The Cheat Sheet: June 2018 City Council

Livestream · Meeting Monitor

Welcome to this term’s penultimate Council meeting! There’s quite a lot on the agenda, including a slew of Integrity Commissioner investigations, laneway housing, improving deadly intersections, and more.

Warning: there are even more swears and opinions than usual. Lately I just feel civility is overrated, you know?

Council Business

• First, a special meeting to appoint a replacement for Scarborough councillor Chin Lee, who successfully ran for the Conservatives ran for the Liberals but lost to former city councillor Raymond Cho, who was running for the Conservatives, in the recent provincial election. Based on precedent, the administration will likely push a candidate who they can be sure will ally with the Mayor, regardless of any other factors. Since Lee voted along with the Mayor, it’s unlikely to be very contentious, but expect to be disappointed somehow anyway.

(Related: lots of vacancies on committees to fill.)

• As you know, Bob, the City recently re-drew ward boundaries to adjust for changes in population. But Council still has to decide how to divide up the wards into Community Councils. It’s very important that Council deals with this in a timely manner, because so many items, from development applications to parking permits, go to Community Council first. The staff-recommended changes are minimal, so Council could really only screw this up if they’re totally pig-headed and incompete—oh. Well, we’re fucked.

• We’re soon getting a new City Manager. Former City Manager Peter Wallace departed in February. The last few years have seen many of the City’s top bureaucrats depart, giving the Mayor an extraordinary opportunity to shape the public service for decades to come.

• In a shameful blow to openness and accessibility at City Hall, staff recommend metal detectors, baggage screening, and more physical barriers. Based on what I’ve seen, security is generally only ramped up to keep out anti-poverty and anti-racist protesters, so expect profiling and harassment to increase going forward.

• Cllr Hart proposes naming part of the Waterfront Trail after late councillor Ron Moeser. (Related: some minor policy changes and additions regarding pregnancy and parental leave, office budgets after the ward boundary changes, and protocol for what happens after a councillor dies.)

• City Council will vote on whether to go ahead with the second year of the Muslim Youth Fellowship program, which provides Muslim university students with civics training and internship placements with city councillors.

• Oh boy. So Cllr Thompson was (improperly) lobbying on a developer friend’s behalf regarding a development in Cllr Filion’s ward. He contacted Filion’s office like 60 times ((´･ω･`), am I right?).

  So Thompson was like, Filion tried to spike this application because we didn’t hire the consultant he recommended. The Auditor General was like, I hear Filion has this arrangement where he’ll stonewall and kick up lots of resident opposition to development applications, and then he’ll recommend this one consultant, and magically it goes through, and Filion gets a kickback. But the IC says

The evidence gathered established that the predominant connection between the two gentlemen is their mutual slavish commitment to the planning policies in North York

and it’s just basically Filion’s haters talking shit. So she says.

• Unrelated: former TTC CEO Andy Byford, now in New York, says Cllr Josh Matlow impugned his reputation by accusing Byford of lying in a misleading briefing note. An interesting omission:

Jepson’s 14-page report doesn’t refer to a significant part of Matlow’s submission as part of her investigation — that Byford himself told the councillor he had “never felt more politicized in his life” and that Byford texted Matlow that the briefing note at the centre of the investigation had been a request from TTC chair Councillor Josh Colle “and for the mayor’s office,” which contradicts Byford’s public statements about the memo’s origin.

Safe Streets

An unprecedented spate of cyclists and pedestrians killed by car drivers has led to repeated calls for action and criticism of Toronto’s watered-down “Vision Zero” implementation.

• Local councillor Sarah Doucette is requesting reviews of South Kingsway and Bloor West, where a woman was hit by a dump truck May 31, and Lakeshore and Colborne Lodge on the southern edge of High Park, where a cyclist was hit in mid-May and died soon after.

• While Council previously voted to make the Bloor bike lanes permanent, local councillor Joe Cressy is calling for the redesign to be sped up, as well as “immediate safety improvements”, after a cyclist was killed at Bloor and St. George two weeks ago.

