Island airport gets some runway, vacant tax isn't vacated, AG finds parks staff parked
The week at Toronto City Hall for October 14 to October 18, featuring audits on park maintenance and online payments, plus news on the island airport and the vacant home tax
Hey there! What a week. Thanks for all the kind words about the 300th issue milestone. I wanted to send you into the Thanksgiving weekend stuffed with knowledge, so here’s a special bonus edition of CHW, looking at the week ahead. There are tidbits about park maintenance, online payments, a new community centre, a delayed LRT project and more. — Matt Elliott
What happened this week
The October 2024 meeting of Toronto City Council is in the books. I’ll have a full summary and an edition of the Quotable Council in next week’s regular issue, but here are some highlights.
✈️ Council voted 17-8 to support the “Option 1” proposal to add safety areas to the runway at the Island Airport, giving the airport a 12-year lease extension if it’s deemed necessary for financing.
Mayor Olivia Chow and Councillor Shelley Carroll presented the outcome as City Hall giving a win to Ports Toronto and the island airport, but airport boosters aren’t taking the W. They wanted a 40-year lease extension, an endorsement of the more expansive “Option 3” for the runway end safety areas, and authorization to renegotiate aspects of the lease agreement.
In the Toronto Star, Ed Keenan tries to untangle things.
🫥 The vacant home tax lives. Despite a “hot mess” of an experience administering the tax earlier this year, Council voted down Councillor Stephen Holyday’s motion to cancel the tax and Councillor Brad Bradford’s motion to pause the tax and come up with alternative methods to determine vacancies.
The window for declaring whether your home has been vacant for more than six months this year will open on November 1. City staff are promising a much smoother experience.
You can read my thread of Council coverage on Mastodon.
In other news
🚊 The hits just keep coming for Metrolinx projects. Mobilinx, the consortium they contracted with to build the Hurtontario LRT in Mississauga, has been placed on “CreditWatch Negative” following project delays. The report from S&P cites things like “track tolerance issues” and design changes.
🚿 “We’re talking about a large upfront expenditure from the public purse, one that overwhelmingly benefits a single private corporation and that will be recouped — if at all — one pittance at a time. For waterfront real estate in Toronto, this is terrible performance.” For TVO, John Michael McGrath runs the numbers on details we learned from the release of the Ontario Place lease with Therme.
🚩 Councillor Michael Thompson was attending Council virtually this week while standing trial in Bracebridge for charges of sexual assault. The Star’s Betsy Powell has been following the proceedings in the courtroom.
📏 The Local has conducted a detailed analysis of life expectancy by Toronto neighbourhood, in collaboration with St. Michael’s Hospital. Fascinating stuff. Tai Huynh looks at the city-wide data, while Nicholas Hune-Brown zeroes in the neighbourhood with the lowest life expectancy, Moss Park.
🏘️ At Storeys, Teagan Silz writes about the policy debate playing out between Councillor Gord Perks, the Chair of the Planning & Housing Committee, and housing advocates and developers.
Perks is taking flak for denying City Hall has responsibility for the housing crisis. “The claim that government interventions through public consultations, zoning regulations, and fees and charges have stopped housing from being affordable is nonsense … Government action is not why there’s a housing affordability crisis in Toronto,” he tells Silz.
Housing advocate Mark Richardson of HousingNowTO isn’t a fan of that kind of rhetoric — and seems to be done pulling punches:
“Unfortunately, based on his comments at Committee, it appears that Councillor Perks is clearly far more interested in recycling anti-capitalist dogma and debate-club posturing than actually executing upon the many new build affordable rental apartment developments and delivery opportunities that are currently languishing somewhere within the City of Toronto and CMHC’s many amorphous bureaucratic blobs," Richardson tells STOREYS. "Our volunteers at HousingNowTO have clearly and repeatedly shown site-by-site examples where City Hall policy and processes are negatively impacting the real-world delivery of new below-market rental apartments in Toronto."
