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Feb 2, 2023 For this week's E-Blast, I've provided updates on some of the active development applications in our ward. I know that folks across Don Valley North often have development questions, and I want to make sure you have access to up-to-date, accurate information. In this column, I've focused on the newer and larger proposals with significant updates, but I've also prepared a full update on every application in the ward which you can access on my website: I also want to draw attention to the application at 10 Ruddington Drive. My office will be hosting a community meeting about this application on Monday, February 6 at 7:00 PM to discuss the recent application appeal before it goes to City Council. You can find full updates at the end of the column, and register for the meeting by emailing my office at councillor_carroll@toronto.ca. Don Valley Village Fairview Mall (1800 Sheppard) Proposed: Masterplan Concept of 12 buildings between 18 and 58 storeys with 4,700 units and three new public parks over four phases. No existing buildings would be demolished. The first phase proposes three buildings of 38, 48, and 58 storeys. Community Consultation: Held in July 2022. Status: Under review by City staff. As part of my advocacy for greater community engagement on the whole block area, my office and City Planning are working on a next round of community engagement for both this application and the application at 5 Fairview Mall Drive to take place in March 2023. City Planner: Michelle Charkow – Michelle.Charkow@toronto.ca 5 Fairview Mall Proposed: Two residential towers of 36 and 31 storeys, connected by a 5-storey office podium. The existing 4-storey medical office would be retained in its entirety and the amount of medical office space on site would increase from 8000 sq metres to over 18,000 sq metres. Community Consultation: Held in January 2023. Status: Under review by City staff. As part of my advocacy for greater community engagement on the whole block area, my office and City Planning are working on a next round of community engagement for both this application and the application at 1800 Sheppard Avenue (Fairview Mall) to take place in March 2023. City Planner: Michelle Charkow – Michelle.Charkow@toronto.ca 20 Godstone Proposed: 6- and 12-storey residential buildings with 369 units and the retention of the existing centrally located 15-storey apartment building. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca Pleasant View 245 Yorkland Proposed: The construction of four 45-storey mixed use buildings with 2140 units and new public park, while maintaining the 12-storey office building and demolishing the 3-storey office building. Community Consultation: Yet to take place. Status: Under review by City staff as to compatibility with employment zoning and other City policies. Staff will report in the coming months with a Preliminary or Refusal Report. City Planner: Heather Au – Heather.Au@toronto.ca Bayview Village 500 Sheppard Proposed: 35- and 39-storey mixed use building with 928 units. Community Consultation: Held in June 2022. Status: Applicant appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal due to a lack of decision by City. City staff have requested authority from Council to attend the Tribunal in opposition to the application in its current form. Staff are continuing discussions with the applicant in the interim. City Planner: Jenny Choi - Jenny.Choi@toronto.ca Bayview Village Mall (2901 Bayview) Status: The application was approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2020 and is currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The redevelopment will maintain the existing shopping centre and add one 20-storey and two six-storey buildings on the north side of the mall, and a 29- and 30-storey building on the south side of the mall with a total of 1030 units. A public park and direct access to Bayview TTC station are also included. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 22-36 Greenbriar Proposed: 24-storey residential building with 351 units. Community Consultation: Held in June 2022. Status: The applicant resubmitted the proposal with a height reduction to 22 storeys and a smaller floor plate, in addition to other changes requested by City staff. The revised application is currently under review by City staff. 