Vacant tax crowds Council's agenda
The week at Toronto City Hall for April 15 to 19, featuring a Council meeting with so very many items about the vacant home tax, plus Airbnb regulations, parking tickets, booze in parks and more.
Hey there! Back again for a special free issue of City Hall Watcher, with a complete preview of next week’s Council meeting. The agenda has five separate items on the vacant home tax. Will Council fix the tax? Kill it? Hide it in a closet somewhere? Put an elaborate disguise on it and pretend like they’re just meeting it for the first time? Let’s find out together. — Matt Elliott
What happened this week
🏘️ Yet another housing bill by Premier Doug Ford’s government appeared to offer some good news for City Hall’s finances, as some restrictions to phasing in municipal development charges introduced in the earlier Bill 23 were walked back.
🚔 There continues to be fallout from a letter signed by councillors Amber Morley, Ausma Malik, Gord Perks, Paula Fletcher, Alejandra Bravo, and Lily Cheng, which reaffirmed the City as a “place where all people are free to demonstrate and engage in protest as a form of democratic expression.”
The letter, which followed a protest on March 30 at which a handful of protestors were arrested—including one for throwing horse manure—has drawn the ire of the Toronto Police Association. They urged Mayor Olivia Chow to condemn the letter and consider removing Cheng and Morley from the Police Services Board. Chow declined.
Correction, April 15: This section has been updated from an earlier version that indicated Councillor Alejandra Bravo was on the Police Services Board. She’s not. The other City Hall appointee is Councillor Jon Burnside.
Cheng later pulled back her support for the letter, saying she signed it without reading the final version. She’s posted a revised statement on her website.
💧Did Toronto City Hall plan to tax the rain? No, no, no, never. Seriously, no. “But what about…?” you might be asking. Let me stop you right there. The answer is no.
But following a downpour of outrage in the Toronto Sun and on talk radio following the City’s announcement of plans to consult on whether Toronto should adopt a stormwater charge similar to Mississauga and other cities, Mayor Olivia Chow has called the whole thing off.
Far from taxing the rain, a stormwater charge would have sought to put a price on property owners with large impermeable surfaces that disproportionately contribute to stormwater that taxes the City’s water infrastructure. Those with large roofs and large parking lots would have been hit the hardest.
Chow’s move is hardly a victory for those who hate the word “tax,” though. The mayor is very likely to support a commercial parking levy — coming as a proposal ahead of next year’s budget — that will have a similar policy effect as a stormwater charge, by putting a tax on large parking lots.
Monday, April 15
No meetings scheduled.
Tuesday, April 16
⭐️ The federal budget will be unveiled in Ottawa.
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ The Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Advisory Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. (👀 Watch Live: YouTube, Committee Room 2)RECREATION CREATION: Based on some feedback received at a previous meeting of this committee, staff are reporting back on their work to create an inclusive “Gender” dropdown in the new — and long-awaited, and much anticipated — booking system for swimming lessons, camps and other recreation programs.
Here’s what they’ve come up with:
The system is expected to launch in Q4 of this year.
AND ALSO:
The committee will get a presentation from Fire Services on their diversity and inclusion efforts.
Previously, in City Hall Watcher
For paid subscribers of City Hall Watcher, this week’s issue has:
City Hall Watcher’s annual City-focused look at the provincial Sunshine List, analyzing department-by-department trends. Which divisions are making more? Which are making less? How much did the TTC CEO’s salary go up this year? It was a bright, bright, sunshiney day for data analysis.
Next week:
It’s a double dose of data analysis, with a look at seven years of procurement data and Toronto’s share of provincial funding announcements.
Subscribe today for ad-free access to weekly subscriber-exclusive issues.
Wednesday, April 17
🏟️ Council meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. (👀 Watch Live: Council Chamber, YouTube)VACANT TITLE: Major challenges with collecting this year’s vacant home tax have prompted some motions. A lot of motions. The tax is vacant but the agenda is full of motions about it.
There are five separate items on this agenda about the tax.
Mayor Olivia Chow has a motion waiving the late fee for those who didn’t realize they had to declare this year. A supplementary report on her item will also provide some info about plans for doing better next year, including the possibility of a system that uses utility data instead of the manual and annual declaration process.
Councillor Brad Bradford has questions. Via an administrative inquiry, he’s asking for the number of 311 contacts regarding the vacant home tax and other details.
