February 27th, 2020 · Comments Off on EDITORIAL: Fictions, falsehoods and a crisis in leadership (Feb. 2020)
On February 21, members of all four Ontario Teacher’s Unions walked off the job leaving 2 million students out of school and leaving parents scrambling for childcare. Meanwhile, the Ontario government has been trying to sell citizens a story about striking teachers: that they are fat cats led by union boss “thugs” looking to gouge us of tax dollars. The premier likes to paint himself as a hero out to save us all, rescuing the province in a time of crisis, but the only crisis the electorate can buy into at this point is a crisis in leadership – his leadership.
It’s been more than two decades since all four teachers’ unions have walked off the job in Ontario. You can bet that the inconvenience this caused had the Premier certain he was headed for a win with frustrated parents. The polls tell a different story: even in conservative ridings, people support the teachers by a measure of two-to-one.
Ontario teachers have been without a contract since August 31 and months of negotiations have brought few dividends. The battle with the teachers sees no end in sight and the government has long since passed that point on the highway where there are face-saving exits. Ford either has to cave to the union’s position or seek to legislate them back only to be overruled later by the courts. The teachers, of course, could accept the government’s proposal to increase class sizes, force students into multiple on-line courses, reduce the amount of support workers in schools, and get a wage increase of a meagre one per cent. But why would they? Unions can smell blood, and the public can smell it, too.
The government recently enacted legislation capping public sector wage increases to one per cent. Ford proves yet again he is the most myopic premier in recent memory. The courts have ruled you can’t meaningfully have collective bargaining, a charter right, if you pre-set the outcomes.
Let’s put aside the long-term economic benefits of a robust and inclusive public education system and suppose for a moment these cuts to education are absolutely necessary to keep Ontario afloat. If austerity is the only path forward, why is Ford spending a half a billion dollars to cancel green energy projects, spending one billion to cancel the Beer Store contract so we can have beer in corner stores, fighting a losing battle with Ottawa over a carbon tax, giving OPP officers a 2.1 per cent wage increase, and trying to take over Toronto’s TTC subway? (Oh wait he walked back that last one as long as Toronto built new lines to his design – starting from scratch.)
Though the government is facing opposition in almost every corner, including in ridings held by their own MPPs, it is enjoying strong support from one sector – fake parents. A series of pro-government newspaper ads ran recently in various national dailies which echo the government’s language and accuse the unions of using the students as “pawns.” The group that placed the ads as “Vaughan Working Familes” appears to be backed by Conservative insiders and large donors. The opposition NDP have called for a probe due to the ad campaign being a potential violation of the Election Finances Act prohibiting the government from acting “in collusion” with third-party supporters for advertising.
The government has lost credibility, and is bleeding support. According to a recent CTV news poll 59 per cent of parents in PC-held ridings think the government is doing a poor job and it can’t even buy that support without getting caught. It’s time for Ford to go; the flying monkeys in his cabinet would be thrilled.
February 27th, 2020 · Comments Off on FORUM: Budget challenges at City Hall (Feb. 2020)
Not all priorities can be met by property tax base
By Mike Layton
It is with great pride that I have the privilege of serving on the City of Toronto’s Budget Committee, which allows me the opportunity to help shape the direction of services over the coming year. Simply put, the annual budget is a chance for Toronto to set priorities as a city and take action on what needs to change.
At its core, the annual budget debate is about people, and I view the process as a way to determine how we support and protect each other. The choices made in these sessions also govern how we interact with our parks and greenspaces, and how we get around – whether on foot, bike, transit, or car.
This year my focus was on advocating for a budget that will create healthy, sustainable communities. This included supporting asks that will help us meet our climate targets, supporting the creation of truly affordable housing, providing affordable childcare, improving our parks and ravines, and expanding road safety initiatives.
You may have participated, or sent me your thoughts on the priorities for our budget over the last month and for this I thank you. In addition to my commitments on the Budget Committee, I also had the opportunity to have senior city staff at a downtown budget town hall I hosted with neighbouring Ward Councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam and Joe Cressy.
