a hearing.
That has not been Lue Sang's experience. "Generally, it takes a longer time to get hearing dates and it definitely takes a longer time to have these decisions sent out because … a member might be hearing anywhere between five to 10 cases every day."
There are not enough adjudicators to hear the cases, and there's been a higher volume of cases in recent years, some frivolous, Lue Sang said.
"The tenants might say there are cockroaches and the landlord goes and inspects. There are no cockroaches and the tenant still brings the application," he said.
"Where it's obvious that these applications are non-starters, I think if a tenant or landlord faces the risk of having to pay the legal costs of the other side, that might curtail a lot of these frivolous applications."
Gun-shy over long-term rentals

Andrew estimated it will cost him up to $30,000 to make the necessary repairs to his Kingston home.
He won't rent out his three-bedroom property on a long-term lease again. He plans to explore short-term rentals like AirBnB.
"Why not? I'm safeguarded. It doesn't come under the Landlord Tenant Act, and I'll have a stream of interesting and nice people presumably coming through."
The minister of housing worries about landlords like Andrew pulling out of the market when rental units are in such short supply.
"If it's enough to scare off someone from renting a suite in their basement, we don't want to have that happen. So we need to look at legislation, and that's what we're doing," said Ballard.
The ministry is winding down its consultation process now. Ballard said he has no timeline to propose any changes.

Don’t you just love government?

Sources / More info: cbc-smell, cbc-housing

SWNA, tenant legislation, landlord and tenant, water, water treatment (Tags)

De-amalgamation - the growing desideratum

2016-11-30T11:11:00.001-05:00

It is no secret that Toronto’s amalgamation, perpetrated by the Conservatives, happened against the will of the voters. In Montreal it happened on the same oppositional background under the Liberals. Two decades later, it is clear that the cost savings that were supposed to happen did not, we still do not have a harmonized legislation and corruption has increased, while representation and local democracy weakened.

Most people have started to awaken to this reality and some more quietly, others loudly, are demanding a return to the previous state of affairs.

Here is how Toronto Star covers this fight.

A disgruntled Scarborough resident is fed up with Toronto’s city council and is hoping a petition will help start the process of de-amalgamation.
Robert McDermott, a real estate agent in Scarborough, said he launched the “Free Scarborough Campaign” because amalgamation has been “a dismal failure” that has led to tax increases and declines in service. McDermott is calling for Scarborough to de-amalgamate from the city “to restore accessible, local government.”
Scarborough and surrounding Toronto municipalities merged to form the modern City of Toronto in 1998 after then-premier Mike Harris passed amalgamation legislation that was proposed as a way to save the province money. The controversial bill was heavily opposed at the time, and calls for de-amalgamation have resurfaced over the years since it was enacted.
“Property taxes in Scarborough have been continually going up and services have been declining,” McDermott said, adding the amalgamated council has fuelled division between downtown Toronto and the suburbs surrounding it.
“We’ve lost the ability to manage our own affairs, really. We’re being dictated by a centralized government in downtown Toronto.”
Online, McDermott’s campaign has failed to receive much traction, with just over 90 signatures on the online petition as of Tuesday afternoon. However, he said he has received about 3,200 signatures from going door-to-door in Scarborough. McDermott hopes to gather enough signatures by the end of 2017 to compel municipal and provincial officials to launch a referendum on de-amalgamation.
John Sewell, who was mayor and councillor in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was against amalgamation, believes that council is both too large and that the area it covers is too vast.
“A different system would have better government, people more closely related to their government,” Sewell said. “I don’t believe that anybody feels they are in control of what is happening in their city at the moment.”
A 2013 study from the University of Toronto’s Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance found that amalgamation resulted in a city that is both too small to address regional issues that plague the GTA, such as transportation, and too big to be responsive to local residents.
While it is certainly possible to undo amalgamation, it is not an easy process – and one that the province has shown little interest in, said Lydia Miljan, an associate professor of political science at the University of Windsor.
Miljan and Zachary Spicer co-authored a 2015 Fraser Institute study looking at the process of de-amalgamation, focusing on whether it was possible to reverse the process and whether it is the best decision when it comes to finances and governance. That study found while there is no reason de-amalgamation cannot be pursued, it is often not desirable.
“It’s a really complicated process,” said Miljan. “You would have to decide what did Scarborough have pre-amalgamation and what did it get after, and then decide whether or not the amalgamated municipality owes money to the place it just left and how much that would be.”
In theory, amalgamation is a simple process that just requires provincial approval, said Spicer, an assistant professor at Brock University, but in practice “it’s a bit more tricky.”
“The province doesn’t need the city to say yes or no, but they realistically wouldn’t move forward without their approval,” he said. “Even if the city approved, it wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t be simple and it would take a long time to figure out how to divide assets.”
Spicer also said there isn’t political motivation for the province to re-open the issue of amalgamation.
“The province used a lot of political capital to amalgamate, and to de-amalgamate now would be a fight they don’t need. There’s not a whole lot of benefit to do it,” he said.
McDermott understands it’s a difficult process, but he hopes the campaign will get both residents and politicians talking.
“There’s a lack of accountability when it comes to decision making,” he said. “I think it’s time Scarborough go it alone.”

Though it may seem like a long shot, nothing is impossible. Is Mr McDermott a “disgruntled resident” or merely a realist?

Sources / More info: mn-deamalg

SWNA, amalgamation, de-amalgamation, gta, toronto, government, municipal politics, local democracy (Tags)

Robbery at Sheridan Mall

2016-11-28T10:30:00.001-05:00

Twenty year old man was robbed after being struck in the head this past Saturday.

Could it be that the robber wanted to partake in some post-Black Friday deals?

Here’s the news as reported (ctv-robb).

A man in his 20s was struck over the head and robbed in the Downsview area on Saturday.
Police originally received reports that someone had been stabbed near Jane Street and Wilson Avenue just after 2 p.m. The victim was treated by paramedics, who arrived on the scene at Sheridan Mall.
It appeared the victim was hit in the head with some kind weapon or possibly a piece of wood, police said.
He was taken to hospital for treatment as a precaution. Officers are still speaking with the man at the hospital and believe that his injuries are not serious.
Multiple suspects wore bandanas that covered their faces, police told CTV News Toronto. No further suspect information was given by police.
The investigation is ongoing.

We hope that the victim is recovering well and that the perp is arrested.

Sources / More info: ctv-robb

SWNA, downsview, black friday, robbery, violence, head (Tags)

Space Centre at Downsview and Hydro Bills

2016-11-23T13:26:00.001-05:00

News of interest keep accumulating! This time, a space centre is being built in the Downsview Park and he hear an explanation on hydro bills.

Of all these news, the best is undoubtedly about the Downsview Park.

It is great to learn that new investment comes to our community, even though it’s a few minutes of driving away (mn-cent).

