The Cheat Sheet: January/February 2018 City Council (Extra Special Low Effort Edition)

On this meeting’s agenda: waterfront transit, a Rail Deck Park development proposal, various TCHC issues, self-driving cars, cryptocurrency, a new revenue tool, and, of course, tree removal applications.

Several items were deferred from the last meeting; check my previous write-up.

Getting Around

• Wow, it seems like just yesterday that the City embarked on a waterfront transit “reset”—unifying the patchwork of planned and ongoing projects into a cohesive network plan. The latest report on the Waterfront Transit Network Plan includes details on laying the groundwork for extending light rail to Humber Bay Shores, redoing the Bathurst/Queens Quay/Fleet St. intersection, and options for improving the link between Union and Queens Quay. Read the full report here.

• It’s officially time to get excited about new elevators at Lansdowne station, as Council is set to expropriate the needed land.

• The wave of the future: self-driving cars! Are we prepared? If the proposed interim car-share policy is any indication, the general public’s greatest concern will be about these robo-cars taking valuable parking spaces away from human-crewed vehicles. Is this how the Butlerian Jihad begins?

Shelter and Housing

• As part of its “Tenants First” strategy, TCHC is set to shuffle off its rooming houses and single-family houses to the non-profit sector. (Previously, as part of the same strategy, Council voted to split off seniors’ housing into a separate entity.) Absent a giant influx of cash, TCHC’s best solution for reducing its operating expenses and capital repair backlog is simply divesting itself of properties.

• The Ombudsman’s report on TCHC’s priority transfer process for tenants at risk finds that the process is backlogged, arbitrary, and deeply unfair. For example, one complainant who “witnessed a violent crime” had her application denied

  even after learning that she had fled to a shelter with her child and that while she was there, an intruder entered her unit and left a gun in her child’s drawer.

  Read the Ombudsman’s recommendations for fixing the process in the full report.

• So here’s Community Development and Recreation Committee’s response to the winter shelter crisis. Okay. I’m sorry. This is where I broke down and fell into a pit of despair because…look at this. Look at this pitiful, useless shit. Let’s go through this:

  “City Council reaffirm the 90 percent shelter occupancy cap.” The one they’ve never met since they voted to set it? Lol. Great.

  “City Council request the Federal Government…” Okay, we can write all these off as never gonna happen.

  Keep winter emergency programs running longer. Great. Okay.

  “Ensure necessary budget adjustments…” This is fucking useless because the majority of Council prioritizes keeping property taxes low instead of investing in programs or facilities.

  “City Council request the Ministry of Health…” Fucking lol.

  “Reporting on deficiencies and identifying finances required to resolve them.” You’ll never fund it so what’s the fucking point?

  “Pursue appropriate accommodation and support for refugees and asylum seekers through partner agencies…to lessen the reliance on the use of hotels as emergency shelters.” Make it someone else’s problem. Okay. The City is using hotels in the first place because THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. YOU DELIBERATELY KEPT THE SYSTEM OVER CAPACITY AND NOW YOU’RE BITCHING THAT IT LOOKS BAD THAT IT’S OVER CAPACITY.

  This is fucking pathetic, what even is the fucking point, in this city the fucking end goal for a majority of Council is to palm everything off on non-profits. Someone else’s problem. Whittle City government down to servicing car-driving property owners.

  Then I started crying because I hit this point every time. I hate this shit. Writing, politics, all of it. I just want to take a bath and go to sleep. The rest of this piece is just going to be links, forget about the write-ups. I want to sleep for the next 12 hours.

• Affordable rental housing in the new Mirvish Village development.

• Update on 389 Church St., which is to be turned into supportive housing for women.

Urban Planning and Development

• Unsurprisingly, a massive Rail Deck Park development proposal gets smacked down by Toronto-East York Community Council.

• The future of Old City Hall: a site for a museum of Toronto, quite possibly!

• Prioritizing Heritage Conservation District studies. This would be less of a problem if there were more planners to do the work.

• TO Hydro is selling its headquarters and the City is mad because it wanted dibs.

• A community hub at the Metrolinx site on Finch West?

• The province’s changes to the local planning appeal process risk incurring huge delays for vital projects.

• The City needs to weigh in on inclusionary zoning. To be honest I expected nothing, even before the fucking insulting sham of an affordable housing strategy came out, and we will get nothing.

Parks and Public Space

• Initial estimates of the cost of flooding. Blah blah business owners whatever humans are not the real losers in this.

• Drawing up the details on how the Bentway will be run.

• Looking into expanding the Parks Ambassador Program. Personally I would recommend expanding it to the ravines but you fuckers won’t fund anything so who cares

• Viola Desmond Park. Okay, Neethan.

• A proposal to revitalize Allan Gardens.

• A request to designate the Toronto Islands as a bird sanctuary

• Public art in POPS (privately owned, publicly accessible spaces): Yonge and Wilson, Church and Shuter.

  (Related: Section 45 funds for skate park art)

Taxation

• Instituting a hotel tax.

• Introducing a commercial property tax cap for business owners hit by the assessment changes.

• Clarifying the terms of the IMIT tax incentive program targeting “innovation” and “incubators” and other such buzz-words.

Sprots

• Shall we bid for the FIFA World Cup?

• I always forget that the City runs golf courses.

• I also had no idea that councillors sit on the Hockey Hall of Fame board. Is this like a new thing? Maybe, just maybe, I pay no attention to anything sports-related.

Miscellaneous

• An Open Data Master Plan. Honestly I think the civic tech nerds would just be happy if the City made its current offerings not suck.

• The 2018 election approacheth. Here’s an updated policy on use of City resources.

• Commemorating January 29.

• Tree Removal Application of the Month: in a rare occurrence, North York Community Council was divided on the question of this honey locust tree near Bathurst and Wilson. Cllr Carmichael Greb was in favour of approving the permit. Cllr Carroll wanted to deny it. Both motions lost on a tie. Draaaa-ma!

• Shut the fuck up, @norm.

Watch the meeting on YouTube or track its progress on Meeting Monitor. I may be too depressed to watch idk idk. I hate everything.