When the city does its budget deliberations, we look at the operating budget for 2020 in tandem with our capital plan over the next 10 years. For the first time in a number of years, I believe that we have not produced an austerity budget. This is an important step in the right direction if we are going to build a city that is for everyone, not just the rich.
We have been dealing with the effects of underfunding in our growing city for close to a decade. The decision to implement a dedicated tax increase to help pay for much needed infrastructure improvements and housing needs is definitely a step in the right direction.
We also funded a Ravine Strategy that will finally be implemented to deal with the biodiversity, erosion, and litter issues in our ravines, with the Vale of Avoca/Yellow Creek being identified as a priority area for investment. In combination with my Ravine Working Group, we are positioning ourselves well to secure funding for both immediate and long-term restoration in sensitive ecological areas.
There are, however, still troublesome trends.
TTC fares are continuing to increase without substantial service improvements; repairing the Gardiner still absorbs 44 per cent of yearly capital spending on transportation infrastructure which affords us less money for implementation of Vision Zero; and the city is not moving quickly enough on its TransformTO and climate change mitigation strategies.
Lastly, as the city cannot legally carry a deficit, we are forced to figure out ways to maintain existing service levels in the face of provincial cuts. For example, Children’s Services is sitting $15 million short of its growth strategies. That will have an immediate impact on expecting and current parents in the coming years. The status quo will not do.
In order to shift the burden off the property tax base, we have to commit to a combination of new revenue tools. I am particularly excited about the prospect of a vacant homes tax which has been implemented successfully in Vancouver and saw the dual benefit of increased housing availability and revenue to put toward affordable housing initiatives. It is creative policies like these which are integral for a growing city to thrive and I look forward to supporting this in Council.
Mike Layton is the City Councillor for Ward 11 University-Rosedale. Please visit www.mikelayton.to for the latest on this, and other city-related issues.
February 27th, 2020 · Comments Off on FORUM: Catastrophic climate change is here. How do we respond? (Feb. 2020)
Australia is the canary, we must act now
By Jessica Bell
Australia is my original home, and it is experiencing a climate catastrophe. Armageddon fires are still burning up the country. Half a billion animals are dead. Towns have been destroyed. Billions are needed for rebuilding.
The fires in Australia are the latest dark sign that natural disasters at this destructive scale are becoming the new normal. The enormity of the disaster is a reckoning for us to review how we meaningfully respond to the global climate crisis.
The cost of taking action is great. But the cost of inaction is immeasurable because we are fighting for our future. There is no fate but what we make. It’s up to us to make it together.
Feelings matter: Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear war, none is so great as the deadening of our response. Those words come from Australian activist scholar Joanna Macey, who argues it is important to recognize our personal response to environmental harm because it is healthy to acknowledge feelings like grief and despair and because strong feelings can motivate people to take useful action.
Like many of us, I regularly suppress my thoughts about the impact of climate change. I don’t want to think about the fear my mother felt when she was temporarily evacuated from her home until the fires passed. I don’t want to grieve about my children and the hard future they are likely to face. I don’t want to think about coming food shortages, civil unrest, or forced migration.
It is easier for me to channel the deep anger I feel when I see our leaders failing to take action. Australia’s prime minister is charging ahead with new coal mines. Our prime minister bought the TransMountain pipeline. Doug Ford has literally no climate change plan or hard targets at all. We can’t rely on them.
As Australia takes war-level action to quell the fires and save lives, it’s up to us to take useful war-level preventative action to stop future catastrophes from happening.
Making personal choices like using public transit or buying eco-friendly shampoo can help to create new markets for products and inspire our friends and family to change habits. Evidence shows, however, that the overall impact of behavioural change is limited because it’s only the motivated minority who are willing to always pay and do more.
Strategically tackling climate means working together to change laws and policies at an institutional level to make it easier for everyone to make good choices. This means changing what our banks and pension funds invest in, changing what our schools and universities teach and do, and passing real environmental policies at all levels of government, from investing in public transit to putting a decent price on carbon.
There are many groups in our city that are doing useful work to achieve these big system-wide changes. They need our support.