Centennial College will build a new aerospace campus at the old Downsview air force base with $44.2 million from the federal and Ontario governments, better linking students with the industry.
“We’re trying to break down the barriers,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said Monday in announcing the funding with federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan.
Ontario taxpayers are providing $25‎.8 million toward the $72 million project slated to open in 2019, with the federal government ponying up $18.4 million and Centennial College and other donors making up the remaining $28 million.
The campus will include the historic de Havilland building — where 1,000 lightweight two-engine Mosquito bombers were made in the Second World War.
“You could say this is hallowed ground,” said Centennial president Ann Buller, who added the campus at Downsview Park just east of Keele and Sheppard will help “good jobs flourish in a part‎ of the city that needs them.”
The location will help Centennial’s aerospace program, now operating in cramped quarters in Scarborough, strengthen already close ties with aircraft manufacturer Bombardier, Buller told about 100 students, educators and aerospace industry members gathered in a restaurant on the old air force base closed in 1996.
The college will triple the number of students in its aerospace program with the new quarters, said Duncan.
That will boost the country’s and the province’s reputation for being part of the “knowledge” economy, added Wynne, who will tout the project on a trade mission to Asia later this month.
“If we’re going to punch above our weight, we have to innovate,” the premier said after a tour of the site in the unexpected blast of winter weather.
“It will incubate and grow well paying jobs and professionally rewarding jobs.”
The campus was hailed as a “first step” toward ‎the creation of a better “hub” of aerospace activity in the area by Andrew Petrou, executive director of the Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research consortium of educational institutions and companies.
The group estimates such a hub can lead to the creation of 14,400 jobs and $2.3 billion in economic activity over the next 20 years.
“The opportunity that Downsview provides for companies, colleges, and universities to work together in close proximity on aerospace education, research and product development cannot be overstated,” said David Zingg, a professor at the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies.
It is a partner in the Downsview aerospace consortium along with Centennial, York and Ryerson Universities, and eight companies including Pratt and Whitney Canada, Honeywell and Bombardier Aerospace.

We’ve all felt the higher hydro bills, one way or another.

Here’s an explanation as to why the hydro bills are higher (cbc-hydro).

Premier Kathleen Wynne grabbed some attention this weekend by admitting a mistake.
It's not something politicians do all that often. When they do, you can be assured there's a darned good reason. In Wynne's case, it looks like she's trying to neutralize — or at least lessen — the damage that skyrocketing hydro bills are doing to her popularity.
"I take responsibility as leader for not paying close enough attention to some of the daily stresses in Ontarians' lives," Wynne told the Ontario Liberal Party's annual general meeting, held in Ottawa. "Electricity prices are the prime example."

Wynne calls high hydro prices her 'mistake'
'People have to choose between heating and eating'

Wynne defended Liberal government moves to make Ontario's electricity system cleaner and more stable, but admitted that the cost "has burdened people in every corner" of the province.
"People have told me that they've had to choose between paying the electricity bill and buying food or paying rent," Wynne said. "It is unacceptable that people in Ontario could be facing that choice. So our government made a mistake. It was my mistake. And I'm going to do my best to fix it."
Yet "fixing" high hydro prices is no easy task.
"It's not a simple system, it is a complex system," Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said Monday, when pressed by reporters for specifics about the premier's weekend promise "to find more ways to lower rates and reduce the burden on consumers."
Thibeault is ruling out another taxpayer-funded subsidy beyond the promised rebate of the provincial portion of the HST (eight per cent), starting in January.
So that means chipping away at the factors that actually drive costs in the hydro system.
Here are the key reasons why your hydro bills are so high and why it'll be a challenge for the Wynne government to lower them enough that you notice.
1. Oversupply of power

Ontario's electricity producers are generating more power than we consume in the province. But the government is locked into contracts to purchase that power regardless. It sells off the excess to the U.S., at rates below the cost of production. And even though you aren't consuming that power, you still have to pay for your share of it every month (through a line on your power bill called the "global adjustment").
"This dynamic is made worse because demand keeps falling," said Greenpeace energy campaigner Shawn-Patrick Stensil. "Covering the cost of this excess surplus supply is spread over fewer kilowatt hours." He argues the government could solve the excess power problem in one stroke by taking the entire Pickering nuclear station offline.
Cancelling power contracts seems an easy solution — but not a cheap one: remember it cost $1 billion to cancel those infamous gas-fired power plants in Mississauga and Oakville.
2. Pricey green energy

Wind, solar and bio-energy account for 6.3 per cent of total electricity generated in the province, but 16.3 per cent of the total generation cost, according to the auditor general's recent investigation into hydro prices. Auditor Bonnie Lysyk criticized the government for offering overly generous contracts when it launched its big green energy push in 2009. Despite shifting gears to a competitive bidding process, the auditor found that in 2014, Ontario was still paying "double the market price for wind and 3½ times the market price for solar energy."
3. Weakened energy watchdog

The Ontario Energy Board is the independent body that regulates electricity pricing in the province, but not all electricity pricing. It has little ability to control the price paid to electricity generators, other than Ontario Power Generation's nuclear plants at Pickering and Darlington and most of OPG's hydroelectric dams. Anytime OPG wants to increase these prices, it has to seek approval from the board.

Ontario will rebate the eight per cent provincial portion of the HST off hydro bills starting in January. Other than that, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault is ruling out further taxpayer-funded subsidies to lower electricity rates. (Pierre-Olivier Bernatchez/CBC)
But the OEB does not have that power over private producers. They negotiate prices directly with the government and have negotiated some rather profitable contracts, since that is their motive. They now account for about half of all the electricity generated in Ontario, therefore a significant chunk of your hydro bill is out of the reach of the regulator that's supposed to protect the interests of consumers.
4. Time of use pricing

Ontario brought in smart meters to allow for variable pricing of electricity during the day, with the aim of driving down consumption during times of high use by raising the prices substantially during those peak periods. The move has had little effect on peak demand, according to an analysis commissioned by the government's Independent Electricity System Operator. It means that we're still consuming plenty of electricity during those peak periods, and paying a lot more for it than before smart meters arrived.
5. Well-paid hydro workers

The latest edition of the Sunshine List includes 7,632 employees of Ontario Power Generation. Their earnings total $1.07 billion. The last time Hydro One workers were on the Sunshine List (in 2014), there were 4,279 employees, with salaries totalling $550 million. The auditor general flagged in 2013 that generous salaries, pensions and benefits at OPG — especially among top executives — were partly to blame for rising hydro prices.

And finally, some news about trees cutting and bylaws violations.

