Toronto Council meets today!
-
The honours continue. The mayor highlights recent awards won by a pair of longtime senior staffers: Transportation GM Barbara Gray and Executive Director of Social Development Denise Andrea Campbell.
-
Councillor Pasternak, chair of North York Community Council, also welcomes Rachel Chernos Lin. "The bad news is we've deferred many of the items for Ward 15, so you're going to have some late nights reading lots of reports—but I'm sure some of them will be quite entertaining."
-
Councillor Michael Thompson, attending this meeting virtually, has a petition from residents opposed to putting a stop at Mooregate Avenue & Tara Avenue for the forthcoming Scarborough busway. He says more details will be added to the agenda later. Hmm.
-
Councillor Stephen Holyday says he wants to vote against authorizing the closure of the Gardiner/DVP in 2025 for the Triathlon Festival. But Councillor Pasternak wants to debate it ("The Gardiner — my favourite subject!"), so they'll come back to the matter later.
-
Councillor Stephen Holyday wants a recorded vote on whether to authorize the installation of traffic lights at Kingston Road and Columbine Avenue in Beaches - East York. The traffic lights are APPROVED 23-1. Okay then. https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.TE17.53
-
Council votes 19-0 to adopt Ookwemin Minising as the official name for the island formerly known as Villiers in the Port Lands. They also approve naming the big park on the island Biidaasige Park.
-
An item about updating the zoning for low-rise residential lands CARRIES 23-1. https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.PH16.2
-
After members get a chance to "hold" items they want to debate later, any unheld items are adopted en masse. The batch approval process CARRIES 23-0.
Up now: A proposed new program will offer a range of incentives to encourage developers to build rentals https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.EX18.2
-
The proposed rental incentive program is really a two-step thing. The city reckons it can cover the cost of incentives to get 7,000 homes built. An additional 13,000 homes could be built with federal/provincial support.
-
The major incentives are deferring development charges forever (as long as the building remains a rental) and a 15% property tax reduction for 35 years. There will also be additional money to support target of 20% of new rentals as affordable housing.
-
A new staff report provides a timeline. If this item is adopted, staff are planning to start accepting applications for the first phase (7K rental homes) on Nov 18, closing on Nov 29. Applications will be prioritized based on construction start date — the earlier the better.
-
"Would it be fair to characterize this first phase as us proving to other governments that this can work ... but if we want to do it at scale, we're going to need the federal and provincial governments to come in and assist?" asks Councillor Perks.
Staff agree with that.
-
Housing Secretariat Executive Director Abi Bond says city hall has already been hearing from developers with planned residential projects that have stalled and could be shifted to take advantage of this rental incentive program.
-
Cheng asks the CFO about the $$$ the city will give up by waiving dev charges. It's $325 million that would normally go to things like parks and rec centres. CFO says he's analyzed it, and this is the "upset limit" of how much rev they can give up without impacting infra plans.
-
Councillor Mike Colle asks why city hall can't just its sizeable reserve funds to cover the cost of infrastructure. CFO Stephen Conforti says the reserves are fully committed — city has about $6.5 billion in projects committed against reserves, plus $6 billion in unfunded needs.
-
"Are we doing anything to promote home ownership in this city?" wonders Holyday, noting home prices growing faster than rents. "What are we doing for the other half of the city other than making it more expensive to own a home?"
Bond says there's an affordable ownership program.
-
Perruzza says, "We should stop pretending there is a math-science to this. There are more unknowns than there are knowns." He's worried about the city getting "fleeced" with these deals. Bond says units will be privately-owned, and city won't be on the hook for ongoing costs.
-
Councillor Brad Bradford asks if it's true the math on this rental incentive program says projects will only be viable if they also take advantage of other government support programs. Bond says, "We won't know that for sure until after phase one" but it's a real possibility.
-
"There's a false belief that everybody bought into. Just build, build, build the housing — supply the housing and we'll solve the program. Well, it didn't work!" says Councillor Mike Colle. He says city has dealt with supply, "but we didn't think of the demand!"
-
"This supply-side, Milton Friedman, trickle-down economics was a total failure when it comes to housing. It did not work!" says Councillor Mike Colle. He says city is now trying to "step in and fill the gap."