In this upcoming budget cycle, the Toronto Environmental Alliance, ClimateFast, Mike Layton, and more are campaigning for the City of Toronto to fund and implement its TransformTO climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt our city to our changing climate.
GreenPAC is a non-partisan political organization that endorses and supports environmental champions from all political parties who are running for provincial and federal office. This is very strategic because climate change should be meaningfully addressed by all political parties, and this is only going to happen if there are politicians at each party pushing this agenda.
Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion are youth-led movements organizing creative protests in Toronto to force urgent and real action.
Then there’s the Green New Deal, an ambitious plan calling for net-zero emissions, good green jobs, and an end to inequality.
National advocacy organization Our-Time.Ca helps people organize in their communities to build support for the Green New Deal. At the Ontario NDP we have just finalized our first blueprint of our Green New Democratic Deal. The draft plan is online, and we taking feedback right now.
Ontario should be a place with energy-efficient buildings, where we can walk or take public transportation to our destination, where our electricity grid is green and affordable, where we produce minimal waste, and where the products we make are truly needed and built to last.
The cost of taking action is great. But the cost of inaction is immeasurable because we are fighting for our future.
There is no fate but what we make. It’s up to us to make it together.
February 27th, 2020 · Comments Off on GREENINGS: Short-term gains lead to long-term losses (Feb. 2020)
Province has no business case for reckless cuts
By Terri Chu
Last year, Premier Ford and friends dropped $231 million of “taxpayer” money on killing wind energy projects. It’s one thing to not build any more but spending money to cancel projects? That’s next level “respecting” taxpayer money (as he likes to say). What this government has shown us is that it cares not one whit for being fiscally responsible and it cares not one whit for the best interests of the citizens.
Rather than installing more EV charging stations, Ontario is removing them in a step that’s sending air pollution in the wrong direction. GO’s justification is that the spots are not making sufficient revenue to justify their existence. I’m pretty sure there’s a Greek proverb that reads society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in, not society grows great when we make decisions solely based on first quarter profits.
We are in this climate mess precisely because of our narrow focus on short-term monetary results. Now Ford wants to take the driving forces of our climate crisis and spread them to every facet of our society. As if it wasn’t bad enough that our children face food shortages in the future, he wants to ensure they aren’t educated enough to think critically about how to cope with the crisis.
Universities now have ridiculous metrics that funding is to be measured against, including “graduate earnings” and “proportion of graduates employed in related fields.” What this spells is essentially the death of liberal arts. Schools will now only focus on pumping out graduates in high earning professions. I don’t even know how liberal arts graduates measure up, whether or not their profession is in a “related field.” The point of education is to broaden your mind and allow you to think critically, regardless of the profession you choose in life.
At the secondary level, the Ford government wants to institute mandatory e-learning despite the fact that students in primarily e-learning-based institutions are finding themselves unmotivated by the format.
Other than saving money, there’s no reason to push students to get their education online. On the one hand, Ford pats himself on the back for banning cell phones in school and then, in a move consistent only with profit-based ideology, he demands students do mandatory e-learning courses. There’s only one meaningful motivation behind this and it is NOT in the best interests of the youth. Meanwhile, we have enough money in our budgets for tax cuts to the tune of billions, primarily targeted at wealthy individuals.
At the primary level, class sizes have ballooned. On the personal side, my daughter’s JK classroom has 29 students in it. Teachers are asking for a raise that matches inflation, something that isn’t an unreasonable ask. However, Ford is refusing to budge on an issue he knows he’s on the losing side of. Teachers aren’t worth a pay raise of 2%, but MPPs are worth an additional 14%. These are all ideological attacks. They’re not even consistent with the “saving money” claims.
Our climate is on the cusp of losing its ability to sustain human life because of short-term focus on profits over trifling details like clean drinking water. If our education system collapses, it will not be able to even produce the workforce that has been instrumental in operating the levers of capitalism. Short-term thinking means we kill the golden goose for a tasty roast goose. This is being implemented at every level of this government.
Our kids deserve a lot better than this. Australia is feeling the effects of short-term thinking. We need not follow suit. Let’s plant those trees, even if we won’t sit in their shade. Let’s stop going profitably backwards.