Councillor Frances Nunziata wants upgrades to the online declaration process so that people are provided with a receipt confirming that they made their declaration.
Councillor Vince Crisanti wants staff to specifically look at making the declaration process easier for seniors.
But in another motion that could make that one moot, Crisanti is also moving to cancel the vacant home tax entirely. Councillor Stephen Holyday has seconded this one.
SOMETHING IN THE AIR: A battle is brewing over a change to the short-term rental regulations affecting services like Airbnb.
A staff report recommended applying a limit on the number of nights per year a resident can offer a room as a short-term rental. Currently, while there is a cap of 180 rented nights per year on “whole-home rentals” where guests can free reign of a house or condo, room rentals where guests share accommodations with the resident(s) have no limit.
But the staff recommendation to extend the 180-night cap to all types of listings was rejected by the Planning & Housing Committee on April 5 on a 6-1 vote, with only Councillor Gord Perks opposed.
As a result, Perks — the committee chair — also voted against the report itself. I’d expect Perks to try to restore the original staff recommendation at this meeting or at least work out some compromise.
CHEERS TO THAT: Council will be asked to officially allow people to drink alcohol in parks. But not all parks.
Following an experiment with allowing booze in 27 parks — wherein no major issues were reported — staff still aren’t ready to recommend allowing alcohol in all parks city-wide. Instead, the ability to legally crack a beer or drink a bottle of wine is recommended to be made a permanent feature of all 27 pilot parks, with more parks added in the future via a process that’ll require local councillor approval.
The Economic & Community Development Committee passed an amendment recommending adding Riverdale Park West as a booze-permitted park.
Councillor Paula Fletcher also passed a bevy of motions intended to ensure that at least one park in every ward allows alcohol. That could get a rough ride from the 12 councillors who do not have a participating park in their ward.
AND ALSO:
After a delay last month, parking tickets are back on the menu. Assuming they don’t defer the item again, councillors will decide whether it makes sense to increase the hit from parking tickets for the first time in about two decades. I had a full accounting of the proposed increases in a previous issue.
There are bound to be many concerns about the coming changes to the blue box program. After finding the proposed terms unacceptable, City Hall dropped out of the bid process to have City workers continue to collect recycling under the new provincial “Extended Producer Responsibility” program. A new and as yet unspecified vendor will handle collection starting January 1, 2026.
Tenant advocates are pushing for changes to the rules that require developers who want to demolish rental buildings to compensate displaced residents. One big issue is that City policy uses the CHMC Rental Market Report to determine fair compensation. Advocates say that the CHMC data does not accurately reflect the market for units that are both local and available, leaving displaced tenants facing a big gap when looking for new accommodation.
Planned bike lane installations for Q2 2024 may give at least one councillor an opportunity to mash the “no” button a few times. The proposal includes a plan for bike lanes on Portland Street and Dan Leckie Way, creating a new link to the waterfront for cyclists.
Speaking of pedalled vehicles, Council will also consider a staff report on the city’s pedal pubs — large quadricycles that travel on brewery tours around downtown. In other cities, people are allowed to drink while riding. In Toronto, our pedal pubs are booze-free. After a pretty successful pilot project, staff are recommending that pedal pub businesses be permitted to continue to peddle and pedal around the city. Pedal Pub Toronto — so far the only operator in the city — has two additional requests to Council. They’d like City Hall to lift a restriction that prevents them from riding on Front Street, and no longer prevent pedal pubs from rolling between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m.
🏆 The Bid Award Panel meets via videoconference at 2 p.m.This agenda wasn’t published yet as of press time. I’ll have the contract award of the week in Monday’s issue of the newsletter.
Thursday, April 18
🏟️ Council meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. (👀 Watch Live: Council Chamber, YouTube)Council will be back for day two. I’ll have live coverage on Mastodon and BlueSky and elsewhere.
Friday, April 19
🏟️ Council might meet at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. (👀 Watch Live: Council Chamber, YouTube)I’d be surprised and disappointed if this agenda takes more than two days to finish, but I’ve been surprised and disappointed before.
The Week After Next
Passover is Tuesday. No meetings scheduled.
The Far-Flung Future
Mayor Olivia Chow’s Executive Committee meets next on May 14
Council’s next meeting starts on Wednesday, May 22.
Feedback? Tip? Email Matt Elliott. For advertising inquiries, email Sean Hansel.
If you're pissing off the Toronto Police Association you're probably doing something right!