680-688 Sheppard Status: City Council approved the final Ontario Land Tribunal settlement offer in July 2022. City staff will soon review the site plan application for technical detail review. Details: The settlement offer is for a reduced 22-storey building with transition to 12 storeys at north side of site. This offer significantly reduced the floorplate of the building with 481 units. Setbacks and carve-outs were included to reduce massing and shadowing impacts on community. City Planner: Heather Au – Heather.Au@toronto.ca Concord Park Place Proposed: Block 7 (1001 Sheppard) proposes 24- and 29-storey mixed use buildings with 686 units. Community Consultation: Held in January 2023. Status: Under review by City staff. Concord's Park Place Masterplan was approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2013. Blocks 11 (29 and 18 storeys with 330 units), 12 (36 and 33 storeys with 362 units), and 15 (31, 27, 19 storeys with 990 units) are currently under construction. City Planners: Ingrid Fung – Ingrid.Fung@toronto.ca (Block 7) & Marian Prejel – Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca (All other Blocks) 1181 Sheppard Proposed: 22-storey office building and 33-storey residential building with 452 units. Status: Applicant has appealed the proposal the Ontario Land Tribunal. City staff are opposed to the current application and will be continuing discussions to address a number of issues on the site, particularly the connection to Leslie TTC station. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca Bayview Woods-Steeles Tyndale University (3377 Bayview) Proposed: 14 residential buildings, the majority of which range in height from 6 storeys to 8 storeys, with three buildings having heights of 11, 15, and 20 storeys with 1530 units. The proposal also includes a daycare, café, and flexible use spaces to be used by Tyndale University. Status: Applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The hearing has been scheduled over three weeks in July 2023. City staff are opposed to the current application and will be continuing discussions with the applicant and parties to the hearing to address a number of issues on the site. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 630-686 Finch Proposed: The applicant made a final settlement offer to City in February 2021 for a reduced 11-storey mixed use building with 238 units. The settlement offer significantly improved setbacks from the neighbourhood and reduced massing and shadowing impacts on the community. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal, with a hearing scheduled for March 2023. City Council adopted the City Solicitor's recommendation to accept the settlement offer given the changes and the risk of increased height and massing at the Tribunal. City Planner: Derrick Wong - Derrick.Wong@toronto.ca 10 Ruddington Proposed: A 14-storey rental building with 182 units and a 10-storey condo building with 127 units while maintaining the existing rental building. Community Consultation: Held in June 2021. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The applicant has made a settlement offer to the City that would see the 10-storey condo building converted to 24 townhouse units and the 14-storey rental building reduced in height to 13 storeys. The settlement also includes a new on-site public park. I am hosting a virtual community meeting on Monday, February 6 at 7:00 PM in advance of the item being considered by Council. Register for the meeting by emailing my office at councillor_carroll@toronto.ca. City Planner: Philip Liu - Philip.Liu@toronto.ca I know this is a lot of information to take in at once. As always, if you have questions about any specific application, feel free to reach out to my office at councillor_carroll@toronto.ca or 416-338-2650, or contact the City Planner responsible for the file. Economic & Community Development Updates This week, I met with Toronto Global to discuss the important work they're doing to attract new businesses to and investments in our city. Since their launch, Toronto Global has: Generated an estimated $580 million in tax revenue for Municipal, Provincial, and Federal governments Landed 202 investment projects, creating over 12,000 jobs in the Toronto Region Last year, they: Created nearly 2500 direct new jobs and 3500 indirect jobs in 2021/22 Facilitated the investment of nearly $640 million into our regional economy in 2022 I look forward to continue working with Toronto Global to promote our city as a prime location for business.