Sources / More info: mn-cent, cbc-hydro

SWNA, trees, bylaw, regulation, downsview (Tags)

Teen shot dead at Shorenham Ct Complex

2016-11-19T16:14:00.001-05:00

We have recently learned about a teen shot dead outside a housing complex at Shoreham Ct. This is North of Driftwood and South of Steeles.
more>
Here's a photo of the street from Google Maps:

The full text, as published by CP24:

Police say that a 17-year-old boy is dead after he was shot in front of his North York home on Saturday morning.

The shooting took place in front of a Toronto Community Housing complex on Shoreham Court near Jane Street at around 11:50 a.m.

Police say their preliminary invetigation suggests that the shooter or shooters fired on the victim over a fence before fleeing the scene.

The victim was taken to hospital by someone other than paramedics but was pronounced dead a short time later.

Police initially said that a young child had been shot, however they later corrected themselves and said that the victim is 17.

According to police, there are a number of witnesses who are currently being interviewed at a nearby station. Police also plan to review surveillance camera in the area.

No information has been released about potential suspects at this point.

CP24 did speak to several witnesses at the scene who said they heard multiple gunshots at the time of the shooting.

We are sorry to hear about this and offer our condolences.

Sources / More info: CP24

Acid Cloud In the West End

2016-11-04T13:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday an acid cloud threatened residents at Bloor and Lansdowne, which is a bit South of our area.

Though this may not have affected us directly, it is worth remembering it (tgm).

Residents in a west Toronto neighbourhood where acid was released into the air earlier this morning are now being told that it is safe to go outside.
Police say the incident was first reported shortly before 10 a.m. when a resident walked outside in the Bloor Street and Lansdowne Avenue area, witnessed a cloud of smoke and began coughing.
Toronto Fire Capt. Michael Westwood says a combination of hydrochloric and sulphuric acid was mixed and released into the air, creating a fog that can be irritating if inhaled.
Residents were warned to stay in their homes with doors and windows shut to prevent inhaling potentially hazardous fumes.
Shortly after noon, fire officials said the “acid reaction” was over and it was safe to go outside.
No serious injuries were reported, but the fire service said eight people were being treated for minor throat and eye irritations as a result of the incident.

Hopefully, this is last we hear about it.

Sources / More info: tgm

SWNA, pollution, air pollution, environment, west end, toronto (Tags)

Condo proposals as art

2016-10-24T13:32:00.001-04:00

Two artists have started trolling Old City Hall (and, presumably, other sites) with fake “Development Proposal” signs as a commentary on the condo boom.

In the photo you may see one of their projects right across from Old City Hall.

Better yet, see the full article below as published by Laura Howells in CBC News.

Have you heard about the 90-storey condo development going on top of Old City Hall?
Ok, calm down, Toronto. That's not actually happening. But you might have gotten a fright if you passed by the historic building this weekend.
A development proposal sign went up in front of Old City Hall on Friday, which suggests converting the heritage building into a four-storey parking garage with a massive residential tower on top.
Although it looks like an official City of Toronto development notice, the sign is actually the work of two Toronto-based artists who go by Glo'erm and Tuggy (the Tumblr link on the bottom gives it away).
On their website, the self-proclaimed "urban interventionists" have made several mock development proposals for other landmark Toronto buildings.
Would you move into a 40-storey condo tower off the side of the CN tower?

(Glo'erm and Tuggy)
Or how do you feel about relocating Casa Loma, and putting a 30-storey condo building in its place?

(Glo'erm and Tuggy)
Signs aim to 'spark conversation'

One of the artists behind the project said their aim was to "spark conversation about the kind of city we are building and whose voice counts in this process."
"It is a piece of satire asking the public and the city to take a critical look at many of Toronto's recent development projects," he said in an email to CBC.
The artist said recent development projects show "countless examples of condo towers being naively plopped on top of historic buildings as if this could preserve their elegance and our tie to their history, despite these additions."

Twelve-storey on top of the OCAD building? Never say never... (Glo'erm and Tuggy)
The artist, who requested we not use his real name for professional reasons, said the fake proposals show "how absurd this idea is" by taking it to the extreme.
So far, they've only actually put up a mock sign in front of Old City Hall. But they're hoping to put up a few more in front of other buildings over the next couple of months.

You wouldn't have to battle traffic to get to the ball game if you moved into a condo off the Rogers Centre. (Glo'erm and Tuggy)
The artist said that the sign in front of Old City Hall really blends into the environment, which shows "how poorly these signs serve Torontonians as a means of notifying them and seeking their feedback about changes to be made to the urban environment."

U of T students might not be too happy with this "plan" for King's College. (Glo'erm and Tuggy)
"In this sign's ability to disappear from view despite its controversial content, the audience is made to ask what other changes might be underway in the city unbeknownst to me?" he wrote.
'I thought Toronto had just gone really crazy'

On Sunday afternoon, passersby in front of Old City Hall were glad to hear the signs were a hoax.
Looking at the sign, one person called the proposed development a "sacrilege," while another said it was "mental."

April Robinson breathed a sign of relief when she found out the sign in front of Old City Hall was a hoax. (CBC)
"Phewf!" said City Place resident April Robinson, when she found out it was fake.
"I think I just had a little heart attack there for a minute. I thought Toronto had just gone really crazy."
Nope. Not that crazy yet.

(Glo'erm and Tuggy)

Maybe our association should start similar projects in our neighbourhood (or commission them).

Sources / More info: cbc

SWNA, art, satire, condo, condominium, real estate, downtown toronto, hoax, development proposal (Tags)

Stabbing at Sheppard and Arleta

2016-10-23T23:18:00.001-04:00

Sadly, this weekend passed with another stabbing, but fortunately, the victim had non-life-threatening injuries.

Here’s the full text of the article.

A man in his 20s was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries after a stabbing in the city’s Downsview neighbourhood early Saturday morning.
It happened near Sheppard and Arleta avenues at around 3:50 a.m.
Police have not released any information about potential suspects.
The circumstances surrounding the stabbing also remain unclear.
Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.

Sources / More info: cp24

SWNA, stabbing, sheppard, arleta (Tags)

Trump, Clinton and the urban-rural divide

2016-10-18T01:00:00.001-04:00

Ever since the #amalgamation, #Toronto has its own culture clash, pitting suburbanites vs downtown core hipsters on issues such as social housing and public transportation. It is therefore useful to see how this culture clash plays South of the border.

A recent NPR article (inb-trump), like many others, makes the case that this very partisan presidential campaign going on in USA is best understood not as a competition between Democrats and Republicans but rather between the rural and urban micro-universe. Although the article does mention suburbia, we feel that suburban voters and attitudes should have been more thoroughly researched.

One such significant difference is the attitude toward global warming and climate change (inv-clim8).

Another interesting article refers to inequality and housing segregation in Hillary’s hometown of Chappaqua (pltco-chipaqua).