Terri Chu is an engineer committed to practical environmentalism. This column is dedicated to helping the community reduce energy use, and help distinguish environmental truths from myths. Send questions, comments, and ideas for future columns to Terri at terri.chu@whyshouldicare.ca.
February 27th, 2020 · Comments Off on ARTS: Bloor St. Culture Corridor celebrates Black History Month (Feb. 2020)
February corridor offerings abound
A Tafelmusik presentation, The Indigo Project, which starts Feb. 27 at 427 Bloor St. W. (Trinity St-Paul’s) is a musical journey exploring the implications of the blue dye that touched the lives of the lowest classes. COURTESY TAFELMUSIK
By Meribeth Deen
For many institutions on the Bloor St. Culture Corridor, Black History Month is every month. However, if you’re keen to jump into the spirit of the month, there are plenty of ways to do that between Bathurst and Bay streets.
If you find yourself on Bathurst, head directly to A Different Booklist Cultural Centre (Bloor and Spadina). They have a stellar line up of events that you do not want to miss, and the bookstore will be offering 20 per cent off on “essential” books to celebrate African Liberation Month (Franz Fanon, W.E.B DuBois, Walter Rodney, Roxane Gay). On February 20, enjoy the Literary Salon with Roger McTair, who will discuss his short story collection My Trouble with Books.
Also on February 20, Rivka Campbell will discuss Jews of colour with a focus on Jews of Jamaica at the Miles Nadal Jewish Cultural Centre (750 Spadina). Campbell, a Jewish woman of Jamaican descent, seeks to build community among Jews of colour in Canada while opening dialogue about cultural and ethnic diversity. Campbell has faced challenges finding harmony in both the Black Canadian and Jewish communities. She’s called herself “too Black to be Jewish, too Jewish to be Black,” but despite her challenges, Campbell says she still finds ways to be meaningfully involved in her Jewish community, even serving as a synagogue administrator in Toronto.
Throughout the month of February, Alliance Française (24 Spadina) invites visitors to travel across Africa by viewing the photographs of Nadine McNulty. McNulty photographed families throughout the continent over a 20-year period, and her work focuses on quickly disappearing traditional ways of life. On February 28, the exhibition will be accompanied by a performance by Njacko Backo, a percussionist, singer, storyteller, choreographer, and songwriter/ composer who has been performing for children and adults since his childhood in Cameroon. His programs for children and youth draw on parallels and differences between Canadian and African family life.
Starting on February 27, Tafelmusik (427 Bloor) presents the cross-cultural multimedia project The Indigo Project, created by Alison McKay. This musical journey explores the vast social, cultural, and political implications of the blue dye that touched the lives of Europe’s lowest classes and its courts, North American slave plantations, and current-day garment workers.
On a completely different note – but not to be missed – is the world premier of Up TO and Including Their Limits, a new performance by the internationally-acclaimed artist Cassils at the Gardiner Museum (11 Queen’s Park). Cassils is known for jaw-dropping feats that highlight non-binary and trans visibility and violence, like pummelling a 2,000 lb block of clay and being set on fire in front of a live audience. Only 100 tickets have been released, and they’re going quickly!
These are just a few of February’s highlights of the Corridor, and they offer an important message: even the middle of winter is full of culture and colour in Toronto. So be sure to make the most of it.
Comments Off on ARTS: Bloor St. Culture Corridor celebrates Black History Month (Feb. 2020)Tags:Annex · Arts
Designed by IBI Group, the Theory Condo building is projected to rise 30 storeys and will house 243 condo units. BRIAN BURCHELL/GLEANER NEWS
In May 2020, the Annex Gleaner celebrates 25 years of publishing. In celebration, we are republishing highlights of our past; this feature, Fear of High Buildings Groundless by city-building columnist Alfred Holden, is from May 2001. As thirteen developments are going up in the Annex area it appears Holden’s views were prophetic.
By Alfred Holden
Howard Cohen and I have lunch together sometimes. He’s the only developer I can talk to – he “gets” the city, rides the streetcars, passes me clippings from the New York Times and, like a journalist, thinks he can earn his living and make the town a better place at the same time.