The article also includes comments from developers Chris Spoke and Marlon Bray.
Monday, October 14
🦃 It’s Thanksgiving Monday.No meetings scheduled.
Tuesday, October 15
🕵 The Audit Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.PARK LIFE: The AG has put together a pretty damning report following an investigation into the City’s park maintenance. According to the paper logs filled out by park employees, they spent about 51% of their time on an eight-hour shift doing park maintenance work. But GPS logs suggest they actually only spent about 32% of their time on shift doing park maintenance work. Uh oh.
In reality, parks workers appear to spend a lot of time parked. Per the GPS logs analyzed, an average of 46 minutes per day was spent at plazas and non-park locations, like these:
Another 90 minutes or so was spent on average at “other City locations” where it’s not clear whether the crews are being productive.
There’s obviously a big discrepancy between the paper logs filled out by workers describing their daily activity and the GPS logs. Even though most vehicles are now equipped with GPS, the Parks division has not been using GPS to monitor crews. Instead, it relies on old-school paper records.
Management has said they’ve now changed to using the GPS information. They’ve also accepted nine specific recommendations to improve their monitoring.
It’s important they figure it out. The AG also found that Parks is generally having trouble achieving service standards. In August 2023, only 65% of parks the AG looked at had litter picked up and grass mowed as per the service standard. Only 55% of washrooms were maintained daily. Only 9% of splash pads were maintained as per the service standard.
The AG will soon conduct a second phase audit of the Parks division, reviewing the inspection process and maintenance of park amenities.
PAYIT BACK: The AG has also produced a report on the controversial deal Council struck with PayIt to provide an online payment platform for City services. The controversy is rooted in the fact that the PayIt deal emerged from an unsolicited proposal to City staff, not a competitive procurement.
By itself, that isn’t necessarily a problem, but the AG finds that “the policy and process for unsolicited proposals were not followed, even after concerns were raised.” City staff met with Payit “several times” in 2019 and helped to develop a “proof of concept” for a sole-sourced proposal.
The most alarming stat: it’s estimated that 20 staff in the Technology Services spent a combined 1,200 hours helping PayIt build its unsolicited “proof of concept.” Staff also told Council that the PayIt platform was “unique” even though online payment platforms are incredibly commonplace.
Once the deal was in place, the AG found that many touted benefits didn’t materialize. The PayIt platform has not been expanded to other payment types beyond parking tickets, property taxes, and utility bills, and adoption rates are lower than forecast. And staff forecasted an $11 million ROI over five years, but the AG notes, “City staff have not been able to provide us with the actual ROI achieved over the first three years of the contract.” Whoops.
Last June, staff told Council they were using their delegated authority to extend the PayIt deal for another two years, through 2026. They’re promising an open procurement process for the contract that follows.
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ The Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Advisory Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.The Committee will hear a presentation on the City’s access plan for two-spirit, trans and non-binary youth. They’ll also get a presentation on the City’s social procurement policy.
Wednesday, October 16
🗂️ The General Government Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.NATE MUST WAIT: In response to a motion from Councillor Paul Ainslie to look at ways to spruce up Nathan Phillips Square, staff have some unfortunate news: there isn’t really any money for that. Staff have identified $68.4 million worth of long-term “holistic preservation” work needed for the Square, but they only have about $1.1 million in their budget over the next three years for planning and design.
The good news, though, is that there have been some recent improvements to the Square — notably, the opening of the new (and very nice) Residential School Survivors space on the west side.
AND ALSO:
Toronto Paramedic Services has a report on their efforts to be more environmentally friendly. They’ve installed anti-idle systems and solar panels on their vehicles, but, alas: “Currently, there are no electric ambulances available in the market that are certified for use in Ontario by the Ministry of Health.”
The City has been sued for $13.5 million by the contractor it hired to build the Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre and Library. Eastern Construction Company is alleging they incurred extra costs during construction.
