Doug Ford government approves three MZOs -- with Olivia Chow's blessing

Premier Doug Ford's government has quietly issued three minister's zoning orders for key Toronto projects with Mayor Olivia Chow's approval.

Thestar.com
Jan. 3, 2024
Robert Benzie

Premier Doug Ford's government has quietly issued three minister's zoning orders for key Toronto projects with the approval of Mayor Olivia Chow, the Star has learned.

In contrast to past MZOs -- a controversial tool used to override local planning decisions that has fallen out of favour due to the Greenbelt scandal -- the province worked in lockstep with city hall.

MZOs have gained notoriety amid concerns from municipalities, opposition parties, community groups and environmentalists that the government was invoking too many of them.

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, who announced he was revisiting the use of zoning orders six weeks ago, has greenlit the three projects.

The new MZOs, which were posted online Friday, clear the way for:

• The preservation and protection of air flight paths of Ornge emergency helicopters that need to land at heliports at the Hospital for Sick Children on University Avenue and St. Michael's Hospital on Queen Street West.
• The expansion of the University Health Network's Toronto Western Hospital patient tower, a new 13-storey building with 100 in-patient beds and 20 operating theatres on Bathurst Street, just north of Dundas Street West.
• The relocation of Iqbal Halal Foods, a popular grocery story in Thorncliffe Park displaced by Metrolinx in order to build a maintenance and storage facility for the new Ontario Line subway.

Calandra worked closely with Chow on the MZOs.

"The mayor's office was consulted on all three of these," Arianne Robinson, Chow's press secretary, confirmed Monday.

At Queen's Park, Justine Teplycky, Calandra's director of communication, said "these MZOs have now been signed and approved by the minister."

"Minister's zoning orders remain an important tool to get critical local projects moving at the pace that Ontarians need and deserve," she said.

Teplycky noted when Calandra announced he was scaling back MZOs on Dec. 13, he had promised to push forward protection of the air ambulance flight corridor and a new location for the 30-year-old Halal supermarket.

"(It was) a request received from the minister of health and endorsed by Mayor Olivia Chow related to the protection of air flight paths of Ornge emergency helicopters, patients, and crews that need to land at hospitals in downtown Toronto," she said.

"(The second was) a request endorsed by Mayor Chow and Toronto city council intended to support a new location for a regionally significant Halal grocery store in the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood of Toronto."

City council passed a motion on Dec. 13 "to permit a grocery store on the lands at 100 Thorncliffe Park Dr., following the displacement of the grocery store at 2 Thorncliffe Park Dr., as a result of Metrolinx’s expropriation of lands."

But the expansion of the Toronto Western Hospital was not mentioned last month when the Progressive Conservatives heralded a curb in MZOs.

"Additionally, an MZO request was received from the minister of health to deliver on provincial priorities," said Teplycky.

"It was supported by Mayor Chow and Toronto city council relating to the expansion of the ... UHN Toronto Western Hospital patient tower," she said.

"This MZO will facilitate an expansion of the hospital with the development of a new 13-storey building as well as a wastewater energy transfer facility site. This MZO has also been approved."

At the time he announced the MZO pause, Calandra warned eight orders not related to housing and 14 others connected to other developments would be revoked because there was not "substantial progress" on them.

"I've always been clear that if we do not see the results respecting the minister zoning order, our government will not hesitate to amend or revoke it," Calandra said in December.

"It sends a clear message that when we issue a zoning order to support priorities like housing, long-term care, we expect to see results," he said.

In the wake of the Tories' $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal, which is now under investigation by the RCMP, the use of MZOs to expedite development has been widely criticized.

Last August, separate reports by the auditor general and integrity commissioner concluded that certain well-connected developers were "favoured" when Ford opened up 7,400 acres of protected Greenbelt land to build housing.

A month later, the premier was forced to cancel the land swap.

So far, two cabinet ministers and two top aides have parted ways with Ford over a debacle that continues to loom large.