Each week, we round up the latest news, views, and rumours from City Hall.
HEADLINES
NoneCity
Fourteen days. That’s how long it took OneCity to go from a revelatory transit plan to a fond memory. Despite announcing on June 27 that she would ask council to approve a study of 21 new transit lines and a tax to pay for them, by the time council rolled around on Wednesday, TTC chair Councillor Karen Stintz (Eglinton Lawrence) balked and only tabled a single new LRT line, on the East Bayfront. In the intervening two weeks it had become apparent that few on council supported her funding tool (a complex property tax measure called CVA uplift), and once that was off the table, the transit lines became little more than a colourful wish list.
Just how ill-thought-out was OneCity? Stintz and TTC vice-chair Councillor Glenn de Baeremaeker (Scarborough Centre) couldn’t even get their priority line, a subway to replace the Scarborough RT, onto council’s agenda due to the plainly apparent fact that council voted only four months ago to build an LRT there.
But it’s not all bad news. At the core of our transit quandary is that while we all want a bigger network, we’ve yet to devise a way to pay for it. Council will debate exactly that in October, as will provincial agency Metrolinx next spring. Fingers crossed.
BULLETINS
– Rob Ford, our mayor-in-protest, was the lone opposing vote on six separate motions allocating $16 million to community groups that address local issues, race relations and human rights, neighbourhood safety, and access to recreation
– Council approved an expanded menu for food carts, meaning hot dog vendors will now also be able to sell (among other things) coffee, tea, pre-cooked veggie burgers, and pre-packaged fruit
– Five new electronic billboards were granted exemptions from the city’s sign bylaws, one of them next to the Gardiner, despite concerns raised by the local councillor and public space activists
#TOPOLI DOCS
If you’re one of the many, many people who think that things could run a little smoother down at City Hall, this booklet on the Fourth Wall exhibit is essential reading. In it, activist Dave Meslin outlines 36 practical, mostly non-controversial ways to improve participation in municipal politics. Some of them are so simple you’ll wonder why they haven’t already been implemented: design public notices that the public can actually understand, provide free Wifi at City Hall, or hold elections on weekends to increase voter turnout.
MEETINGS, MOTIONS, AND MINUTES
As City Hall buzzed with the collapse of OneCity, Councillor Adam Vaughan (Trinity Spadina) quietly shepherded through a motion green-lighting the redevelopment of Alexandra Park. Although it got little attention, the project will mean big changes for the social housing community just south of Kensington Market: 333 units in the aging Atkinson Housing Co-op will be demolished and replaced, four other affordable housing buildings will be refurbished, and the area will be redesigned with new streets and commercial space. Best of all, according to Vaughan, none of the residents will be displaced. The project won’t cost the city a penny, and will be paid for by building several new condos containing 1,540 market rent units.
COUNCILLOR OF THE WEEK
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday (Etobicoke Centre) gets the honours this week, for single-handedly reigniting the smouldering urban vs. suburban debate by suggesting downtown is no place to raise a family.
CITY SOUND BITE
“I cannot support taxing the taxpayer.”
– Many pundits have strained to define Rob Ford’s singular approach to governance, but none have done it more succinctly than the mayor himself when, on Monday, he uttered these six words at a press conference for the Festival of Football.
NEXT WEEK’S AGENDA
This week’s council meeting was the last before October, as council members settle in for the summer break. Alas, this also means the suspension of the City Hall Insider, barring unforeseen #TOpoli developments. See you in the fall!