The cost of the City’s long-awaited new financial management software has gone up. The previous estimate was $52 million. It’s now $65 million. Deloitte is handling the software integration.
🏆 The Bid Award Panel meets via videoconference at 2 p.m.CONTRACT AWARD OF THE WEEK: Up to $11 million for VMWare software.
🗳️ There’s a Ward 15 Don Valley West candidates debate at 7 p.m.The Federation of North Toronto Residents Association (FoNTRA) is hosting. Eleven candidates are invited, so, um, well, I wish them luck in avoiding chaos.
(Updated Oct 12: Whoops! I had this listed on the wrong date and with the wrong host. Long week. The details have been corrected.)
Thursday, October 17
♿️ The Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.
The Committee will get a chance to offer some feedback on the accessibility planned for the new John Innes Community Rec Centre in Moss Park. It’s a pretty darn snazzy building. Too bad it’s not due to open until at least 2029.
In addition, the TTC will be in attendance to collect feedback on Wheel-Trans, and there will be an invitation for committee members to help with the accessibility testing of the new recreation program booking system.
And after it was deferred last month, the committee will again consider a thoughtful request from a resident about ways to improve accessibility around construction sites.
🥖 The Toronto Francophone Affairs Advisory Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.A presentation to the committee provides an absurd amount of data about the demographics of the 77,145 Francophones who live in Toronto. It’s a 60-slide presentation! C’est grande.
The French-language committee will also hear about ongoing efforts to offer French tour brochures (and maybe guided tours, eventually) at the ten museums and historic sites owned by the City.
🏚️ The Toronto Preservation Board meets via videoconference at 9:30 a.m.The Board will consider heritage protection for Knox Presbyterian Church at 630 Spadina Avenue. An application has been submitted to build a 40-storey building around the church.
Friday, October 18
🏢 The TCHC Board meets at City Hall at 9 a.m.The agenda for this meeting is not yet available. I’ll cover anything notable in next week’s issue.
🎢 The Board of Governors of Exhibition Place meets at Beanfield Centre at 9:30 a.m.The Board will sign off on their operating and capital budget submissions for 2025. The recommended operating budget forecasts a $450,000 deficit at the end of the year. Capital spending totals $258 million over ten years, with $67 million of that devoted to FIFA-related projects.
🪧 The Sign Variance Committee meets via videoconference at 9:30 a.m.Hotel operator RIU is looking for approval for a big “RIU” sign near the top of the 48-storey tower at 30 Widmer Street, by Adelaide & John. Staff are recommending refusal, arguing that because the building is mixed-use and includes both a hotel and residential component, the sign goes against the rules.
“There are numerous residential towers in proximity to the Proposed Sign’s location, none of which feature upper-level signs to identify the building or businesses on the lower storeys,” the report says.
🚘 The Toronto Parking Authority meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.The Board will approve their budget submission for 2025. Revenue for the TPA in 2025 is expected to grow 10% next year. The agency has now fully recovered its lost revenue from the pandemic, helped by increased parking rates.
Bike Share ridership for 2025 is forecast at 6.9 million, a nice increase over the 6.4 million rides in 2024 and a gigantic increase over the 2.4 million rides in 2019.
One thing to watch, though: the TPA reports that the cost of rehabilitating the parking garage under City Hall is $90 million. And it’s totally unfunded.
The Week After Next
The City is holding a series of budget consultation meetings starting on Sunday, October 19.
The Infrastructure & Environment Committee meets on Tuesday, October 22.
The Economic & Community Development Committee meets on Wednesday, October 23.
Toronto & East York Community Council meets on Thursday, October 24.
The Far-Flung Future
The by-election to fill the vacancy in Ward 15 is on Monday, November 4.
Council next meets on Wednesday, November 13.
Feedback? Tip? Email Matt Elliott. For advertising inquiries, email Sean Hansel.