As we waited for the train, I asked McLeod whether she would ever want to live in Chappaqua instead of commuting back and forth. She shrugged as if it were a moot point. “It’s too expensive,” she said.
Housing segregation is one of the great unsolved policy crises in American life, driving a sharp wedge between the nation’s haves and have-nots—those who get the opportunities afforded by living in prosperous towns like Chappaqua, and those who never could. Seven years ago, it seemed that Hillary Clinton’s hometown might willingly lead the way in changing this. The Obama administration joined a lawsuit brought by the activist Anti-Discrimination Center alleging that Westchester County had willfully violated the Fair Housing Act by not exploring the ways communities make it difficult to build affordable housing. The county agreed to a landmark settlement that the Obama administration once hoped would be a template for the nation. Westchester agreed to construct 750 units of affordable housing in 31 majority white and affluent towns, including Chappaqua.
As of last year, only 334 new affordable units were occupied in Westchester, none in Chappaqua. The plan isn’t dead—several hundred units are still being developed across the county, including a potential 63 in Chappaqua—but even if they’re all built, it remains a drop in the bucket in a county of nearly a million people; a report from Rutgers University estimated Westchester would need at least 10,768 new affordable homes to satisfy demand.
New affordable housing has become a third rail in local politics. Politicians here have run—and won—on the promise of fighting the zoning changes that could lead to more and faster construction. In Chappaqua in 2013, the town council approved a plan for a politically connected developer, Conifer Realty, to construct an apartment building of 28 units, all reserved for renters earning less than $64,000 per year. It is supposed to be built on Hunts Lane, a mile-and-a-half from the Clinton home and just a few hundred feet from where Tatlin McLeod and I were sitting at the train station, on the other side of the Metro-North tracks. Most of the officials who made that deal lost their seats.

Some interesting similarities and differences compared to what we are seeing here in Toronto. For instance, no politician who approved social housing, no matter how corrupt, has ever lost their seat.

There is also an undeniable racial undertone – or is it just poverty?

Today, the site remains an empty lot, overgrown with weeds. I gestured toward it, and asked McLeod what she thought of putting an affordable apartment building there. She scoffed. “They will vote it down, knowing these people,” she said. I asked whether she thought the residents of Chappaqua didn’t want black neighbors. She shook her head no—she didn’t think this was about race. “My bosses are really nice,” she added. But Chappaqua is for people with money, she told me. Some folks hated the fact that there was a Dunkin’ Donuts in town, McLeod said; the chain was too downscale. She displayed her iced drink. “Some of them can be so cocky.”

And yet, it does seem that racism may no longer be about black vs white (npr-browning).

Sources / More info: pltco-chipaqua, inb-trump, inv-clim8, npr-browning

Tdot Zamo.ca, politics, racims, housing, social housing, subsidised housing, subsidized housing, usa, corruption (Tags)

Another double shooting

2016-10-17T22:21:00.001-04:00

Sadly, Jane and Sheppard sees yet another double shooting, with one in stable condition while the other victim was rushed to a trauma centre with serious injuries.

Here is the full article (cbc-si).

One man has been rushed to a trauma centre with serious injuries and another is in hospital in stable condition after a double-shooting in the Jane and Finch area.
Toronto police were called to Sheppard Avenue and Buchland Road around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday about reports of a shooting.
A car, possibly red in colour, was reportedly seen fleeing from the area, police tweeted.
There is no suspect description available at this time.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact 31 Division or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

SHOOTING:
Sheppard Av + Buckland Rd
-2 ppl shot
-May be shotgun
-Car seen fleeing area
-Possibly red car
#1848920
^dh
— @TPSOperations

We hope that the victims recover and the perpetrators are caught.

Sources / More info: cbc-si

SWNA, double shooting, crime, victims, jane and sheppard (Tags)

The Upcoming Property Tax Hike

2016-10-16T12:18:00.000-04:00

The pressure to increase property taxes seems to be increasing in Toronto. That outcome is strongly resented by most members of our community.

This newspaper article published by Royson James in the Toronto Star (tst-protx) is suggesting that a world-class city somehow requires world-class property taxes, yet Toronto has the lowest taxes in the GTA.

