The Public Realm

Our public spaces are cherished and need to remain open to various public uses and free from corporate influence.  Yonge and Dundas Square is a perfect example of turning a great opportunity for the enrichment of the public into a literal corporate billboard, dozens of them in fact.  What a garish and uninspired use of public space.  We must preserve our public realm and use it to give residents a sense of space and history, not just to gather advertising dollars or enrich developers.

Accessibility

Making as much space as possible fully accessible cannot come fast enough, especially on the TTC.  There are complications in our ward, like the split sidewalk on the north side of Queen St between Hammersmith and Glen Manor, but we need to get creative and find more solutions.

Urban Design Guidelines and Heritage Conservation

I also address this topic in my section on responsible development. We are losing our heritage far too quickly in this city, most of it being gobbled up by developers.  There are so many older buildings with details the likes of which we will never see again, because it would eat too much into developers’ profits to create that kind of building façade. We saw this in full effect with the defacing of the art deco limestone facade of the northeast corner of Kingston Rd and Scarborough Rd.

The condo conversion of Bellefair United Church on Queen shows it is possible to maintain the heritage element, we need more innovations and preservation like that.  The loss of the beautiful old house on the northwest corner of Main and Kingston is a shame.  We are likely to lose even more older architecture on Kingston Rd when 955 gets redeveloped. 

Every neighbourhood should have urban design guidelines, developed with the community, to rein in developers and give the community peace of mind.  Of course, the province has the power to sweep away urban design guidelines, but that does not mean they should not exist.  They really should be inviolable, and not a hurdle to bypass as happened at the Shell Station (Heartwood) or Murphy’s Law and is going to happen at 1631 Queen St.  I speak at length here about the Heartwood condo violating the urban design guidelines, the irony being the section they violated is still in the guidelines.

I am very much in favour of creating new heritage conservation districts to protect our neighbourhoods, from main streets to side streets.  As stated elsewhere, our development policy is incompatible with mitigating climate change, every addition of density strains our services and infrastructure and makes our city less livable and our food security worse, and we are losing our history and character with every drab cube-like condo erected and every beautiful historical building demolished.

Public Art

Anyone following my activities knows what a proponent of public art I am.  I’ve run three different public art Jane’s Walks in the area, I chose the artist on one of our traffic signal boxes (Queen and Beech), with the BIA I devised and executed the “What do you love about the Beach?” painting on the construction hoarding of the Remax, and I spearheaded and even designed some of the tree planter paintings on Queen St in the Beach.

StreetART Toronto is an amazing initiative, and it needs to be expanded.  Every empty grey wall or blank brick alleyway should become a gallery for the public to enjoy.  Not only does it discourage graffiti, it beautifies the area and becomes a tourist attraction.

Putting public art on construction hoarding should be mandatory, with the requirement to use local artists and be entirely at the expense of the developer.  Construction is enough of a drain on an area, it should not also mean staring at empty plywood walls for a year or more.

And when developers are required to add some public art to a new development, it should go to a vote by local residents.  Too many developers have chosen the most drab and uninspired metal monstrosities, one might even say utilitarian, pieces of public art to put in the middle of their courtyards.  We cannot leave our public realm in the hands of the same developers surrounding us with drab condos.

Culture, History, and Tourism

The loss of the Science Centre, Ontario Place, and the Planetarium are devastating. Mayor Chow made a promise to stand up for the Science Centre and then horse-traded it away for uploading the DVP to the province.

We should not be negotiating with the blatant destruction to favour redevelopment of the Ford government, they spent more on moving the Science Centre than it would have cost to fix it, and private donors were ready to fund it. We should have been fighting with every tool in the legal toolbox and suing the province for removing the authority of the TRCA, and if necessary physically preventing the demolition. That was a one of kind architectural wonder, nestled inside of nature, that we will never see again.

Ontario Place was left derelict by the province for decades, and while the city had other priorities to fund, we should have looked into ways to revive or repurpose it, even if only temporarily and partially. And we should have physically prevented the destruction of the 865 trees the province took down before they even had a deal in place.

The Planetarium is yet another example of the province leaving something to rot until it has to be demolished. Like the Science Centre, this unique learning experience for students will never again exist.

Toronto must protect our historical and cultural sites, not just for tourists, but for our own residents, in particular students. Moving the Science Centre downtown puts it out of reach for many schools for whom the travel time is now too great. Whether it’s through private funding or more funding from senior levels of government, Toronto needs to take over any culturally significant sites that the province or other entities are letting go by the wayside.

City-owned Community Centres and Arenas

Community centres are a crucial amenity for any neighbourhood, providing vital services that engage and activate residents. In particular, they can be an invaluable resource for families of lower income looking for affordable childcare or extracurricular activities for their children. O’Connor Early Learning & Child Care Centre is a great example of this.

However, our community centres are not subject to democracy or the desires of residents, they are run by an unelected board of appointees who may or may not have their own agenda. Point in case, Ted Reeve Arena and the decision to end 30 years of lacrosse there.

There was some dirty pool in that decision. Community members supporting lacrosse were misled to believe the decision about it would not occur until a later meeting, only to find out that without notice nor any chance to advocate for lacrosse, it was decided to keep the ice in the rink all summer and eliminate lacrosse, which has limited options to move elsewhere.

Appointed boards of management should only have purview over the administration of the community centre or arena, they should not have the unilateral power to decide programming or public use of the space. There should be democratic mechanisms in place to gather the desires of the users of the space and the surrounding community. And there needs to be full transparency as to the appointment process and how and why a board member came to be on the board.

Due to the questionable actions of the Ted Reeve board, and that there are genuine concerns of conflicts of interest and not following proper procedures and protocols, as councillor I would seek to overturn the decision, and after a thorough investigation, remove any board members who violated the bylaws.

Valuable community resources should be beholden to the residents of the communities in which they exist, not to the whims of an unelected board that may have other interests.