Toronto’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat leaving post
Keesmaat will “pursue other interests” as of Sept. 29, the city announced. She has been involved in decisions on the Gardiner, Scarborough subway, Crosstown LRT, and Rail Deck Park.

thestar.com
By JENNIFER PAGLIARO
Aug. 28, 2017

After making her mark for publicly sparring with politicians over progressive visions while channeling the Jane Jacobs doctrine of city-building, chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat will leave her post this fall.

The city announced Monday that Keesmaat will depart Sept. 29 to “pursue other interests” - which, according to sources, came as a surprise to her own staff and was only made known to the mayor’s office last week.

Keesmaat did not respond to requests for comment to confirm her future plans. In the past she has been courted to run for political office but has privately told people at city hall she is not interested.

In a statement released by the city, Keesmaat said: “I look forward to new challenges in the important business of city-building now enriched by invaluable lessons, new friends and colleagues acquired while serving the people of our great city, Toronto.”

On Twitter, where she is often outspoken while cultivating an adoring following rare for a city bureaucrat, she added: “I will be taking a breather and spending some time with my family.”

Those who supported her policy positions say her departure will leave a “massive hole” in city planning. Tackling some of the city’s biggest transit and transportation projects in the last five years has also meant Keesmaat has been in the midst of ongoing controversy.

“It definitely feels like the end of an era that was all too short,” said Richard Joy, executive director of Toronto’s Urban Land Institute think tank.

“I think she really returned the sense of city-building and the spirit of civic responsibility over the destiny of our city to a time that might only have been rivaled in the 1970s.”

Her leadership style sparked praise from those who valued her vision and sharp rebukes from those opposed.

A battle over the future of the Gardiner Expressway saw Keesmaat pushing to tear down the eastern section and create a “grand boulevard.” In 2015, it led to a prolonged, public spat with Mayor John Tory who successfully pushed to keep the elevated expressway up.

“She was willing to stand up in opposition to the original vision of a brand new, powerful mayor and other political forces, which was, I think, characteristic of her style and of her guts,” Joy said.

But in the back-half of the term, Tory and Keesmaat have been said to be on good terms. Sources confirmed Monday that Tory personally asked Keesmaat not to leave.

In a statement, Tory thanked Keesmaat for her “tremendous passion,” adding she “used her platform and voice as chief planner to help guide council’s efforts to build a better city for all Torontonians.”

Keesmaat was appointed by the city in 2012 out of the private sector, in part, to be a visionary, said provincial housing minister Peter Milczyn, who, as a city councillor, led the selection process.

“With the exception of maybe a couple of tweets early on in her time at city hall, I think she was always professional and objective and fulfilled her role as a public servant very well,” he said.

With the construction of the 19-kilometre Crosstown LRT well underway, along with a plan for building up Eglinton Ave. in its path, Councillor Shelley Carroll credited Keesmaat with keeping plans for a transit-oriented, cycling-friendly city from being derailed.

“I don’t know if we would still have those ideas afloat in the back-to-back Ford and Tory mayoralty without her at the helm,” Carroll said.

Some projects have not gone to plan.

Though Keesmaat pushed for the approved, seven-stop LRT to replace the Scarborough RT, council in 2013 instead approved a three-stop subway that would cost the city far more while serving far fewer people.

Analysis provided by her planning division helped fuel the about-face, which Keesmaat later admitted was both “rushed” and “problematic.”

Despite her attempt last year to create a compromise by reducing the number of new subway stops to just one and using the savings to fund an extension of the Crosstown LRT, today plans for a single-stop extension are progressing while the LRT remains largely unfunded - leaving the dream of a transit network in Scarborough in limbo.

And there are still projects left unfinished.

While she championed the idea of a “Central Park” in the heart of the downtown called Rail Deck Park, the cited cost of at least $1 billion has fueled skepticism it will ever come to fruition.

It is expected Gregg Lintern, director of community planning for the Toronto and East York district, will take over as acting chief planner.