It’s a whopper! Toronto council kicks off huge meeting
From King St. streetcars to remaking community housing to pill problems here is our guide to a jam-packed council agenda.

TheStar.com
July 4, 2017
Jennifer Pagliaro

City council will consider a whopping 265 agenda items starting Tuesday — from the future of Toronto Community Housing to a climate change action plan — before regular business pauses for the summer break.

What’s expected to be a four day meeting will include debates on a long list of potentially contentious items along with routine community matters.

Here is our guide to the meeting ahead:

The basics

Council typically meets once a month to approve the decisions made by various committees and also to consider new business along with motions brought by council members. Because several items were deferred from the last meeting when council ran out of time, and there is no other council meeting until October, this round is jam-packed with both major policy and things like neighbourhood disputes over fences. Expect some fireworks (post-Canada Day).

The big stuff

• Putting Tenants First: A plan to remake Toronto Community Housing is taking shape slowly at city hall. An updated implementation plan recommends hiving off seniors buildings and making them the responsibility of a new city agency. How that will impact the corporation and city’s finances or benefit tenants has yet to be detailed. Importantly, the plan identifies that TCH needs hundreds of millions of dollars in the next two years to prevent the closure of units and keep track with new development projects.
• Life support: Council will consider what’s been called an ambitious climate change action plan called TransformTO, which advocates have lauded for attempting to achieve an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It’s estimated to cost $6.7 million next year, which has Mayor John Tory talking about the need to prioritize. That has some backers of the plan worried it will be pulled apart.
• Streetcars are King: Council will vote on a King St. pilot that will give priority to streetcar routes — the busiest in the city. That has suburban councillors anxious over traffic congestion, but has received the backing of the mayor. His executive agreed to ask staff for additional information about giving taxis exemptions from driving rules during the pilot, which could flare up at council.

 

The up-for-debate

• War on streetcars: At the urging of Councillor Michael Ford, he and his colleagues will now debate the merits of extending bus service instead of streetcars on Queen St., which the TTC and experts have already outlined is a terrible idea.
• Towering concerns: The staff approval of a 24-storey condo at 90 Eglinton Ave. has not only local residents concerned about their quickly-changing Yonge-Eglinton neighbourhood, but has the potential to undermine several of the city’s key plans for midrise development along Eglinton Ave. Local councillors plan to ask council to refuse the application, against staff advice.
• Pill problems: The city employees being overprescribed deadly opioids and Viagra as part of an updated report on her investigation of drug claims. Council will consider recommendations, including possibly reporting to the regulatory body those doctors that appear to have overprescribed the deadly fentanyl.
• Let the kids play: The ombudsman has found city staff need to work on handling complaints about park permits after it was reported a toddlers summer program was booted from a Beach parkette last year.
• Flood damage: The city is already estimated to lose $5 million in revenues related to recent flooding, not including necessary repairs that will be required when the waters recede. Staff are asking permission to possibly forgive rent and fees for some island tenants.
• Noxious no more?: Staff and the local councillor are trying to move a controversial concrete batching facility from Mimico to the Port Lands. This is the location that has sparked concerns after council approved townhome development near the facility and an active railyard. Staff are recommending negotiations with the company continue to make the move happen.

 

The good-to-know

• Anybody home? The city is considering a tax on vacant homes, but it isn’t at the approval stage yet. Council is being asked to give staff permission to study different options and report back to executive committee in September.
• A wider circle: Council is being asked to consider creating a new Aboriginal Office as other initiatives at city hall, including an internship program, aim to be more inclusive of Indigenous people and their knowledge
• A new face: This will be the first meeting for newly-appointed Ward 44 (Scarborough East) Councillor Jim Hart, who was picked for the seat last week by his fellow council members with 67 per cent of the vote. He replaces former councillor Ron Moeser, who died in April.
• Police presence: Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti has what appears to be a trap of a motion requesting council state their “full support” for the police in the ongoing discussion about Pride, police participation and concerns raised by Black Lives Matter.
• Fighting marginalization: Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam is looking to reinstate the city's LGBTQ2S+ community advisory committee that was disassembled in 2006, a way to deal with policy such as youth homelessness and other key issues affecting those communities.