Welcome to Toronto, boom town Canada, fat-cat city with white hot real estate and a magnet of a downtown where condo skyscrapers stretch the limits on every corner.
Office buildings and jobs have returned to the core; so have new hotels. The kids whose parents left for the suburbs are back.
Crime’s down, our profile is up. The Economist says this is the best city in the world to live.
Pearson is growing faster than any big city airport in the world. A population the size of Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver combined is headed to the Toronto region by 2050.
“I believe that Toronto is at one of those very special moments in time,” Mayor John Tory told the board of trade in September. “You can feel it in the air and you can see it in the headlines.”
Yet, the city’s senior bureaucrats beg on the boulevard.
“We have to make sure we seize this moment,” Tory told the suits. But his was more a cry for help from the cash-strapped magistrate than a rallying cry from a civic champion.
City staff are putting the final touches to a report, due in December, that will challenge Tory and city council to consider controversial road tolls, parking and hotel taxes, among others.
Call it the Toronto Paradox: a perennial civic mishmash of financial machinations that befuddles the average citizen.
How can a city with such obvious wealth, such matchless charms that propels it to the top of global rankings for livability, fail so miserably to take that last step into civic greatness? How can a place that generates so much money for so many, have so little in the public coffers?
How can the civic piggy bank be empty when land sales in the hottest real estate market in the county have netted city hall $3 billion since 2008, thanks to a special made-in-Toronto tax on property sales?
How can the most often cited culprit be low taxes on property even as a tax on property transfer is heralded as a saviour?
“If it weren’t for the land transfer tax we’d be @*#&$*,” said one finance official earlier this month. But what happens when the housing market cools?
The reality is that Toronto is Canada’s calling-card city. As such, it attracts more of the country’s poor and desperate even as it generates riches for its citizens. It costs an enormous amount of money to run the city. And the mayor is in perennial catch-up mode — backfilling here, patching up there as revenues lag costs.
Look closer and the fault lines pop into view.
Toronto plans subways it can’t afford to build, much less operate; proposes roads it struggles to construct and refuses to clear of tumble weeds; and runs a housing company for the underclass that is dangerously under-resourced.
Around town, everyone, it seems, has a parent or nana sitting on a million-dollar nest egg bungalow with the lowest property taxes in the region; yet the city manager says he doesn’t have enough tax dollars to fix the housing units the city rents to the poor.
As the heart of the region, Toronto spends an average $3 billion a year trying to keep its public spaces and travel routes spruced up and in good repair to accommodate the world arriving at its doorstep.
There’s little left in the kitty to treat its citizens and the world with splashy, spectacular, bold additions.
That “rail deck park” the mayor wants over the railway lands? Fabulous idea. Only, the more than $1 billion it’s expected to cost is nowhere accounted for.
Already, the city’s infrastructure backlog bulges beyond $33 billion. That means, Toronto city council has approved plans for subways, roads, sewers, neighbourhood revitalization, new parks, housing repairs and absolute necessities without the money to pay for them.
Pointing to the list, one senior bureaucrat asks: “Which one of these projects would you drop?”
The fiscal picture for day-to-day operations is equally cloudy — not because there is no capacity to deliver services but because costs rise way above inflation and city council approves property tax hikes below inflation.
Following current trends of anticipated costs and projected revenues, the city’s $11.7 billion operating budget, will face a $1 billion shortfall by 2021.
RELATED:Toronto needs a new wave of world-scale projects: James
Former city manager Joe Pennachetti says Toronto’s cash crunch is “messy and it’s got to be fixed. We can’t stay like that. Toronto will not survive without realignment.”
It’s been like this for decades. The sentinels sound the alarm. Hogtown grunts along, unmindful. Citizens snap to attention only when politicians dip into their pockets. And Toronto’s taxpayers are among the most pampered, property-tax protected and spoiled in the region — born sucking a silver spoon greased by the downtown towers.
For years city staff used budgetary tricks, papered over the holes, dipped into reserves, deferred maintenance, fiddled with forecasts and employed all manner of voodoo budgeting to balance the books and keep property tax increases around 2 per cent. Today, they warn, the day or reckoning is at hand.
“It is no longer appropriate to ‘kick the can down the road’ on these difficult financial decisions,” city manager Peter Wallace said in a joint report last May. He was gingerly nudging politicians toward a vote to raise property taxes higher than current practice, impose road tolls and other “revenue tools.”
“Taxes is the price of admission into a great city,” says rookie downtown Councillor Joe Cressy. “Too many consider taxes a four-letter word.”
He’s right on both counts.
Toronto survived the last decade because of an unusual confluence of events and circumstances not likely to be repeated, Wallace has said since taking over the top bureaucrat’s job in 2015.
The economy has hummed along, though Toronto gets only 6 to 7 cents of every tax dollar generated here; the province and federal governments get the rest.
An alliance of business, labour and civic activists spearheaded a national campaign at the start of the millennium. It pushed the federal government and province of Ontario to send cities some more cash, much of it in a share of gas tax revenues.
Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty reversed most of the massive download of costs imposed by Conservative premier Mike Harris in the late 1990s — and gave Toronto its own municipal charter, allowing the city to levy taxes not permitted elsewhere in the province.
Of this, the biggest “saviour” of all is the municipal land transfer tax — a gift from McGuinty and former mayor David Miller that keeps on giving: $3 billion since inception in 2008.
Finance staff worry the windfall can’t continue at the current clip which yielded $517 million last year alone.
Through it all, city taxpayers have lived in a fool’s paradise of low property taxes — the only city tax that’s levied against everyone. It’s a sheltered existence that infuriates Toronto’s neighbours who pay higher rates. And Toronto’s low tax rates has shut the ears of the province to cries for more assistance.
So, should Toronto put a stop to capital projects — pause to catch its fiscal breath and close the funding gap?
Not a chance. In fact, what Toronto needs is a greater push toward the next transformational wave of civic improvements. Double down. Find the money that’s obviously there. Invest and grow or slip back to the tier of cities occupied by Huston, San Francisco, Manchester.
Coming out of the SARS crisis, Toronto was in woeful shape. Civic advocacy — much of it centred on a platform erected in the pages of the Star and its campaign for a New Deal for Cities — resulted in a cultural renaissance.
Six new major cultural buildings popped on the architectural horizon and created a buzz that reverberated beyond our shores. Luminato arrived, as did the MaRS project. Waterfront revitalization started. The ROM, Art Gallery of Ontario, opera house and Ontario College of Art and Design are a testament to that time.
Now we need new ones, a new wave to address the city’s status as a global player. But that is near impossible when the city seems reluctant to assume the mantle, and with it, raise the money to sustain the stature.
“Wealthy? Damn right, we are” says urban planner Joe Berridge, who charts competitiveness among global cities as he travels to remake cities around the world. “We can afford to pay for what we need.”
Over the past 10 years jobs increased by 160,000 or 12.7 per cent, TTC ridership jumped 26 per cent, value of building permits rose 76 per cent and the amount of office space occupied increased by eight million square feet.
Meanwhile, Toronto emerged as Canada’s only global city — topping several rankings for livability, cost of dong business, city of opportunity and overall attractiveness for business.
With all that going for it, why is the City of Toronto a perennial beggar? What’s the cause of the fiscal dysfunction? What’s the fix? The paradox of Toronto is summed up in five areas:

Investors and other levels of government get more of the money generated in Toronto than the city government does.

Toronto ratepayers are the lowest taxed in the region — even though the city has the widest number of taxing tools (obviously untapped) available to it.

New city attractions and infrastructure are clearly needed to sustain Toronto’s growing global reach and status. But simply maintaining what it has is a costly undertaking, falling short by $33 billion and counting.

There are no ongoing plans for the new wave of investments, attractions and “wow projects” needed to prop up the city’s ascendant global status.

Instead of taxing all property owners and spreading the pain around, city council imposes hidden taxes in the form of fees — so much so that since 2010 Toronto Transit Commission users paid four times more in fare increases than the rest of us paid in property tax hikes.

