Cliff Jenkins, Toronto City Councillor, Ward 25 Don Valley West

The Council Highlights are provided as a service to residents of Ward 25. The following is a brief summary of major items from the City Council meeting of September 30 and October 1, 2009.

Council, on a 16 to 17 vote, defeated my motion to accept a settlement offer from Cadillac Fairview (CF) on its Phase 2 residential development application for the Don Mills Centre site. Featured in the settlement offer was a 48,000 sq ft publicly-accessible community centre to be built on-site by CF at no cost to the City, a significantly enhanced parkland dedication and approximately $5 million of parking under the community centre. In addition, CF offered to work with the City to potentially integrate a new and much-needed twin pad arena into the community centre building to replace the deteriorating Civitan arena on the site. Council instead voted to refuse the settlement offer - a course of action that now sends the application to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) for adjudication. The immediate result is the loss of community benefits worth more than $20 million to the City and the people of Don Mills - possibly the largest benefit ever to accompany a development application in Toronto.

Factoring into the refusal was the position taken by City planning staff that the proposed buildings on the periphery of the site would be too high (despite resulting from negotiations with the community and not materially exceeding the height of the existing building at 75 The Donway) and the density would be improperly placed. The OMB will now adjudicate these issues in April. Knowledgeable observers note that, should the OMB approve the application either in its current form or a modified form, it does not have the jurisdiction to reinstate the community centre. Thus, with its refusal, Council may have accomplished little more than denying the people of Don Mills a badly needed community centre and delaying the replacement of the aging Civitan arena.

Council adopted my recommendation to request the Province of Ontario to amend the Development Charges Act in order to extend the same treatment to Transit City projects that now apply to the Spadina Subway Extension Project. This would remove current exclusions and restrictions on recovering the costs of municipal infrastructure geared to growth and could provide $40 - $60 million of additional annual revenue to the City. The province's historical failure to permit the City to achieve that revenue means that Toronto's property tax rates are 1% to 2% higher than they might otherwise be.

Council adopted recommendations authorizing the Mayor to enter into funding agreements with the Federal and Provincial Governments to recover costs associated with the delivery of City stimulus projects. The total cost of approved City stimulus projects is approximately $675 million. Of this amount, the Federal and Provincial governments have committed to fund $198 million and $21 million respectively. The balance of $436 million will be funded by the City. By entering into these economic stimulus programs, the City has reduced its debt funding requirement for the 2009 - 2018 Capital Budget and Plan by $141 million.

Stimulus projects slated for Ward 25 include: the creation of a pedestrian/cycling path along the former CN Leaside Spur Line east of Leslie Street and improvements to Mike Bela Park, to the Pedestrian Walkway in Sunnybrook Park, to the Wanless Park Fieldhouse/Washroom, to the Northern District Library as well as several local road resurfacing projects.

Council refused to permit debate on a motion by Councillor Walker and myself to have city staff prepare a plebiscite question for the 2010 municipal election ballot on

the Ontario Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). Instead Council referred it to the Mayor's Executive Committee where it is likely to receive the usual treatment - a quick death.

Council adopted a series of measures aimed at protecting tenants in apartment buildings from unregulated electricity sub-metering. Over the past few years, an increasing number of Toronto landlords have installed sub-metered electricity billing in thousands of rental units without authorization from the Ontario Electricity Board. Some tenants have complained about excessive bills and questionable business practices. Going forward, the General Manager, Shelter, Support and Housing Administration will work with community partners, tenant advocates and landlords to ensure that tenants and landlords across the City are aware of their rights and obligations with respect to electricity sub-metering.

Council approved the completion of two waterfront area environmental assessments conducted as a step in the planned redevelopment of Queen's Quay on the waterfront from Spadina Avenue to Parliament Street. The Queen's Quay project as envisioned will convert the two travel lanes north of the existing TTC median to a single lane in each direction. The current south lanes and sidewalk will be used to extend the Martin Goodman Trail through the corridor and to establish a more extensive pedestrian promenade.

Council decided to increase the City's 2009-2013 capital budget by $134.5 million to continue work on the priority Transit City lines. Most of the funding will come from the Ontario government through Metrolinx. In addition, Council authorized the City to enter into an agreement with Metrolinx and the Toronto Transit Commission for interim funding to cover implementation of components of the Sheppard East LRT, Finch West LRT, Eglinton Crosstown LRT and Scarborough RT projects. The debate on this item demonstrated, however, that there is a growing concern on Council about the impacts on local communities of the "St.Clair-type" transit projects. All of the exclusive right-of-ways at-grade have had significant impacts on community accessibility and local business.

Council directed the City's film commissioner to thank the Government of Ontario for its actions to help secure screen-based industries in Toronto and Ontario. Council also decided to ask the province to work with the Toronto Film Board and Film Ontario to work out a mechanism that will financially support the development of new sound stages as part of the film industry's infrastructure in Toronto.

Council approved a letter of intent that will allow Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to replace the artificial turf at BMO Field (soccer stadium at Exhibition Place) with natural grass, making it more viable for professional soccer games. The arrangement is to include relocation of the winter bubble from BMO Field to Allan Lamport Stadium so that facility can be used by the community year round. In addition, Council endorsed an agreement for the installation of artificial turf at Lakeshore Collegiate or another site in the area (Ward 6).

Council approved the appointment of Toronto poet and novelist Dionne Brand as Toronto's third Poet Laureate. Dionne Brand will serve for three years as Toronto's literary ambassador, championing local literary arts.

Council established a new class of parking permits for car-share organizations. Each dedicated parking spot will require the payment of a permit fee of $200. The City will work with car-share operators Zipcar and AutoShare in a new pilot project to identify other potential on-street parking locations across the City.

The important issue of election finance reform, championed by Councillors Michael Walker, Chin Lee and myself, has suddenly become stalled in its progress to becoming law. Once passed, it will accomplish two critical objectives - first, to ban election contributions from corporations and unions, and second, to end the practice of "carrying over" election campaign surpluses to the following election. The first will help reduce undue influence at City Hall and the second will help reduce an unfair election campaign starting advantage (possessed by several incumbents). Mayor Miller deferred this item from the September meeting of his Executive Committee for one month to permit further amendments to voters' list provisions. He further withheld it from the October agenda in order to determine the intentions of the provincial government. That leaves only one more Council cycle to adopt these by-laws prepared by the Clerk's staff before the commencement of the 2010 municipal election on January 4, 2010. Failure to pass these by-laws would mean the delay of critical election finance reform by (at least) four years.

The Mayor's Executive Committee is recommending to Council that the net savings accruing from the summer strike be rolled into next year's operating budget. That simply means it will be spent instead of being returned to the people who did not receive services. Several Councillors, including myself, attended the Executive Committee and advocated that the surplus be returned to residents through immediate tax and service fee credits - on this year's tax bill and this year's Water and Waste bill. After all, no business would bill a customer for a service not rendered. In addition, it would provide greater transparency in setting next year's taxes. Otherwise, under the Executive Committee's proposal, an effective 4% property tax increase will be disguised as a 3% increase.

If you wish to comment on any issue, please call or write to me: 416-395-6408 or councillor_jenkins@toronto.ca. Please feel free to forward these Council Highlights to others who may be interested in these municipal issues. If you wish to unsubscribe to this newsletter, you can also do so with a simple call or e-mail.

Council Highlights Archive September 2009