Monthly Archives: July 2012

No City For Young Children

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I have seen the urban-suburban divide, and it’s name is Doug Holyday. Councillor Doug Holyday. Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday.

If not the political father to the Ford Brothers, he is their political godfather. A lean, mean libertarian and last mayor of pre-amalgamation Etobicoke, Councillor Holyday’s the antiest of anti-government types. There is no aspect of governing (except maybe policing) the man doesn’t believe can be done better and cheaper by the private sector. Government as a source for out-sourcing.

Despite the political and territorial affinity between the Deputy Mayor and the Fords, Councillor Holyday must bear a little ill-will toward their late father, Doug Sr. As a backbench MPP for the Mike Harris government, Ford-pere helped smash the 6 former municipalities of Metro Toronto into one unwieldy beast. This leashed the Deputy Mayor’s beloved ol’ Etobicoke home to the licentious, rapacious, elitist grab all downtown.

Arcadia was under threat. Progress’s shadow drew nearer, bringing darkness ever closer to the perpetual 1950s sunshine of Toronto’s gateway to Mississauga.

Since 1997 Doug Holyday’s picket fenced mind set has been besieged by the onset of the 21st-century. Urbanism. Multiculturalism. Diversity of views and lifestyles that include… wait for it, wait for it… children growing up in downtown highrises with no place to play other than the traffic.

Yesterday’s well-documented dust up between the deputy mayor and Councillor Adam Vaughan (if you want to see it for yourself here’s the link, scroll through to 149:46) over the requirement for 10% of condo units to be 3 bedroom in a King Street West development proposal revealed the deep hostility directed at the downtown core from the suburban leadership elected to represent the entire city. “I personally wouldn’t want to raise my kids on King Street or Yonge Street,” the deputy mayor said. “Some people might, and if they do, that’s fine. … I’m saying I personally wouldn’t want to be on the 47th floor of a condominium building at the corner of King and John with three kids.”

“I can just see it now,” ‘Where’s little Jenny? Well, she’s downstairs playing in the traffic on her way to the park’”.

When the city’s acting chief planner Gregg Lintern suggested that encouraging families to live in every part of the city including right downtown “…makes for a healthier city” the deputy mayor wasn’t buying it.  “It makes for a healthier city to have children out on King Street where there is bumper-to-bumper traffic, people galore all night and day? I just think of raising my own family there. That’s not the place I’d choose.”

Apparently, if you choose a lifestyle contrary to one Doug Holyday deems acceptable, well hey, god bless you, you’re on your own. Briefly stepping back from his Grandpa Simpson mode, the deputy mayor wrapped himself in his comfy libertarian cloak and railed that government shouldn’t be telling the private sector what they can and cannot be building. In putting forward a motion to delete the 10% 3 bedroom requirement for the development proposal, he suggested that it should be left up to the free market to sort out.

“I’m not going to dictate to a developer,” the Deputy Mayor said, “that they must provide 10% of their units in the three bedroom form when there may or may not be a market for it.”

If there’s such a clamour for family condo units downtown, developers will respond. That’s just Economics 101. No matter that bigger units/development mean fewer units/development and less money overall. Developers aren’t concerned about money in the long run. They just want to respond to market demand.

Turns out the Deputy Mayor isn’t as laissez-faire on the matter of planning when it gets closer to home. During the ensuing debate, Councillor Vaughan pointed out that a few years back, when a developer proposed building rowhouses — OMG not townhouses! — in Etobicoke’s single family enclave, Mr. Holyday wasn’t so invisibly handy as he was toward downtown development. So it’s free reign for the private sector when it comes to situations the Deputy Mayor doesn’t approve of but let’s get all state controlled if it imposes on his lifestyle.

I don’t  believe that a majority of those in the suburbs reflect Deputy Mayor Holyday’s cloistered views. People live outside the core for many reasons. Space, affordability, just a preference for that way of life. They don’t judge those who make their homes downtown as dimly as our deputy mayor does.

