Toronto City Council Agenda Preview: January/February 2017

We read all the staff reports so you don't have to.

By Neville Park

Photo by Sean Marshall from the Torontoist Flickr pool.

Need a break from the dumpster fire of current affairs? How about a fiery debate about dumpster privatization? Here’s our overview of the agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The Big Ticket

• The Mayor is pushing hard to contract out garbage collection in Scarborough, but it’s a controversial issue. Environmentalists, the union, and Council’s left are fiercely opposed. One big reason: a 2015 report [PDF] from Beth Goodger, the head of Solid Waste Management Services, found that privatization wouldn’t save money. After she left the City, the new division head, Jim McKay, was asked to take another look. His report says that it’s now financially worthwhile. Check out the updated financial information and decide for yourse—Oh. Sorry. It’s confidential. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

City Building

• A couple of years ago, at Council’s direction, KPMG were hired to carry out a lengthy review of how the TTC carries out capital projects and where it can improve. The final report has come before the TTC Board, Executive Committee, and now City Council. Here’s Steve Munro’s analysis of the report the first time around.

  One point that came up when criticizing project management at the TTC was that we don’t know how it compares to that of City capital projects as a whole; one of Executive Committee’s recommendations is for the City Manager to do a similar review across all divisions and agencies.

  This motion would also establish two new bodies: a Major Capital Project Task Force providing centralized project management, and a Major Capital Infrastructure Office staffed with “‘best in class’ public infrastructure experts” to “deliver major City infrastructure projects on time and on budget”.

  Munro:

  Any attempt to do this “on the cheap” with…inadequate resources…will be doomed.

  Executive Committee:

  Resources for [the Major Capital Project Task Force] should be found within existing budgets…

  Good luck with that!

• Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) and Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) have a motion asking the Province to work with Toronto and other municipalities to protect arts and cultural spaces like the beleaguered 401 Richmond.

• Toronto’s development boom means that the planners and lawyers who deal with development applications are increasingly overworked and behind project targets. Not only are there more applications, they’re also getting more complex, involving Section 37 agreements, OMB appeals, and City property. This motion from the Planning and Growth Management Committee would add $1.8 million to the 2017 budget to hire more planners, lawyers, and architects.

• The Annex is growing up: there’s an application for a 42-storey condo at Bloor and Spadina, and “preliminary inquiries” for more tall buildings in the area. This Official Plan Amendment is City Planning’s attempt to balance densification with the need to protect heritage properties and scenic views. Read the full report [PDF] for details.

• Do you happen to live in a condo on Queen’s Quay just on the other side of the Gardiner from Steam Whistle Brewery? If so, you might have to move.

Short Pants, Cap In Hand, Etc.

• There’s a lot of things Council wants to change in the City of Toronto Act—the provincial legislation that defines what our municipal government can and can’t do. Modernizing the legislation affects everything from bylaw infractions to revenue tools to climate change. Some of the City’s requests, like inclusionary zoning, have already been granted in different bills. Others, like the power to levy a hotel tax, are still in the works. City staff have prepared a handy summary [PDF] of all the requested amendments and their current status.

• Paul Ainslie (Ward 43, Scarborough East) and Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York-South Weston) want the City to hold its own public consultations about payday lenders to inform the City’s feedback on upcoming reforms to provincial legislation. (The Province is also having public hearings in late February.) For more background, see this recent CCPA report on why people turn to predatory payday lenders, and Global News’ analysis of the issue. Where are Toronto’s payday lenders located? Why, predominantly in communities with high social assistance rates.

• Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) and Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s) want Council to call on the federal government to do more to support Syrian refugees still stuck in the application process.

The Public Realm

• Hoping to commemmorate, say, Conrad the dead raccoon? You’d better have a good case for it, because Executive Committee wants to tighten up the standards for donations of public art and monuments.

• Just what Yonge-Dundas Square was missing: more giant video billboards. Expect this to be a passionate debate with scant attendance in the public chambers except for a couple journalists in the press gallery, Torontoist live bloggers, and lobbyists.

• The future of park improvements?

Research

• Raising the Village is a new City initiative to gather useful data and research on child and family well-being.

• The largest demographic of Torontonians on Ontario Works are single people, living on under $8,500 a year. How do they do it? Toronto Employment and Social Services has gotten a grant to study their needs and experiences.

Food and Drink

• Just because you make the best dim sum downtown doesn’t mean you can get a liquor license.

• FoodShare‘s Grab Some Good program, selling fresh produce out of TTC stations, will be extended to 2019 if this motion passes, which it almost certainly will.

Section 37 Benefits of the Month

• $2 million for streetscaping John Street, which runs near many downtown destinations.

• $1.6 million for Eva’s Phoenix, a supportive housing facility for homeless youth.

• The City had a commercial space in a Junction condo reserved for community or cultural purposes as a Section 37 benefit, but it’s too expensive for community agencies to actually afford, so they’re selling it off and putting the profits into other Section 37 stuff.

Heritage Properties of the Month

• 40 Colborne Street, home of the first Grand and Toy store, currently a steakhouse.

• These Victorian row houses at Shuter and Mutual.

Miscellaneous

• Tree removal applications are where City Council reaches peak pettiness. These routine items come before the community councils and have to be approved by Council as a whole, and have long been used as an opportunity for outnumbered councillors to grandstand about why people should be able to cut down trees on their own property without all the red tape. Now the historically anti-tree Etobicoke York Community Council wants to find out if tree permits can be delegated to community councils. On one hand, existing geopolitical differences between councillors would mean that in practice the City’s tree-related policy goals would be implemented unevenly and less effectively. On the other, we’d waste so much less time.

• In the wake of a young woman’s death at a nightclub, Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) wants to make private EDM events safer. Here’s our rundown.

• TTC fare inspectors are getting a new “customer friendly uniform without batons or handcuffs.”

• Is it appropriate for a city councillor to block anonymous Twitter trolls? The answer may surprise you! Read the Integrity Commissioner’s 2016 Annual Report to find out.

Did we miss anything interesting or important? Let us know in the comments, and tune in at 9:30 a. m. for the liveblog.