We have officially wrapped up the final Council session of 2024. This agenda is always a busy one as the Mayor and City Councillors work to make sure the most important items are in motion for 2025. This week, Council tackled everything from expanding our rental housing supply, to implementing $10-a-day childcare, addressing excessive temperatures in apartments, and setting interim fees for water and waste management. Let’s take a look at these items and more:
City staff updated Council on the call for applications for the Purpose-Built Rental Housing Incentives stream, which aims to create 20,000 new rental homes by the end of 2026. We received a truly overwhelming response to this program—75 applications were submitted that could create over 32,600 new rental homes. In Phase One, the City has approved 17 applications that will create 7,156 net new rental homes, including over 1,000 affordable rental homes. More applications could move forward in the second phase of the program, but that is dependent on the Province providing a Build More Homes Rebate to the City to cover development charges and the majority of property taxes for eligible projects.
The overwhelming response to this program from the housing sector shows the need for all orders of government to work together to help these units get built. City staff will continue to work with successful applicants to finalize agreements and expedite project timelines. I’ll be sure to keep our community updated on this initiative’s progress.
This report outlines a recommended zoning bylaw amendment that would permit certain small scale retail, service, and office uses in residential properties in neighbourhoods across the City. I’ve heard from many residents who are concerned about what this would mean for their neighbourhoods, so I’m happy that Council referred this item back to staff. It’s clear that we have more work to do to ensure this policy works for local communities. I look forward to bringing Don Valley North residents together for a working group to make sure we unpack this proposal together and share our feedback with City staff.
EC17.4 - Shelter Safety Action Plan & CC24.1 - Ombudsman Toronto Report - An Investigation into the City's Decision to Stop Allowing Refugee Claimants into Base Shelter System Beds
Council adopted a report to improve the safety of those living and working in our emergency shelter system. The Shelter Safety Action Plan (SSAP) will implement 14 actions over the next three years, with a particular focus on addressing issues stemming from the toxic drug supply and mental health crises that cities are struggling with worldwide. It also updates policies to better support refugee claimants who arrive in Toronto and high-needs individuals living in Toronto Community Housing.
With all of this important work underway, it was unfortunate to see the surprisingly one-sided report released by the Toronto Ombudsman regarding the City’s inability to continue accepting federal refugee claimants in our shelters in May 2023. The Ombudsman investigated the isolated fallout of that action and did not wholly consider the context in which that announcement was made. In May 2023, Toronto was without a mayor and receiving no support from the Federal government. It took Mayor Chow’s election and my proposal of a 6% Federal Impacts Levy during the 2024 Budget to secure emergency refugee shelter funding from the Feds.
I am proud of the actions we have been able to take to improve our shelter system since receiving appropriate funding support from our Federal partners. While there is still more work to do, we have made significant progress on the Shelter Safety Action Plan and a number of other Council-approved plans, including the Homelessness Solutions Service Plan, Our Health, Our City: A Mental Health, Substance Use, Harm Reduction and Treatment Strategy, and the SafeTO: Community Safety & Well-Being Plan.
Incredible progress has been made on the implementation of the Federal $10-a-day child care program since it began rolling out in 2022. Currently, 87% of licensed child care centres and 92% of home daycares in Toronto are part of the program, radically reducing child care costs for parents as they move towards the $10-a-day mark. We can only hope that this program is far enough along that a change in government would not wipe it out.
The challenge we still face is the need to create new child care spaces here in Ontario. In Don Valley North, for instance, the only two new child care centres that have recently been built (at Parkway Forest Community Centre and soon to open at Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Centre) were built with Section 37 developer funding. Since the Provincial government removed that section from the Ontario Planning Act, we need a Provincial Capital Strategy to ensure child care facilities are keeping pace with needs.
This is a report back on a motion I moved last year on behalf of tenants in Don Valley North. There has long been a bylaw requiring landlords to turn the heat on and off at specific points in the year. The problem is that nowadays, climate change has led our seasons to stop following the calendar as predictably as they once did. This meant some tenants were sweltering in their units during early heat waves in April and May.
Staff are recommending we update our temperature bylaws to ensure they are responsive to actual temperatures rather than dates. They recommend a minimum indoor temperature of 21°C and a maximum of 26°C. While this will be enforceable regarding the landlord's use of furnaces, there are still thousands of apartments where air conditioning is not provided. We don’t have the power to require landlords to provide air conditioning, but we are working with the Province to create requirements for landlords to provide access to cool spaces somewhere in the building during extreme heat events to better protect the health of tenants.
EX19.9 - 2025 Interim Water and Wastewater Consumption Rates and Service Fees & EX19.10 - 2025 Interim Solid Waste Management Services Rates and Fees
By now, you have likely seen in the news that Toronto’s water and waste rates are both increasing. These increases are both incredibly modest. For water, the increase will mean an extra $3.25 per month for the average family, while the increase on a medium garbage bin works out to less than $1.50 per month. Let’s break down exactly why these increases are needed.
Toronto Water is undertaking massive capital work across the city as they complete basement flooding mitigation work and replacing ageing water mains. What is important to remember is that we continue to avoid the use of debt to fund water infrastructure. Instead, it is all paid for by development charges and pay-as-we-go rates. The chart below shows that even with this increase, we are still at the lower end of rates across the GTHA.
In terms of waste rates, Toronto is unique in the GTHA for billing garbage separately from your property taxes. We do this so that you can be billed on the basis of how much waste you produce. The more waste you are able to divert from landfill, especially by reducing, reusing, recycling and composting, the more your family is able to save.
We will face significant waste expenses in a few years when our landfill reaches the end of its life. We hope to face this challenge by reducing our waste volume as much as possible and paying for the next waste solution from a Solid Waste stabilization reserve.
Our City Manager has presented Council with a definitive policy on what constitutes hate activity. This will allow us to determine when the City needs to intervene in demonstrations—if a demonstration is determined to be hate activity, then protections of free speech and protest are overridden and action must be taken.
This policy clearly defines guidelines and responsibilities for all City divisions regarding protests. City Council also directed staff to craft the bylaw with extra protections around vulnerable institutions including places of worship, faith-based schools, and cultural institutions.
The policy also articulates the partnership between the City and our Police Service to respond to these incidents. At the Police Board last week, we learned that the Toronto Police Service has laid over 500 charges related to hate speech and hate crimes since October 7, 2023. Of course, the wave of antisemitism occurring in our city goes beyond protest activity and includes terrifying acts of violence and vandalism. While Toronto Police continue to respond to all hate activity, my hope is that this policy will help the City execute a clear and coordinated response to hate-based activities to help make Toronto safer and more inclusive for all.
We had a busy and impactful final Council session of 2024. We’ll be right back at it in the New Year with the launch of the 2025 Budget, and staff will continue working hard to implement these impactful programs, policies, and more in the months ahead.
Holiday Office Closure
We're taking a break from the E-Blast next week, as my office will be closed for the holidays. My team will be keeping an eye out for any urgent phone calls or emails, and we will be fully re-opened for regular service on Monday, January 6.
Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!