This week, City Council returned for our first regular-business session of the current term of office. It was an action-packed two days, so let's take a look at the some of the most significant items we considered. CAFETO 2023 AND BEYOND City Council voted yesterday to make CafeTO a permanent program. This program started as a pilot in summer 2020 to support our restaurant industry at the beginning of the pandemic, allowing restaurants to expand their outdoor patios onto sidewalks and curb lanes to create more outdoor dining space. This program has been very successful, with over 1300 restaurants participating and over $200 million in economic benefits generated for the city in 2022 alone. Making this program permanent is an important move in continuing to support our hospitality sector here in Toronto. In acknowledgement of the gradual return to normal business, City Council has approved a three-year phased introduction of the fees that were charged prior to the pandemic. The Federal government is providing a grant to ensure that each platform patio will be accessible. ACTIVETO CYCLING NETWORK EXPANSION PROJECT UPDATES Another pilot made permanent: the Midtown Complete Street program. This pilot started up in spring 2021, and introduced protected bike lines on Yonge Street from Bloor to Davisville, amongst other improvements. Taken together, these changes have increased pedestrian and cycling trips by up to 145% and 250%, respectively, while driving times generally did not increase by more than one minute. Creating safe opportunities for active transportation helps us reach out climate goals, reduces the number of cars on the road, and, most importantly, helps us work towards our Vision Zero goal of zero fatalities on our streets. GARDINER EXPRESSWAY AND DON VALLEY PARKWAY CLOSURE – BIKE FOR BRAIN HEALTH We don’t often close the Gardiner or DVP, but both will be closed for the Bike for Brain Health on Sunday, June 4. When Council permits an activity like this on our expressways, we also prohibit any other planned road closures in a wide area and direct the TTC to not plan subway closures to ensure we have the space to accommodate spillover traffic. Ultimately, it's one day of inconvenience to support a great cause. If you have never cycled these elevated highways before, consider signing up. Proceeds go to Baycrest's brain health research and the views are spectacular. COLD WEATHER AND THE EFFECTS ON THOSE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS Warming centres are an important tool in the array of shelter supports our city offers, but they are challenging to operate. Ultimately, we are facing a broader homelessness crisis not just here in Toronto but across the Province. As I've touched on in past E-Blasts, cities are not financially equipped to fully respond to this crisis but we are currently doing all we can. The Mayor and Council are calling on the Provincial and Federal Governments to up their financial involvement to address this issue in every city. In the meantime, staff are now sheltering over 9,000 people experiencing homelessness every night and have the authority to expand warming centres whenever they can secure appropriate locations and the necessary staff. COVID-19 SHELTER TRANSITION AND RELOCATION PLAN UPDATE 2023 & CREATING NEW AFFORDABLE AND SUPPORTIVE HOMES FOR PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS The City is currently operating 23 temporary shelter sites across Toronto. Of the 9,000+ individuals noted above, 3000 are in emergency hotels. This initiative started up at the beginning of the pandemic due to an increase in those experiencing homelessness and the need to physically distance in shelters. Now, funding from other orders of government to operate these sites is winding down and some owners want their hotels back. Staff presented Council with a plan to gradually transition out of these sites over the next two years. However, it is important to note that the success of this plan hinges on our ability to build enough deeply affordable and supportive housing for people to move out of our shelter system successfully and permanently. The second motion linked above focuses on doing just that—it directs staff to work with Toronto Community Housing and other City corporations to identify at least four potential sites to create new modular or other forms of supportive housing by this time next year. [embed video here] A video from the City showing what modular supportive housing looks like. UPDATE ON THE TRANSITION OF TORONTO'S BLUE BIN RECYCLING PROGRAM TO EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY We are moving towards an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) recycling model, which makes producers responsible for the cost of recycling their products at end-of-life. Currently, that cost is borne by your solid waste bin fees. This is an important step towards waste reduction, and this item at Council updated Councillors on the work the City is doing to move towards this model. I look forward to sharing more on our transition to this program in the years ahead. 10 RUDDINGTON DRIVE I touched on this development application in our ward in my E-Blast last week. This proposal was appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, and the applicant has now made a settlement offer that addresses many of the concerns on the site, including reducing the height of one building and converting another into townhouse units. I held a community meeting on Monday evening, before Council considered the item, to go through the settlement offer with the community and some of the key improvements that City Planning & Legal were able to secure for us. I’m especially proud of all of us on this one. From my first conversations with residents, we all wanted to see the 131 unit building reduced to townhouses and it is rare, given the ever-changing provincial rules, to get the outcome we hoped for. REVIEWING REVENUE TOOL OPTIONS FOR TORONTO This motion, moved by Mayor Tory, directs staff to create an updated report on additional revenue tools currently available to us under the City of Toronto Act. As I wrote about in the E-Blast last month, our city is at a financial tipping point and we need to start looking at revenue options beyond property taxes to fund our infrastructure and services. I would have liked to see staff also report on the revenue from tools beyond what's permitted in the City of Toronto Act, such as a Municipal Sales Tax, but I am glad that we as a city are taking a hard look at our currently available options.