Cohen is a former City of Toronto planner who now builds condominiums. Many are in or near Gleaner territory, among them 20 Niagara St., the nearly-completed District Lofts near Richmond St. W. and Spadina Ave., and the Ideal Lofts, now under construction on College St., just west of Bathurst.
Without exception the buildings, which have been designed by a team headed by architect Peter Clewes, are clean and contemporary – boldly, bravely so, when you consider how most developers seem to think the public only wants “wedding cake” condos: buildings dripping curlicues and baroque ornament.
Ideal Lofts is in a better class. It has potential to live up to its name, as good design in and of itself – there’s a lot of glass, and glass is great – and it is a nicely-fitted addition to the bustling streetcar strip it will be part of.
On College St. Ideal Lofts’ front – clean and square like old factories nearby – rises right from the sidewalk, continuing the shop facades. Up a few floors Ideal steps back and then back again, yielding open terraces for residents and angles that let more sun down to the street.
At the back, the building’s nine or so storeys step down until the ideal blends at roof-level with the single-family homes to the south on Markham St.
Ideal, eh? By all rights, Howard Cohen should be the hero of neighbourhood groups.
But at the moment he’s not.
Cohen’s firm, Context Development Inc., is the one that’s butting heads with various groups over plans for a condominium on the grounds of St. James Cathedral, east of Yonge St. at Adelaide and Church streets.
It’s all a bit iconic: Context was chosen by the church’s board, from a number of potential developers, because of the higher-grade city-building that it has been doing.
Now they are in the hot seat.
Complicating factors, hugely, is the historic nature of the site, including the proposed demolition of the attractive parish hall there, and the presence of an old burial ground.
There is no easy way to resolve these matters.
But a key anxiety here is a deep-rooted bias against tall buildings. The original proposal for the site called for a 34-storey tower.
Enough said. You can hear the anger and the catcalls rising – the arguments about increased traffic; the angst about “crowding” in the city; the fury over the sacred god – the church – under siege by the secular one, money.
Yet time and experience and change are telling us our fear is unjustified, and ultimately harmful to the city.
Building up, not out, is the solution to a range of issues related to sprawl, transportation, pollution, long-term stewardship of land and, closer to our streets, improved quality of urban and community life.
Ideal shows how it can be done – what a long way Toronto’s planners, architects, and better developers have come since the 1960s and 70s, when angst reached its apex in an emergency height limit slapped on the city’s downtown development.
At the time the norm, indeed the requirement, was to blockbust – buy up the houses, shops, everything on entire blocks, bulldoze them and erect the era’s famous “towers in the park”.
“Open spaces” were somehow to redeem the buildings’ height. But at places like St. Jamestown near Parliament and Wellesley streets, the “parks” became empty, windswept, and ugly. All the demolition and destruction, and the disappointing city spaces that resulted, earned tall buildings a bad rap.
Fast-forward to 2001. Design principles have changed, but the terror over tall remains. Witness public upset over plans for two tower condominiums at Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave.
Here too is interesting irony.
The progressive left that once decried development and opposed towers now supports greater urban density – “Mainstreeting”, or building more compactly, building up not across, infilling, not sprawling.
The right-wing now owns the kind of properties it once blockbusted and has embraced NIMBY – not in my back yard. The headline on a National Post story about Minto’s Yonge-Eglinton point-tower project said simply, “Up is Down.”
Construction for The Waverly, a rental tower at 484 Spadina Avenue north of College Street, is currently underway. BRIAN BURCHELL/GLEANER NEWS
Yet neighbours are not threatened; those battles are still won. The need to weigh scale and context is embedded – as Howard Cohen has demonstrated. “You don’t want point towers at College and Bathurst,” he told me over coffee in his office in the Ryrie Building on Yonge St.
Some problems, like shadows, have serendipitous solutions. A tall thin tower, for instance, may yield a twenty-minute shadow; a lower long slab-building can cast darkness that lasts all day.
Some issues, such as traffic and parking, are proved moot with high buildings. Witness the mid- and high-rise Spadina Rd. and St. George St. apartment houses, where garage space can be rented by the public because many tenants living close to the subway, or who walk, don’t have cars.