“That’s insane and immoral,” a senior staffer opined recently.
The analogy of someone being house rich but cash poor aptly sums up the City of Toronto — a municipality sitting on huge wealth but unable or unwilling to cash in and use it.
In 2001, the value of building permits in the city was $1.6 billion — a quarter of the growth in the 905 municipalities. By 2013, Toronto had rebounded to soar past the suburbs, before falling back within competitive range.
For a stretch this decade, Toronto had more highrise towers under construction than anywhere in North America until this year when it fell into second behind New York.
But it is the developers and investors that pocket the boom-time dough.
In total, the City of Toronto netted a piddling $40 million in new annual revenues from tax assessment growth in 2015, a year that saw 53,616 building permits issued for a value of $7.8 billion. Individual developers make more than that on a big project.
Development charges on a large apartment unit are $48,720 in Mississauga, $45,903 in Brampton and $44,716 in Markham. In Toronto? $24,634.
“Wealth exists in our city; we’re not collecting it,” says Cressy, the rookie councillor, who represents a downtown ward bursting with development.
The most-used method of paying for city services is property tax, applied on all properties. In all, Toronto collected $3.9 billion such taxes last year. Considering there are more than 1 million property units, the haul is laughably low.
Office buildings and industrial properties and all rental apartments pay only one-third of their share of increases — an attempt to lower their historically high tax rate down to the provincial average. Homeowners and condo owners pay the full amount, but don’t be sorry for them.
Taxes on Toronto homeowners are the lowest in the GTA. Property taxes on an average Toronto were $3,170 last year. By comparison, in Vaughan and Richmond Hill it’s nearly $5,000; in Mississauga the take is $3,945; and $4,480 in Markham.
There was no push to catch up. Taxes went up 1.3 per cent on the average Toronto home. There is no push to double that rate — not when the property tax bill is so visible that it invites ratepayers’ reflex action to scream at every tiny hike.
By comparison, the city’s water rate has jumped 9 per cent per year for nine straight years plus 8 per cent per year the last two years — with nary a sound of protest.
Finance staff acknowledge it’s politically easier to raise transit fares, water rates, and parking ticket fines than property taxes. But, they say, the stable, broad-based, more progressive property tax base has to be tapped if city services are to survive.
The pressure on the city’s operating budget is such that between now and 2021 costs are projected to rise $2 billion while revenues are pegged at $1 billion. The gap, played out annually in budget gymnastics at city hall, leaves bureaucrats jittery and citizens deaf to what is considered “crying wolf.”
In December, staff will again bring forward a list of funding ideas to see if the politicians will embrace them as budgetary solutions.
Cressy, in pushing for the rail deck park over the rail lands, captures the reality.
“This is a city too content to nickel and dime big ambitious projects before we get started,” he says.
Toronto’s had nearly two decades of constrained budgets, unsustainable strategies, and Houdini-like escapes from fiscal ruin. That does not translate into a crisis. It reflects a perennial dysfunction rooted in the fear of hiking property taxes. The city’s guardians just want to set up Toronto for even greater success.
“Being the greatest place to live is necessary but not sufficient,” Berridge says. If this is not sustained through ongoing impactful reinvestments, a city risks falling into what he calls the Barcelona and San Francisco trap: beautiful places that earned kudos but failed to fend off competitors looking to overtake them.
Little of what has gone on in the last decade is a well thought-out strategy to grow Toronto. The global accolades spring from some long-standing fundamentals that play out handsomely. But fortunes can change quickly, if investments lag.
Toronto is a great place to live because its citizens share the space without social upheaval and strife and riots and conflicts that gain international exposure. But at home, residents know the social safety net is fraying.
Very little of the $10 billion tax-supported budget goes toward poverty reduction. Belt-tightening has sweated out hundreds of millions of dollars, including many of the perks for the poor. Today’s cost of running the city per citizen rises below the rate of inflation — not a sign of a city with a spending problem. Meanwhile, the hot housing market forces the city’s diverse population and racial mix to disperse further afield.
The divisions have become more apparent. A cash-strapped city is tempted to impose hidden taxes on transit, waste and recreation while the windfall for property owners get sheltered. Encroaching gridlock is real.
All this is happening while we are in boom times, with cranes popping, with no recession.
“We have exhausted the efficiency stuff. We don’t have a million dollars sitting in the corners of city hall,” says Councillor Michael Thompson, the economic development czar who’s been globe-trotting selling the city.
“We have to have some tax tools, no matter how unpalatable it is. We don’t have a choice if we want a livable city — more transit, more daycare, more housing. People have to understand, if the tax tools don’t pass we are in trouble.”
To connect such comments with a real vote to raise taxes requires “leadership and relentless organizing from the grassroots,” Cressy says.
“Toronto is crying out for a champion.”
How to put Toronto on sound fiscal footing
1. Hike property taxes on all residents and businesses. So long as the Toronto tax rate is unconscionably low, compared to the rest of the province, few will listen to the city’s credible cries for help and relief of the huge burdens of sustaining a global city.
2. Tap into the range of tax tools the province has given Toronto. In effect, grow up and accept the mantle of the big city. These include parking tax, road tolls, hotel tax. Tolls on the Gardiner-Don Valley Parkway combo could provide the $1 billion to rebuild the Gardiner and leave change for transit.
3. Development charges are so low that condo developers make off like bandits. Across the border in Mississauga they pay nearly double the Toronto rate. Adopting the GTA average rate could yield Toronto $70 million a year — enough revenues to cover the annual payments on a $1-billion loan.
4. Sell off a portion of Toronto Hydro. The staff report isn’t filed yet, but early optimistic claims suggest the city could sell 30 per cent of the utility; retain control; squeeze more revenues because of the infusion of private sector rigour and, consequently, continue to receive the $60 million in annual dividend; and use the proceeds from the sales to address the infrastructure backlog. That sounds like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s all rolled into one, but it’s worth exploring.
5. After tapping the tax tools provided, re-engage the guardians of the city’s civil society to petition the province to remove the final bits of social service costs off the city’s back: social housing, in particular.
6. Tweak the city’s governance structure to reflect its status as a world city. The mayor needs critical, executive, top-level help of three or four czars to oversee critical city functions: housing and social cohesion, transportation, economic development, culture. The current office — despite John “the energizer bunny” Tory — is under-resourced, scatterbrained, a mile wide and an inch deep.
7. Undertake a relentless push toward civic improvements that are transformative, big, bold, great and of global scale. Ground these in tourism, education, culture, health, leveraging the things Toronto is good at.

It does not appear that the article author has looked at the tax structure of other world-class cities, only in the GTA, before making his recommendation.

Sources / More info: tst-protx

SWNA, homeowners, property tax, highrise, taxation, tax, regulation, ontario, toronto, topoli, planning, urban planning (Tags)

Greenbelt and industrial tour at Downsview

2016-10-14T21:38:00.001-04:00

The greenbelt article is very long, but we think it’s important, and so is the Downsview tour. Lastly, a few words on a crime that happened at Jane and Lawrence.

One piece of news is similar to stories of how our very own neighbourhood started.

As the story goes, there was a time when people lining up chasing houses being built long before they were done (tgm-gblt).

