Tag Archives: Open File Toronto

Marvelling At The Committee Of Adjustment

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For City Hall watchers, it’s easy to get caught up in the big show. Our larger than life mayor (no, put down your complaint pens, people, that wasn’t a reference to Mayor Ford’s weight), the ideological schism at council and this kind of stuff. It practically writes itself.

So it’s understandable if indefensible that small but vital matters go largely unnoticed. Like, for example, the regular doings at the Committee of Adjustment meetings. Until this week, I’d never attended one and only did so because a development application in my neck of the woods. You might’ve heard about it? A proposed RioCan retail proposal incorporating the Kromer electronics store on Bathurst between College and Dundas streets.

As these things go, this one was a biggie with much community opposition to the 8 ‘minor’ variances RioCan was requesting. But many of the other 14 items before the committee in the same block where unopposed applicants wanting to build a deck or extend basement foundations. Routine matters to everyone but those involved. Yet, the very building blocks of how our city grows and evolves.

The Committee of Adjustment is made up of civilian members, and Toronto has 4 panels, representing 4 areas of the city, Etobicoke-York, North York, Toronto-East York and Scarborough. Members sit for 4 year terms and bring varying degrees of expertise to the job: a working knowledge of law, planning, architecture, government, economic development, community development, land development or citizen advocacy. In other words, a background in engaged citizenry.

A couple things struck me as I watched the proceedings on Wednesday. One was the civility in the room despite a dynamic that could pit neighbour against neighbour or corporate black heartedness against residential entitlement. There was none of the barking and sniping that occurs at council or other committee meeting. Before taking contested applications to the committee, interested parties were requested to conduct a meeting outside the room to see if their issues could be resolved. How often this works, I don’t know. The RioCan representative pointed out to committee members that none of the opponents to their plan chose to talk with them beforehand. Still, there was the sense the committee desired an amicable resolution before they were forced to arbitrate on applications.

The other interesting observation for me was just how thoroughly prepared all committee members were on every application. Those who presented items and spoke against them were frequently but gently nudged along by the committee chair, Gillian Burton, assured that the committee was well versed with the particular application and were looking for any new information. Questions from the committee were informed and concise. It didn’t strike me as some trial by fire or inquisition. Of course, I was simply observing from the audience not up pleading my case.

As for the RioCan application?

First, let me say that I wasn’t simply observing that one. I have a vested interested since I live not too far from their proposed development and took part in one of the residents’ meetings that talked strategy in opposing it. While not impacted directly by the plan, I was concerned greatly about the traffic impact of it on the surrounding neighbourhoods. What?! More cars!?! Well, that just won’t do…

The opposition was fantastically organized with just 4 people taking 5 minutes each to explain their positions but covering concerns from the Kensington Market Business Improvement and a couple of resident associations’ perspectives as well as one who questioned the very legitimacy of the development in terms of the city’s own Official Plan. Was it really adhering to the Avenues idea of proper planning? All retail including a massive box store that took little of its surroundings into consideration.

That seemed to be the Committee of Adjustment take on the matter as well. Beginning with member John Tassiopoulos’s questioning of why this application had even come before them. These weren’t ‘minor’ variances RioCan requested, he suggested, wondering if it wasn’t more a matter for zoning to deal with. The consensus was that the variances amounted to a cumulative overdevelopment of the site and the committee rejected the application outright. So adamant was the decision that committee members searched for strong enough language in their motion to bolster their judgment in case of an appeal to the OMB.

Oh yes, the OMB.

But before I go down that road, I want to express my amazement at just how transparent the Committee of Adjustment process is. They actually have to discuss their decisions in public. No hearing an application and any opponents to it and then retreating to privately arrive at a verdict. It’s right there in front of everyone in the room. Undoubtedly, each member must have inclinations going in based on the written proposals but they still have to air out their views publicly and, at times I’m sure, in the face of those who may ultimately be plenty displeased by the outcome.

If only it all ended so openly.

Looming largely over any Committee of Adjustment decision, of course, is the Ontario Municipal Board. Where the democratic process ends and money and attrition begins. That’s for another post and written by somebody much more well versed in the matter than I am. I will only say that I am concerned that our budget chief is submitting a notice of motion to council next week to study the benefits of ‘sending the City Solicitor to the Ontario Municipal Board on appeals of Committee of Adjustment decisions.’ Nothing wrong with wanting to ensure a bang for our buck but coming from where it does, I worry about nickel and diming the city’s ability to defend itself and its residents in what oftentimes turns out to be a costly process. If we signal our unwillingness to go to the mat purely for monetary reasons, why wouldn’t every applicant with deep pockets automatically appeal to the OMB?

That’s for another day, however.

For now we simply take pleasure in the fact that sometimes it’s not about successfully fighting City Hall but working with it in trying to develop Toronto in a fair and judicious manner.

— happily submitted by Cityslikr

Fight For City Hall

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OK. Here’s an idea.