Finally, at another level, the architectural opportunities created by tall buildings – for grandness, for innovations, for buildings that support modern life and embrace urbanity – are many, and not always predictable.
One of New York’s best-known images is of the Trinity Church at Wall St. and Broadway, with its spire nestled among the skyscrapers.
In Toronto, “I walk under this building, and its freedom,” Inez Zangger, a guest from Switzerland, told me last month while he walked through Commerce Court, where Toronto skyscrapers reach their peak. “Looking up, you see that anything is possible.”
Yet fear of heights persists in Toronto’s heart. “Sometimes,” Cohen tells me, “it seems like people (downtown) want Mississauga in the city.”
January 31st, 2020 · Comments Off on ON THE COVER (Jan. 2020)
Sanscon Construction crew members carefully guide the granite erratic found during construction of the Major Street Parkette to its new home in the Howland Avenue Parkette. James Roche of DTAH looks on. For more on the parkettes and their granite benches, please click here. NEILAND BRISSENDEN/BLOOR ANNEX BIA
Comments Off on ON THE COVER (Jan. 2020)Tags:Annex · News
A rendering by the Gleaner of the scale of the project superimposed on the corner of Bloor St. W. and Spadina Rd. GRAPHIC BY NEILAND BRISSENDEN
By Khyrsten Mieras
Connectivity, diversity, and adaptability, these are the buzz words promoters are using to describe a proposed redevelopment of the northwest corner of Bloor and Spadina. Members of the development team presented the project’s updated design during a community meeting at Trinity St. Paul’s United Church in December 2019.
The developers began preliminary consultations in November 2018. Owners of 334 Bloor St. W. and 344 Bloor St. W. and adjoining parking lot (to the east face of Shopper’s Drug Mart) have partnered on this project and billed it as a unified 350 Bloor St. W.
A recent meeting held by the design team and developers included two existing property owners and architects from IBI Group. They informed stakeholders of updates to the plan in advance of submitting an application to the city for approval. Key topics on the agenda included the planning framework, summary of previous meetings, and proposal for floor plans and landscapes.
Peter Venetas independently represents the developers and their process for community engagement, design, and approvals. He said that the redevelopment “offers a really amazing opportunity to provide both new housing, replacement rental housing, expanded offices, and then an interconnection to the TTC, as well as a series of other benefits to the public realm.”
For connectivity, he says the project aims to join the building with the surrounding neighbourhood and make improvements to the public realm through landscaping and widened sidewalks. There will also be a connection to other sites through subway integration that allows access between the building, the Spadina subway station, and loading and parking areas.
Their plan for diversity and adaptability will be incorporated through various uses of the building for retail, office, condo, and rental units, as well as modes of transportation like biking, walking, and public transit. Crossroads will also play a role in the building’s design, as it will be located on the northwest corner of the intersection at Bloor Street West and Spadina Road next to the subway. There will also be outdoor spaces with trees at street level and terraces on upper levels.
Several community members who attended voiced their concerns on issues like environmental stewardship, affordable housing, parking, shadow studies, and height of the projected 36-storey building. Team members said they are still making adjustments to the proposal.
In a subsequent interview with the Gleaner, Councillor Mike Layton explained that maximum height for the development is based on the Knox College Corridor, which protects the view of Knox College from the south side of College Street at Spadina Avenue to the north side of Bloor Street West.
“That would essentially put the maximum height of the building around 110 metres, which if you translate that into storeys is probably in the low 30s,” said Layton. “But then there’s also other things to address: the shadow impacts on any park space in the northwest [and] the transition from the tall building to the neighbourhood designation further west. So there’s a lot of other things that may impact the height that we don’t know yet.”
“Around sustainability the city has our green building standards that this building would have to follow as well. But when you look at how our city’s growing…it’s difficult to argue that this wouldn’t be an appropriate place for development, it’s just how is this development going to interact with the surrounding area,” Layton added.
Edward Leman, co-chair of Planning and Zoning for the Annex Residents’ Association (ARA), said that the project developer approached the ARA in the summer of 2018 to collaborate. Along with the Harbord Village Residents’ Association (HVRA), they set up a working group and held meetings to discuss plans and address concerns for the development.