One Friday afternoon last May, IT consultant Zvonimir Petric left work to meet his wife. She had been standing in line for five hours at a sales office offering new homes in north Burlington, a full day before it was to open. When he arrived, he found nearly 100 other people already waiting, all hoping for a shot at a yet-to-be-constructed detached house in one of the Toronto area’s most desirable suburbs – and willing to camp out overnight to get it.
Someone was taking down names and warning that a “roll call” would be held every hour to ensure prospective homebuyers were still in line. Nobody even knew for sure what the prices would be. The couple soon decided it just wasn’t worth it.
“There was just madness,” Mr. Petric said. “In front of everybody, I go: ‘Guys, you are all a bunch of dumbasses if you think you are going to pay this much money for a home and sleep here overnight.’”
Many others would walk away the next morning upon learning the lots ranged from $850,000 to more than $1-million. Still, the development sold out.
Across Toronto’s suburbs, people are trading similar real-estate war stories, as newly built detached homes become a scarce commodity. So it should be no surprise many are now hunting for someone to blame for the Greater Toronto Area’s increasingly unaffordable real estate prices. Pressure is mounting for a B.C.-style tax on foreign property buyers, even though it remains unclear just how much overseas cash is distorting Toronto’s market. The federal government has already tightened its mortgage rules.
But the development industry insists it knows the main culprit: Queen’s Park’s 10-year-old anti-sprawl policies – the Greenbelt and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe – both now under review.
In increasingly insistent lobbying, industry voices say these two pieces of legislation have cut off the supply of land for new houses, especially detached or semi-detached ones, and are responsible for driving up prices across the GTA.
But a chorus of urban planners and environmentalists call that idea absurd, and point to statistics that suggest there is enough land already earmarked for development to last decades. They counter by saying that developers are twisting the market by holding on to ready land.
The debate comes as Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government ponders what to do about the overheating housing market, and whether to tighten – or potentially relax – rules meant to curb suburban sprawl.
In a series of press releases, studies and op-ed pieces, developers and aligned economists have made their case in recent months that the province’s anti-sprawl policies are a driving force behind the skyrocketing house prices many fear are making homeownership a lost cause for a generation. That was the first argument former Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak made after he took over as head of the Ontario Real Estate Association last week: “As anybody who has taken Economics 101 knows, if you restrict supply and demand increases, prices are going to go through the roof, and that is happening.”
It does sound like something out of a first-year economics textbook, and both policies, by design, are indeed meant to curb urban sprawl. The Greenbelt protects a swath of farmland around the GTA from development; the Growth Plan forces municipalities to build more new homes within their current boundaries, as well as to build more densely when paving over new land. That means more apartments and condos, and fewer detached houses with front porches and big backyards. Proposed changes from a recent task force chaired by former Toronto mayor David Crombie would tighten the rules.
The industry wants those rules loosened to make more land available so they can build more “ground-related” housing – semis, townhouses and coveted single-family detached homes – that the market demands. Increase supply, they say, and prices will come down, just like your economics textbook says.
Nobody believes the provincial policies are the only driver behind the real-estate boom, which is also being fuelled by record-low interest rates, an improving economy and the migration of 100,000 or more people into the Greater Golden Horseshoe region every year. Likewise, no one believes the policies don’t have at least some effect on prices. But developers are increasingly pointing to the provincial policies as the major problem, as they also complain about red-tape and delays getting new developments approved.
“You will find that narrative – any builder you talk to will tell you that,” says Brian Johnston, chief operating officer of Mattamy Homes, one of Canada’s largest builders. But he mainly blames the provincial policies. “They have created an environment where low-rise housing, ground-oriented housing, is in short supply,” he said. “That’s what people want, and it has created a problem.”
Economist Frank Clayton, senior research fellow at the developer-funded Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University, estimates the sprawl-busting policies are responsible for a quarter to a third of the run-up in real-estate prices across the region. He admits this is essentially a guess, but says it is a conservative one.
He points out that builders in the GTA are now producing dramatically fewer new “ground-related” houses than they did 10 years ago, and just a fraction of the coveted detached homes they put up a decade ago. And they are producing many more apartments and condos instead.
According to figures from the Building Industry and Land Development Association, in June, 2006, there were 985 new detached homes sold in the GTA, with another 10,823 available. In August of this year, builders sold just 318 such homes, and only had 592 more available. And while all types of property are soaring in price, the trajectory of the average price for a detached house is the steepest, soaring to $1.2-million in Toronto last month.
Complying with the Growth Plan, Dr. Clayton says, means the suburban municipalities that surround Toronto are not providing enough so-called “serviced land” for developers. That’s undeveloped land, usually farmland, that has had sewers and water mains installed nearby, so it is ready for development. That shortage, he argues, is driving up prices.
While the Greenbelt and the Growth Plan were designed as environmental medicine to contain sprawl, preserve farmland and allow for public transit to serve new, more compact communities, Dr. Clayton says Queen’s Park is ignoring what he says are the policies’ major side effects.
“All I am saying is when you do something major like change the planning system … you’ve got to look at costs and benefits,” Mr. Clayton says. “And all they’ve done so far is look at the benefits, they say, from the environmental side – less emissions from cars and so on. They have not looked at any costs.”
Drive out of town through the 905, pass the last line of new subdivisions, and many of the farmers’ fields you see are already owned by holding companies or developers. Some of that land is already designated for future urban development. Some of it is undesignated and sits in the so-called “White Belt,” sandwiched on the map between the urban boundaries of the suburban municipalities and the Greenbelt, where development is restricted.
And according to the Neptis Foundation, an urban research think tank, there is more than enough land already designated for development to last the Toronto region decades.
Neptis says across that the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas, 52,600 hectares has been set aside for development, including land added under the Growth Plan – land that was supposed to last until 2031. But in the past 10 years, only about 10,800 hectares was built on, or about 20 per cent of the available land. More than 40,000 hectares – about two-thirds of the entire City of Toronto’s land area – remains untouched. And at the current pace of land consumption, more than half of it will remain undeveloped by 2031, Neptis says.
The pace at which development consumes land has slowed dramatically since the 1990s, as market forces – demand for housing closer to transit, land prices increasing as communities mature – as well as municipalities themselves have prompted the building of more dense housing, long before the Growth Plan. In fact, little of the change in the built form of the GTA’s suburbs in recent years can actually be attributed to the Growth Plan. Even though it was passed in 2006, municipalities took years to update their official plans and then fend off challenges at the Ontario Municipal Board before the new regime took effect, in some cases just in the last five or six years.
Plus, according to figures compiled by the provincial government, 800,000 detached houses, semi-detached houses and townhouses were in the planning pipeline for the Greater Golden Horseshoe in 2006, and about 540,000 are still to be built. Those 800,000 homes alone could accommodate as many as two million people, or 80 per cent of the projected population growth headed to the Greater Golden Horseshoe outside of Toronto – even without the hundreds of thousands of apartments also going up.
So this leaves the question of how much “serviced land” there is, and whether Toronto-area municipalities are keeping up with the demand. It has long been provincial policy that municipalities are required to have at least a three-year supply of serviced land ready and set aside for development. The chief planners of Peel Region, York Region and Durham Region all maintain they are meeting or exceeding this requirement.
Valerie Shuttleworth, York Region’s chief planner, says that, while she supports the goal of the Growth Plan, she has her own problems with proposals to tighten it. She says rules to make new greenfield development even more dense need to be phased in. But she maintains that her municipality still has a four-year supply of serviced land designated and zoned for “ground-related” housing, ready to go. For whatever reason, some landowners are not choosing to build on certain plots: “Developers choose when they go to market.”
The idea that developers are sitting on land, waiting for prices to go up instead of building, is a factor many cite as a potential source of Toronto’s housing squeeze. A TD Economics report from last year says rising land prices “reflect a significant amount of underutilized land in the GTA” and that landowners “continue to hold onto significant idle land, likely with the aim of hearing a higher profit on sale due to appreciating values.”
Markus Moos, associate director of the school of planning at the University of Waterloo, said little research has been done to reliably measure the real effects of the Greenbelt and Growth Plan on the market. But he said urban economics have always held that a booming central area, where property is most expensive, drives price increases across an urban region.
Releasing more land with an eye to building more single-family homes far away from that centre wouldn’t have the desired effect, he said, arguing that “location, location, location” remains a real estate agent’s mantra for a reason: “There’s a limit to how far people are willing to commute.”
The argument that loosening the Growth Plan rules or freeing up Greenbelt land for suburban developers does not hold water with Toronto’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, either. She says developers holding onto land are likely partly to blame. But she adds that housing prices clearly show that demand for homes on the farthest fringes of Toronto’s suburbs is nowhere near as great as it is for homes in central Toronto or in some of the 905’s more established suburbs, where walkable neighbourhoods are clustered near transit, employment and shopping.
Toronto’s problem is not unique, Ms. Keesmaat says, as cities worldwide, from London to Washington, D.C., are all experiencing similar skyward house prices: “Every growing city, Greenbelt or not, has an affordability crisis.”