• Council is slowly beginning to add new Community Safety Zones around schools. These areas have signage, traffic-calming measures, increased fines, and speed enforcement cameras.

• There’s 4 km of additions to the cycling network, of which 2.5 km are protected cycle tracks. A tidbit that really says it all:

A one-way bicycle lane eastbound and shared lane markings (“sharrows”) westbound is proposed for Dovehouse Avenue…The curb-to-curb width would not allow for dedicated bicycle lanes in both directions without removing all on-street parking. The proposed changes would require the removal of approximately sixty (60) on-street parking spaces. Parking surveys indicate that average current demand is less than 10% of the available spaces.

• “The installation of traffic control signals is technically justified and will enhance safety for all road users. However, this installation may increase delays for motorists on Overlea Boulevard, as these movements will no longer operate with free flow.”

Getting Around

• Not long after Car2Go flounced out because of onerous parking fees, the City of Toronto is looking into using a car-share system within the official fleet.

• Oh boy! It’s almost time to debate food truck licensing again

• There’s extra funding to allow the Malvern skate park to go ahead, but Council has to approve it first.

• Cllr Perruzza, a motorcyclist himself, AFAIK, wants motorcycles excepted from the turn requirements on King. Honestly it’s not like that shit gets enforced anyway.

Shelter & Housing

• The existing Affordable Housing committee reports to Executive Committee and only meets a few times a year. Mayor Tory proposes to make it a standing committee (which meets once a month and whose decisions go straight to Council). It would also deal with shelter issues, which are currently under the Community Development and Recreation Committee’s purview.

• The shelter plan for the upcoming winter includes buying prefabricated tents (like the one at St. Lawrence Market North) to be used as 24-hour respite sites. It’s something.

• Cllr Wong-Tam wants staff to look into the cost of supplying shelters and drop-in centres with free menstrual products. While Canada removed federal taxes on menstrual products in 2015, they’re still costly, and there is a growing movement to make such products available for free. There’s probably a joke to be made here about giving a woman a tampon vs. teaching her how to use a menstrual cup, but…I’m not gonna go there.

• The revitalization of George Street, the site of Seaton House, may expand in scope to include consultation with the local Indigenous community.

• Section 37 Benefit of the Month: a cool million for TCHC repairs in Ward 27.

Planning & Development

• Let’s look back on the Toronto Local Appeal Body’s first year. Created as part of the Province’s overhaul of the planning system, the panel replaced the widely loathed OMB for many planning matters.

• Laneway suites are coming! As Ed Keenan notes, this will do dick-all for poor people, but hey, that’s why I didn’t put this item in the Shelter & Housing category.

• Okay, this item, “Request for Direction of Local Planning Appeal Tribunal Appeals of Official Plan Amendment 231 on Land Use Compatibility and Mitigation Issues”, sounds extremely boring and most of it’s confidential, but it’s actually mildly interesting, in that it’s a tiny part of a long saga about the de-industrialization of Toronto.

Planning Studies

• The final report on the Unilever Precinct Planning Study.

• The final report on the High Park Apartment Neighbourhood Area Character Study.

• Bloor West Village Avenue Study

• Holy heck. Are the desolate Bessarion wastelands finally…densifying?

• The latest on the Agincourt Mall Planning Framework Review.

• The final report on the Bathurst Quay Neighbourhood Plan Study.

• The Lower Yonge Public Realm Concept Plan.

• 👀 (is there a “raised eyebrows” emoji?)

Development

• As part of the development of the Galleria Mall site, Wallace Emerson Park will be extended as one long strip of land, while the rest of the former Galleria Mall site will be divided up into smaller blocks. If you asked me (no one did), Galleria Mall would have been preserved forever, like Black Creek Pioneer Village, but, like, for the 70s. Imagine the historic re-enactors’ costumes! (Related.)

• A massive report on Wynford Green, the planned community on the site of the former IBM headquarters. The development includes a fuckton of units, a park, and a community centre, including a daycare facility. After substantial negotiation, City Planning is satisfied with the proposal.

• Planning staff still oppose this 18-storey retirement facility with at-grade retail and office space near Bloor and Islington.