I agree with writer Shawn Micallef when he referred to Mr. Holyday’s opinions as ‘creaks from the grave of thought.’ They’re shocking because it’s difficult to believe anyone still thinks like that. It’s a dying breed kicking and screaming against modernity.

Unfortunately, Mr. Holyday isn’t just anyone. In theory, he’s the 2nd in command of the largest city in the country. A rapidly evolving metropolis of some 2.5 million residents that has long since outgrown the strictures of sleepy, small town governance. More worrisome is that the mayor, his actual right hand man, Councillor Ford, and a small cadre of similar anti-urban minds now have their hands on the levers of power.

All of them are unfit for the positions they are currently in. They don’t understand the needs of the city they’ve been elected to represent. The only thing they seem determined to accomplish is to roll back any and all evidence of the 21st-century.

The Deputy Mayor’s comments reflected that and underline the need to resist every antediluvian idea he and his cohorts try to inflict on the city.

— corely submitted by Cityslikr

Mea Culpa

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I’ll take the blame.

My exuberance and enthusiasm for a bold transit plan blinded me to its shortcomings. The lack of a wider consultative process both at the council level as well as with the province and regional partners. A less than ideal funding mechanism proposal. Cost underestimation. All capital, no operating. Yet another politically motivated subway expansion that was only necessary in order to curry voters’ favour.

I was aware of all that but didn’t care. A conversation had been started, a vital conversation with some meat on its bones. Transit, transit, transit not subways, subways, subways.

Turns out,  the plan was fatally flawed, the minuses outweighing the pluses. I hoped when I should’ve thought.

My mistake.

Nothing was really lost, however, in yesterday’s vote except maybe a little sheen from the TTC Chair’s star. But all things considered, she’s had a pretty good year. Her pluses outweighing the minuses.

This spring’s transit vote remains in place. LRT construction is underway.  Any notion that Mayor Ford (who spoke nary a word during the day’s debate) has somehow reclaimed control of the transit file is nothing more than laughable spin.

On top of which, the East Bayfront LRT proposal was underlined as a priority going forward. This will help keep it on the radar as the waterfront redevelopment continues apace. Let’s not use sight of that.

Still, it was all so anti-climatic. Great expectations dashed. Or at least, put off until the fall.

At which time I hope — no, demand — the vigorous debate of the first few days of One City is once again picked up. Taking staff recommendations and getting down to the nitty gritty of how we plan to pay for the transit Toronto desperately needs. Because that’s the one thing that came out of the whirlwind that was One City. There’s plenty to do. We just need to accept the fact it won’t get done for free.

— only semi-crushedly submitted by Cityslikr

Priorities

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Priorities, priorities, priorities. The people want priorities.

Congestion. Public transit and infrastructure deficits. A spike in gun violence.

All these hot button issues facing the city and what was council debating for the majority of the meeting this morning, the last meeting before October? Policy Changes to Facilitate Councillor Office Operations.

Office chairs, constituency offices, floor space at 80 cents a square foot. Councillor house calls. All in search of the holy grail filled with gravy.

How much gravy?

I’m not exactly sure. But consider this. The total cost to the city’s coffers, the amount picked from the taxpayers’ wallets annually, for councillors’ expenses — all of it, all in, the whole enchilada, salaries, staff, office expenses, everything — about $19 million. Throw in about $1.6 million to keep the mayor in the lifestyle he is accustomed, and that’s just around $21 million.

A year. $21 million of an annual operating budget of over $10 billion. And what the debate focused on this morning was a tiny, tiny fraction of that. A minute slice. A speck. Tens of thousands of dollars.

This was not a good use of time by any stretch of the imagination. One might even call it inefficient. Generating gravy to uncover gravy. A gravy wash, let’s call it.

Mayor Ford fiddles and the city struggles.

— miserly submitted by Cityslikr