Affordable housing and development files rank high
By Dianne Saxe
Happy new year and best wishes for a fresh start to 2025! Good to see so many of you when door knocking, at food banks, and at end-of-year celebrations. Thank you for every good cause you support and every act of kindness.
311: I am making progress getting the busiest city divisions (solid waste, transportation, water, municipal licensing and standards, urban forestry) to provide proficient responses to the hundreds of 311 complaints we file for you. Staff say I am the only councillor insisting on seeing how our complaints are resolved. We will keep following up and keep you informed.
Community and housing improvements: I continue to put dormant Section 37 money to good use.
Seventy-eight units of supportive housing have just broken ground at 35 Bellevue Avenue. Two years ago, at the request of groups like the Kensington Market Community Land Trust, I pledged all Ward 11’s Section 37 affordable-housing funds for this project. This pledge attracted enough municipal and (eventually) federal funds to make the project a reality. Vulnerable residents should be able to move in next year.
Thank you to the ABC Residents’ Association and the Greater Yorkville Residents’ Association for supporting upgrades to the Toronto Public Library’s oldest branch, Yorkville. Renovations planned for 2025-2030 will improve safety and accessibility. With the extra million dollars that I have provided in Section 37 funds, renovations to the branch will include preserving heritage aspects of the branch, upgrading the main door, and improving the outdoor lighting and landscaping.
At the TTC, tiles are being upgraded at Dupont station and progress has also been made in creating an Indigenous mural that will brighten the Spadina station tunnel.
Congestion: Evidence about the true causes of traffic congestion keeps piling up (spoiler alert: it’s not bike lanes). Higher road encroachment fees for developers (coming soon) should help. Plus there is Uber; over 80,000 often-empty vehicles create 14 per cent of downtown traffic while the drivers struggle on less than $6 per hour. The mayor promises to do something about Uber, but action has again been deferred.
Double-dipping: To the understandable fury of many, our ward is Toronto’s hotspot for developer double-dipping. Developers obtain zoning for a particular building, often by settling with the community, then get more from a committee of adjustment after a cursory hearing.
This doesn’t have to keep happening. Toronto should require double-dippers to either honour their deals or come back to council and the community. A year ago, I persuaded council to consider doing something about it, at least for requests to add height to high-rises after agreeing not to. Unfortunately, the planning and housing committee prefers to keep allowing the practice.
Parks: Thank you to everyone who attended the community meeting concerning Christie Pits. Glad that parks, forest and recreation (PFR) has promised to improve the kids’ baseball diamond and accessibility. Staff have also promised to improve noise and off-leash dog enforcement, especially if residents file a 311 complaint every time. To influence how PFR balances neighbours’ desires for quiet use of the park with permitting those across the city to gather there for large or noisy events, please fill out the online Christie Pits survey and encourage your neighbours to do the same.
December council: The most controversial item on the agenda was how much to relax zoning rules against nonresidential land uses in residential neighbourhoods. Lots of people would like more neighbourhood corner stores, but not if they sell alcohol or cannabis. At the request of many residents’ associations, council sent this to our new chief planner for further consultation.
Other challenging items included: the building of more private rental homes; excess heat limits for tenants; the balance between the right to protest and the right of Jewish community members and other minorities not to be harassed; the exploitation of Uber drivers and the congestion that they cause; the infuriating collapse of the Metrolinx deal for SmartTrack; the pressure on our shelter system that forces people into homeless encampments; the rejected Ombudsman’s report; the protection of bird habitat on the Toronto Islands; the possible declaration of economic and social rights for low-income residents.
Thank you to the students at Palmerston Avenue Junior Public School for visiting me at council and for speaking up for our bike lanes. School groups of any age: you are invited too!
Dianne Saxe is city councillor for Ward 11, University-Rosedale.