• Brownfield remediation! That’s a term you don’t see every day. Also, if you hoped this had something to do with TIFs, you’re out of luck.

• This Seventh-Day Adventist church in York-South Weston has been around for 15 years, but disputes about parking requirements have been slowly dragging on since then. Will this be the last of it? Probably not.

• An intriguing proposal for a 15-storey purpose-built affordable rental building near Weston Road and the 401. (See more at Urban Toronto.) Still early stages.

• A rare industrial development in Etobicoke.

• A development in the Keating Channel Precinct, where Cherry, Lakeshore, and the East Gardiner meet? I got a headache just reading this.

You Wouldn’t Have To Approve This Funding If You Just Freaking Voted For a Higher Budget the First Time Around, I’m Just Saying

• Coming capacity improvements for buses and subways include “[improved] service reliability on Line 1” and seven new express bus services. (Hey, you know what would really improve service on Line 1? A fucking Relief Line.)

Support For Shit the PCs Are Probably Gonna Cancel

• The $15 minimum wage.

• Quality sex education.

• $285,700 in one-time provincial funding for the supervised injection site at The Works.

• Funding and support for key elements of the Toronto Overdose Action Plan, including overdose prevention sites and the introduction of prescription opiates.

The Board of Health also wants Toronto Community Housing workers to get training regarding overdoses and drug equipment disposal, and to stop evicting tenants who use drugs.

(Related.)

• The Student Nutrition Program. The City has increased its contribution and wants the Province to do the same, which is cute.

• Funding for low-carbon retrofitting for social housing.

• Zoning amendments for the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRTs.

Budget-y Stuff

• Audited financial statements for various City ABCs (agencies, boards, and corporations) are out. I don’t have the time to take a look at them, but items of possible interest include Build Toronto, TCHC, and Toronto Hydro.

• The final budget variance reports for 2017 are out. If you want to know why the police didn’t buy more tasers, whether the Bessarion community centre went over budget, or why the Union Station revitalization is delayed, dig into the capital budget. In general, though, the interesting stuff is going to be in the operating budget variance report. Some notes:

  • $95 million of the $260 million year-end surplus is from higher than expected MLTT revenue—the biggest amount from any one source.

  • Court Services revenue continues to fall because Toronto police are filing fewer charges; last year, it was a $263,000 hole.

  • New legislation has resulted in more WSIB claims for PTSD from EMS and Fire Services.

  • The new Uber licensing scheme has created more revenue than expected.

  • I find it weirdly funny that some rando donated $200 to the police to “stop crime in Toronto”. Like, that’s all they wrote.

Miscellaneous

• Microfiche is still useful!

• Newly licensed breweries: High Park Brewery, Rorschach Brewing Co. (does this beer spill look like anything to you?).

• Tree Permit of the Month: Man, reading this report was just, like, a rollercoaster of emotion. So this bur oak in the Annex is a Heritage Tree, which normally means applications to “injure” it are automatically denied. But TEYCC(!) wants to approve it, so the owner can add parking spaces(!!) next to it. But it’ll be special porous recycled plastic paving material! And they’re doing the work by hand and being super careful. So it’s fine, I guess.

• In light of recent events in the US that have sparked nationwide protests, Cllr Shan suggest that Council ask the federal government to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement. This treaty says that asylum seekers at the US-Canada border can only apply for refugee status in the country they first arrived in. However, as the US has grown increasingly hostile, many asylum seekers are trying to cross over into Canada.

• Parklets—not just for downtown any more. This pilot project would turn a Forest Hill parking space into a mini-park. Yes, this item is about one freaking parking space.

• Cllr Frank Di Giorgio: wrong about parking pads. Wrong for America.

• What role can the City play in sustainable, humane agriculture? Despite Western cultural stigma, entomophagy—insects as food—might be the way forward. I mean, there’s President’s Choice cricket powder now. Council may vote to consult cricket farmers, entomologists, conservationists, and other stakeholders to form an official Cricket Strategy for th—Oh. Wait. The other kind of cricket? Never mind.

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Thanks for reading—and, as always, corrections and suggestions are welcome!