“I think the really important thing is the shadow studies and the underground parking. They haven’t decided how much and that has a big impact on Bloor, the shops on Bloor, and so on,” said Leman. “So, we don’t know the two very important bits of information still missing.”
Venetas noted that it is difficult to speculate the timing for the completion of the project, as the application has not yet been submitted. He said that the approval process will likely take two to three years and the construction start date will depend on the market.
The developer’s representative declined repeated requests to share an image of their proposed development for this story.
Emerging from the dust will be much greater density
The Annex is by no means exempt from the building boom that sees the City of Toronto with more cranes in the sky than any other North American municipality.
The Gleaner is distributed to homes from College Street in the south, Dupont to the north, Avenue Road to the east and Christie Street to the west, and includes thirteen development sites all within our catchment.
These developments are at various stages along the stream from pie-inthe- sky to near completion. Many have shovels in the ground. What’s clear is that there is no consensus within the development industry whether it is wise to consult with the local community ahead of an application or skip the talking and get right to it by aiming high and planing to fight it out to try and get as much density as possible.
Notably, Westbank, the Honest Ed’s redevelopment of Mirvish Village, took the pre-application community consultation to a whole new level creating a win-win situation for developer and local stake-holders alike.
There is a mix of condominium, rental, and institution uses planned. In the next two to five years the population of the Annex will increase considerably.
See the image below for more on what to expect. Click on the image to enlarge.
January 31st, 2020 · Comments Off on NEWS: Aroma suddenly shuttered (Jan. 2020)
Closure leaves customers shocked
Locally loved, this Aroma Espresso Bar location (the first in Canada) was locked out by the landlord, unable to meet its rent obligations. Brian Burchell/Gleaner News
By Brian Burchell
A bailiff, acting for the landlord, has changed the locks at Aroma Espresso Bar (500A Bloor St. W.) having posted a notice stating rent in arrears of $24,538.70. The landlord is Harbour Sixty Steakhouse Inc., and the first Aroma Cafe location in Canada was beloved by many members of the Annex community.
“A franchisee buys a dream, which like any dream has a bit of a nightmare all wrapped up in it. You have to hit the ground running and eventually you run out of breath…”
—Philip Kuntz, longtime loyal customer
Philip Kuntz claims he was the first customer of this Aroma location.
“Aroma Canada came to have its own direction after a number of years trying to fulfill the original vision of the founder, who is based in Tel Aviv, Israel,” says Kuntz. “Aroma Canada sought to source local foods instead of having everything flown in as per franchise rules as it would be more economical given the high rent at the place. [The location], except perhaps for the first year, never made any money.”
For Kuntz, the story of Aroma Canada illustrates how difficult it is for many franchisees to cope with high rents and a highly competitive marketplace for food and drink while concurrently trying to toe the strict corporate line dictated by their agreements with head office.
He says the first operator of the cafe was so popular that people would stand in line just to be ignored by him.
“A franchisee buys a dream, which like any dream has a bit of a nightmare all wrapped up in it. You have to hit the ground running and eventually you run out of breath. I have lived through at least six administrations which never made money and eventually would pass it on, selling the dream. It was an unsustainable trajectory where the incoming management did not do its due diligence.”
Compounding the problems, he says, were strict rules from Tel Aviv requiring food to be imported. Kuntz says those rules began to be strictly enforced about a year ago, a point which he describes as “the beginning of the end”.
The last operator, Levi Tobe, confirmed to the Gleaner Kuntz’s background information for the reason for closing.
Tobe regarded the corporate requirement to import food from Tel Aviv as “untenable, and as things inside Aroma were changing [those rules being enforced], things did not work out.”
There are unconfirmed reports the location may become a wine bar venue.
The Tel Aviv headquarters for Aroma did not respond to a request for an interview for this story. The landlord, Harbour Sixty Steakhouse Inc., also did not reply to a request for an interview.
Comments Off on NEWS: Aroma suddenly shuttered (Jan. 2020)Tags:Annex · News