During Mayor Ford’s unofficial leave of absence, instead of tucking back and sharing the same shell of disengagement, why not expand your municipal politics horizons. Get to know your city councillor, say. Who’s that, you ask? Don’t even know what ward you’re in? Well, now’s the time to do a little brushing up on your civics as I imagine they say in show business.

If you need a little help, David Hains has a series going on over at Open File Toronto, Better Know a Ward, featuring councillor interviews. The Toronto Star’s David Rider works similar terrain with his occasional councillor focussed articles. These are your actual local representatives, folks. The ones addressing your day-to-day concerns at City Hall.

The timing’s also good because it seems the mayor is reaching out to individual councillors even some he wouldn’t have had the time of day for back when he was the king of the castle.  He’s looking for ideas that city council should pursue going forward since apparently he’s done everything he was elected to do already. A small checklist it must be because I’m not needing more than two hands to count off the accomplishments. And I lost 3 fingers in a deep sea fishing accident. (Thank you. Next show at 10. Remember to tip your waitress.)

On top of which, as the Toronto Sun’s Don Peat reported, a group of the more centrist councillors met yesterday in order “…to hash out what issues they want city council to tackle next.” Ranging from TTC Chair Karen Stintz to TCHC task force chair Ana Bailão (an average of 52.5% on the Matt Elliott Ford For Toronto Ford Nation scale), the sit down seems intended to combat the inertia that settles in at City Hall with Mayor Ford’s abdication of authority. “Councillor Colle says agendas are pretty light at City Hall lately,” Peat tweeted, “nine items on four committee agendas.”

Just a whole lot of chin wagging, according to the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy in a screed intended to diminish any attempt at consensus building that Mayor Ford seems unable to build himself. And while the group emerged with no concrete list of ideas they did agree to continue talking and meeting. Rome wasn’t built in a day and to expect a group of politically disparate councillors to deliver a package of working proposals in a matter of hours after 18 months of divisive and contentious battles at City Hall may well be the height of deliberate sabotage.

So the timing of this is favourable to all those who want to get their voices heard, opinions counted. With power in flux on council, chime in to your local councillor, let them know what you think is important and how you’d like them to proceed. If everyone’s looking for ideas, now’s the time to speak up.

The vacuum that has materialized at City Hall is no accident and neither is it the result of some evil cabal of scheming councillors bound and determined to undermine the will of the people and push Mayor Ford to the sidelines. This administration is based on the principle of reducing the size and role of government in our lives. While they will use innocuous sounding terms like ‘finding efficiencies’ and ‘culture of entitlement’ and, yeah, ‘stopping the gravy train’, it’s all about putting a hurt on the public sector and roll back its ability to do the job it was it was designed to do.

Mayor Ford, his brother and deputy mayor have made it known on more than one occasion that in order for them to fully implement their anti-government agenda, the people of Toronto need to send councillors to City Hall more attuned to this sensibility. They’ve declared war on dissent and gone as far as to threaten electoral ‘execution’ on those who do not toe their line. Council has stepped up and asserted its power and the administration has petulantly reacted by asserting some sort of divine mayoral right, claiming a mandate to override the will of majority rule.

The mayor is one voice, the loudest voice since the office is the only one elected city wide, but still just one voice of 45. That’s how this is supposed to work. Councillors should adhere to that and continue to assert their authority. This authority comes from the voters, the people of Toronto. Start letting your local elected representatives know that this is what you expect of them, to represent your best interests and those of the city.

Paul Ainslie Ward 43 Paula Fletcher Ward 30 Denzil Minnan-Wong Ward 34
 

Maria Augimeri Ward 9

  

Doug Ford Ward 2

  

Ron Moeser Ward 44
 

Ana Bailão Ward 18

  

Mary Fragedakis Ward 29

  

Frances Nunziata Ward 11
 

Michelle Berardinetti Ward 35

  

Mark Grimes Ward 6

  

Cesar Palacio Ward 17
 

Shelley Carroll Ward 33

  

Doug Holyday Ward 3

  

John Parker Ward 26
 

Raymond Cho Ward 42

  

Norm Kelly Ward 40

  

James Pasternak Ward 10
 

Josh Colle Ward 15

  

Mike Layton Ward 19

  

Gord Perks Ward 14
 

Gary Crawford Ward 36

  

Chin Lee Ward 41

  

Anthony Perruzza Ward 8
 

Vincent Crisanti Ward 1

  

Gloria Lindsay Luby Ward 4

  

Jaye Robinson Ward 25
 

Janet Davis Ward 31

  

Giorgio Mammoliti Ward 7

  

David Shiner Ward 24
 

Glenn De Baeremaeker Ward 38

  

Josh Matlow Ward 22

  

Karen Stintz Ward 16
 

Mike Del Grande Ward 39

  

Pam McConnell Ward 28

  

Michael Thompson Ward 37
 

Frank Di Giorgio Ward 12

  

Mary-Margaret McMahon Ward 32

  

Adam Vaughan Ward 20
 

Sarah Doucette Ward 13

  

Joe Mihevc Ward 21

  

Kristyn Wong-Tam Ward 27
 

John Filion Ward 23

  

Peter Milczyn Ward 5

 — helpfully submitted by Cityslikr

Where Have You Been?