Understanding the legislation

The Ontario government’s Greenbelt and its regional Growth Plan were enacted in 2006. This past year, a panel led by former Toronto mayor David Crombie recommended 86 changes to the legislation.
Among them are two key changes that would affect the way suburban municipalities plan. One would increase the amount of new development that must occur within already built-up areas, to 60 per cent from the current 40 per cent.
The other change would force municipalities building on “greenfield” sites, outside their current built-up area, to plan more dense communities. The current standard calling for 50 jobs or residents per hectare would be increased to 80 jobs or people per hectare, a density that experts say still is lower than the density in Toronto neighbourhoods such as Riverdale.
However, some municipalities are concerned that new rules would require them to redraw plans that are already in the works, and put much-higher-density development in places where it does not belong in order to hit Growth Plan targets.
Meanwhile, developers say the plans will only exacerbate the problems with housing supply that they claim are helping to drive up the region’s housing prices – an argument Mr. Crombie dismisses as a “canard,” saying studies show there is ample land set aside for low-density housing.

Is there enough land in Brampton?

For years, the booming suburb of Brampton has been the leading jurisdiction in the GTA for new “greenfield” housing, with building on its outskirts accounting for more than 20 per cent of the total in the region between 2001 and 2011.
But according to a new study from the Neptis Foundation, an independent urban policy think tank, there remains a large amount of land left for the suburb to expand, even within the constraints of the province’s density-demanding Growth Plan and the Greenbelt.
And not only that, despite warnings from developers that the GTA is running low on “serviced land,” or land that is prepared for development with water pipes and sewers, Neptis says its analysis shows that, at least in Brampton, there is an ample supply.
Of Brampton’s 8,740 hectares of greenfield land designated for development, 2,290 hectares have been built on in the decade since since 2006.
Of the 6,450 hectares remaining, according to the Neptis study, 1,200 hectares are zoned, approved or in the final stages of approval, and already serviced for development. Almost all of that land is for subdivisions full of what the industry calls “ground-related” housing – detached homes, semi-detached homes or townhouses.
Even at Brampton’s brisk pace of development, 1,200 hectares represent about five years worth of building.
“This may vary across the region,” says Neptis executive director Marcy Burchfield. “But this clearly shows it is not an issue in Brampton.”

The land (prices) Down Under

One jurisdiction that has tried to cool overheating house prices by simply building more houses on the fringes of a urban area is Sydney, Australia. The state government in New South Wales brought in policies that sparked a building boom. However, despite a massive increase in the number of houses being built, real estate prices there have continued to rise even more sharply.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, house prices are up 40 per cent since 2011, even though the number of new units completed has shot up 85 per cent. The reason, some local economists say, is that new houses account for very little of the overall market, which is predominantly resale houses.
The government there contends that housing completions are finally recovering after years of low numbers, and that the added supply of housing will have an effect over the next several years.

A bit long, but wasn't it worth it?

Here’s the tour (ht-reg).

Heritage Toronto and Canada Lands Company will host a tour of Downsview Park with a focus on its industrial history Saturday, Oct. 22.
The tour will take place at 70 Canuck Ave. from 1:30 to 3 p.m.
According to the organizers, in the early 20th century the 296 acre park at Keele Street and Sheppard Avenue was the home of a nascent aircraft industry that supplied the wartime aviation needs of the Royal Canadian Air Forces.
The Second World War brought a military focus to the area, and land was expropriated by the Department of National Defence for a military base. Downsview Park is currently managed by the Canada Lands Company as Canada's first urban national park.

The stabbing described below happened at Jane and Lawrence, which is not within our area, but it isn’t very far either.

Police are trying to shame two witnesses into coming forward in a double stabbing that took the life of a man and seriously injured his older brother.
Kiowa Wind McComb, 20, and his 23-year-old brother got into an argument with another patron at Gucci’s Bar and Grill at 1693 Jane St. (north of Lawrence Avenue) in the early morning hours of Feb. 9.
The dispute spilled outside where the brothers were stabbed.
Kiowa, stabbed in the neck and bleeding heavily, was then dragged south on Jane for 15 to 20 feet while his brother wandered to a nearby residential neighbourhood, knocking on doors for help.
“Kiowa was found on the sidewalk with no one around him when the police arrived,” Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux told reporters during a news conference Friday at police headquarters.
“He had lost virtually all the blood in his body.”
Kiowa, a Royal Ontario Museum employee, was pronounced dead in hospital. His brother suffered serious abdominal wounds and has made a full recovery.
Though police have made an arrest in the case, they still want to speak with a man and a woman who saw the murder but didn’t come forward.
Police released security camera images of the witnesses in an effort to identify them.
Giroux, of the homicide squad, said the witnesses “were standing feet away from the stabbing and would have seen the entire event unfold in front of them.”
The male witness, said Girioux, is “clearly shocked and horrified by what he sees because at one point he actually puts his hand on his face.”
Both witnesses are known to frequent bars in the Jane and Lawrence area.
Giroux said the female witness may go by the name Layla and might frequent bars as far north as Jane and Finch.
“It’s important that we identify witnesses who are at the scene,” he said. “They certainly are under no legal obligation to speak to the police, but I certainly can compel them to the preliminary hearing by way of a subpoena. I’m hoping not to take that route, but obviously it’s a serious matter and the (victims’) family deserves answers.”
Andre Appleton, 35, of Toronto is charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder and remains in custody.
On June 9, police released security video of another witness in the case and urged him to come forward.
He has since been identified.
Giroux said the murder is not gang-related.
“I would chalk it up to a barroom argument that escalated to the stabbing that takes place outside.”

And here’s that video.

Sources / More info: tgm-gblt, ht-reg, int-phot

SWNA, downsview, aviation, greenbelt, development, ontario, environment, stabbing, jane, lawrence, jane and lawrence (Tags)