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“Time to talk about taking on the Fords” was the headline in a National Post article written by Chris Selley yesterday. “Three times this week,” it opened, “City Hall poured gasoline on Ford Nation’s smouldering embers.” He then outlined those three examples: the Metrolinx approval of council’s decision to go ahead with 4 LRT lines, the chief medical officer’s recommendation to lower speed limits in the city and the growing talk of looking at road tolls.

On top of which, Mr. Selley suggests later in the piece that in taking over control of outsourcing practices, city council “…added a weapon to the Mayor’s arsenal.”

There seems to be some inconsistencies in this argument.

For starters, city council has moved beyond talking about taking on the Fords. They’re already doing it by rolling back proposed cuts in the 2012 operating budget, successfully defending the Portlands from Councillor Doug’s incursion, reversing new fees for sports fields along with the examples above. The mayor’s self-proclaimed mandate continues to be challenged.

But to Mr. Selley this is pouring ‘gasoline on Ford Nation’s smouldering embers’, intimating that by defying the mayor council is only succeeding in making him stronger. (With a nod to @HULKMAYOR) DON’T MAKE FORD NATION ANGRY! YOU WON’T LIKE FORD NATION WHEN THEY’RE ANGRY!

This argument grates. It pops up every time the mayor suffers a setback. A wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and the wailing of, but we’re just giving him a re-election platform.

What?!

And the alternative? To sit back, let him run rampant, implementing the worst of his policy ideas? When it all goes to shit, we then step up and say, see? We told you so? Then start picking up the pieces.

That’s certainly not what Mr. Selley’s suggesting. He believes the mayor’s opponents need to take control of the narrative and contest the fallacious assertions Team Ford continues to make. Like the St. Clair “disaster” and its mutant spawn, St. Clair-ization of the city with the building of LRTs. Agreed and I think that’s already under way with the work John Lorinc and others have been doing exploring St. Clair Avenue post its St. Clairizing.

“When it comes to subways and LRTs specifically,” Selley writes, “someone needs figure out how to make staying the course look sexy.”

That’s kind of a tall order and perhaps a little bit of overkill. While I know the mayor has pledged to make it a campaign issue and the likes of the Toronto Star’s Royson James worries that the timing of the Sheppard LRT’s commencement of construction in 2014 could be manna from heaven for Mayor Ford’s re-election bid, I’d really like to see him try and run with that frankly. Already having put off the timetable by 18 months with his declaring Transit City dead does he really think promising further delays is going to be a winner for him?

The statement issued from his office yesterday in response to the Metrolinx decision to proceed with LRTs suggests the mayor isn’t looking to go to the mat for a Sheppard subway. It attempts to put the matter fully into the province’s lap, saying that the focus for the TTC should now be solely on “…delivering operational and customer service excellence — and not on capital infrastructure planning and construction.” The mayor’s continued ‘push for subways to form the backbone of Toronto’s future plans for rapid transit expansion’ is vague enough to open the possibility of talk for something as out there as the downtown relief line. Subways are subways, right?

Inadvertently, Mayor Ford has triggered a transit discussion this city has not had this openly in decades. Very few people now disagree that we have fallen woefully behind, to the growing detriment of commuters and businesses alike. A Spacing-Environics poll last week suggested an eye-poppingly large number of the GTA are more than willing to consider a regional sales tax dedicated to building transit.

That’s a tax increase, folks. The polar opposite of what then candidate for mayor Rob Ford ran successfully on in 2010. All the talk of evil taxes now seems to be little more than pissing in the wind, a naked appeal to a narrowing base of support.

So the mayor and his brother want to recreate the conditions that got them elected some 18 months ago? Good luck with that. Like they say, you can’t push toothpaste back into its tube. The agenda has changed, the discussion advanced. Fighting yesterday’s war seldom leads to victory today.

That’s not to say I’m writing the mayor off as one and done. Mr. Selley’s correct in pointing out that then Councillor Rob Ford was severely underestimated. The anger he helped foment and then champion was surprising and misunderstood. He will be helped by the power of incumbency.

But 2014 will be a different political landscape, one the mayor will have contributed to having altered. Last time out, his main rival, George Smitherman, forged the anti-City Hall mindset that Ford ran away with. Every subsequent move Smitherman made to differentiate himself from Ford only seemed to reinforce the argument that Toronto’s government was out of control in every conceivable way. The only main candidate defending the status quo, Joe Pantalone, was simply a bad campaigner. His arguments were closer to the truth but he just couldn’t effectively deliver that message.

It’s hard to imagine how that dynamic will be recreated for the mayor to exploit. Council has already established itself as a viable counter-balance to the worst instincts of the mayor. There is a working majority consensus on most of the important issues the city faces. Whoever rises up from that to take on Mayor Ford in 2014 will be the type of formidable candidate he didn’t face in 2010.

Chris Selley doesn’t seem to realize that and is writing from a few steps behind what’s happening on the ground now.

— up to speedly submitted by Cityslikr