Updates are grouped by neighbourhood BAYVIEW VILLAGE 500 Sheppard Proposed: 35- and 39-storey mixed use building with 928 units. Community Consultation: Held in June 2022. Status: Applicant appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal due to a lack of decision by City. City staff have requested authority from Council to attend the Tribunal in opposition to the application in its current form. Staff are continuing discussions with the applicant in the interim. City Planner: Jenny Choi - Jenny.Choi@toronto.ca Bayview Village Mall (2901 Bayview) Status: The application was approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2020 and is currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The redevelopment will maintain the existing shopping centre and add one 20-storey and two six-storey buildings on the north side of the mall, and a 29- and 30-storey building on the south side of the mall with a total of 1030 units. A public park and direct access to Bayview TTC station are also included. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 589 Sheppard Proposed: A 14-storey mixed use building with 160 units and relocation of Thomas Clark House (heritage building) to front on Sheppard Avenue East. Community Consultation: Held in June 2021. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Michael Romero - Michael.Romero@toronto.ca 1 Greenbriar & 635 Greenbriar Proposed: 11-storey mixed use building with 134 units. Community Consultation: Held in January 2022. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Michael Romero - Michael.Romero@toronto.ca 11 Greenbriar Proposed: 4-storey residential building with 29 units. Community Consultation: Held in March 2022. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Michael Romero - Michael.Romero@toronto.ca 23-29 Greenbriar Proposed: 10-storey residential building with 169 units. Community Consultation: Held in June 2022. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Michael Romero - Michael.Romero@toronto.ca 22-36 Greenbriar Proposed: 24-storey residential building with 351 units. Community Consultation: Held in June 2022. Status: The applicant resubmitted the proposal with a height reduction to 22 storeys and a smaller floor plate, in addition to other changes requested by City staff. The revised application is currently under review by City staff. City Planner: Michael Romero - Michael.Romero@toronto.ca 71 Talara Status: Approved by City Council in July 2022. Currently undergoing technical detail review by City staff. Details: The development will demolish the existing low-rise rental building and construct a 23-storey residential building with 281 units, including rental replacement units. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 680-688 Sheppard Status: City Council approved the final Ontario Land Tribunal settlement offer in July 2022. City staff will soon review the site plan application for technical detail review. Details: The settlement offer is for a reduced 22-storey building with transition to 12 storeys at north side of site. This offer significantly reduced the floorplate of the building with 481 units. Setbacks and carve-outs were included to reduce massing and shadowing impacts on community. City Planner: Heather Au – Heather.Au@toronto.ca 699 Sheppard Status: Approved by City Council in July 2021. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: This development will demolish the existing building and construct a 12-storey mixed use building with 169 units. City Planner: Michael Romero – Michael.Romero@toronto.ca Concord Park Place Proposed: Block 7 (1001 Sheppard) proposes 24- and 29-storey mixed use buildings with 686 units. Community Consultation: Held in January 2023. Status: Under review by City staff. Concord's Park Place Masterplan was approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2013. Blocks 11 (29 and 18 storeys with 330 units), 12 (36 and 33 storeys with 362 units), and 15 (31, 27, 19 storeys with 990 units) are currently under construction. City Planners: Ingrid Fung – Ingrid.Fung@toronto.ca (Block 7) & Marian Prejel – Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca (All other Blocks) 1181 Sheppard Proposed: 22-storey office building and 33-storey residential building with 452 units. Status: Applicant has appealed the proposal the Ontario Land Tribunal. City staff are opposed to the current application and will be continuing discussions to address a number of issues on the site, particularly the connection to Leslie TTC station. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca DON VALLEY VILLAGE 1650 Sheppard Status: Approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2020. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The development will maintain the existing rental building and construct a new 31-storey residential building with 319 units. This site is part of a context plan that includes a new public park and two new public streets. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 2500 Don Mills Proposed: 30- and 39-storey mixed use buildings with 823 units. Community Consultation held in July 2022. Status: Under review by City staff. City Planner: Jenny Choi - Jenny.Choi@toronto.ca 2600 Don Mills Status: Approved by Provincial Tribunal in 2020. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The development will maintain existing the rental building and construct a new 33-storey residential building with 354 units. This site is part of a context plan that includes a new public park and two new public streets. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 12-24 Leith Hill Status: Approved by City Council in January 2022. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The development will maintain the existing rental building and construct three blocks of townhouses with 48 units on the west side of the site and an 11-storey residential building with 121 units on the east side of the site. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 25 Leith Hill Proposed: 31-storey residential building with 294 units. Community Consultation: Held in February 2021. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca Fairview Mall (1800 Sheppard) Proposed: Masterplan Concept of 12 buildings between 18 and 58 storeys with 4,700 units and three new public parks over four phases. No existing buildings would be demolished. The first phase proposes three buildings of 38, 48, and 58 storeys. Community Consultation: Held in July 2022. Status: Under review by City staff. As part of Shelley's advocacy for greater community engagement on the whole block area, our office and City Planning are working on a next round of community engagement for both this application and the application at 5 Fairview Mall Drive to take place in March 2023. City Planner: Michelle Charkow – Michelle.Charkow@toronto.ca 5 Fairview Mall Proposed: Two residential towers of 36 and 31 storeys, connected by a 5-storey office podium. The existing 4-storey medical office would be retained in its entirety and the amount of medical office space on site would increase from 8000 sq metres to over 18,000 sq metres. Community Consultation: Held in January 2023. Status: Under review by City staff. As part of Shelley's advocacy for greater community engagement on the whole block area, our office and City Planning are working on a next round of community engagement for both this application and the application at 1800 Sheppard Avenue (Fairview Mall) to take place in March 2023. City Planner: Michelle Charkow – Michelle.Charkow@toronto.ca 20 Godstone Proposed: 6- and 12-storey residential buildings with 369 units and the retention of the existing centrally located 15-storey apartment building. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca PARKWAY FOREST 123 Parkway Forest Proposed: 29-storey residential building with 339 units and five three-storey townhouses to replace existing townhouses. Community Consultation: Held in February 2022. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca PLEASANT VIEW 1 Heron's Hill Proposed: 34-storey mixed-used building with 334 units and preservation of existing 2-storey office building. Community Consultation: Held in December 2020. Status: Under review by City staff. City staff have recommended that the lands be converted from employment to mixed-use with a requirement to increase the amount of employment space on-site. City Planner: Derrick Wong - Derrick.Wong@toronto.ca 2135 Sheppard Proposed: 11-storey mixed use building with 275 units. Community Consultation: Held in May 2022. Status: Under review by City staff and awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Philip Liu - Philip.Liu@toronto.ca Lansing Square (2550 Victoria Park) Status: Approved by City Council in July 2021. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The redevelopment will include a new 18-storey commercial office building, six residential buildings with heights of 40, 30, 25, 35, 6 and 4 storeys with 1591 units, and a new public park. City Planner: Derrick Wong - Derrick.Wong@toronto.ca 2450 Victoria Park Status: Approved by Provincial Tribunal in in 2020. Currently going through technical detail review by City staff. Details: The redevelopment will demolish the existing commercial building and construct four mixed-used buildings of 28, 24, 20, and 11 storeys with 1056 units. City Planner: Philip Liu - Philip.Liu@toronto.ca 245 Yorkland Proposed: The construction of four 45-storey mixed use buildings with 2140 units and new public park, while maintaining the 12-storey office building and demolishing the 3-storey office building. Community Consultation: Yet to take place. Status: Under review by City staff as to compatibility with employment zoning and other City policies. Staff will report in the coming months with a Preliminary or Refusal Report. City Planner: Heather Au – Heather.Au@toronto.ca BAYVIEW WOODS-STEELES Tyndale University (3377 Bayview) Proposed: 14 residential buildings, the majority of which range in height from 6 storeys to 8 storeys, with three buildings having heights of 11, 15, and 20 storeys with 1530 units. The proposal also includes a daycare, café, and flexible use spaces to be used by Tyndale University. Status: Applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The hearing has been scheduled over three weeks in July 2023. City staff are opposed to the current application and will be continuing discussions with the applicant and parties to the hearing to address a number of issues on the site. City Planner: Marian Prejel - Marian.Prejel@toronto.ca 6 Foxdale Proposed: Five two-storey detached dwellings and new street off of an existing court. Community Consultation: Held in June 2021. Status: Awaiting resubmission from the applicant. City Planner: Aileen Keng - Aileen.Keng@toronto.ca 10 Ruddington Proposed: A 14-storey rental building with 182 units and a 10-storey condo building with 127 units while maintaining the existing rental building. Community Consultation: Held in June 2021. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The applicant has made a settlement offer to the City that would see the 10-storey condo building converted to 24 townhouse units and the 14-storey rental building reduced in height to 13 storeys. The settlement also includes a new on-site public park. City Planner: Philip Liu - Philip.Liu@toronto.ca 630-686 Finch Proposed: The applicant made a final settlement offer to City in February 2021 for a reduced 11-storey mixed use building with 238 units. The settlement offer significantly improved setbacks from the neighbourhood and reduced massing and shadowing impacts on the community. Status: The applicant has appealed the proposal to the Ontario Land Tribunal, with a hearing scheduled for March 2023. City Council adopted the City Solicitor's recommendation to accept the settlement offer given the changes and the risk of increased height and massing at the Tribunal. City Planner: Derrick Wong - Derrick.Wong@toronto.ca

Feb 16, 2023 It's been an action-packed week, to say the very least. I know that most people are still focused on Mayor Tory's resignation. I've included information and my statement on that below this column. What I want to focus on today is our annual Special Budget Council Meeting that took place yesterday, and what it means for our city and our neighbourhoods here in Don Valley North in the year ahead. I've presented the broad strokes of this budget in a couple of earlier E-Blasts this year (one on the need for more revenue streams in Toronto and another that gives a rundown of the Toronto Police & TTC budgets). This was the first budget introduced under Strong Mayor legislation, which means that Council did not vote on the budget as a whole. Rather, we had a chance to move motions to amend the budget, and then the Mayor decided whether or not to approve it as amended. It took a long time to get to work at our budget meeting yesterday. There was a lot of unrest in the Council Chamber that you may have seen in the news. Many Torontonians are suffering as a result of a challenging economy, post-pandemic fallout, and deep housing and homelessness crises. The members of the public who came to the Council Chamber yesterday made sure these issues were top of mind for everyone on Council. Emotions were running high, and it was a very difficult time to be in the chamber, but that is part of the job I spoke about the budget on Metro Morning today. After things quieted down, we set to work on approving a budget. While we have all been rocked by the Mayor's announcement, the City of Toronto Public Service still needs sign-off on the budget for this year. They are the ones delivering the services that you rely on. It is imperative that they can get on with their jobs, so Council powered through a late-night session to make sure we delivered a budget they can work with. I was particularly busy in the two days leading up to our Special Budget Meeting. On Monday and Tuesday, I worked with Deputy Mayor McKelvie and some other Council colleagues, the Mayor's staff, and City staff to pull together consensus around a variety of items that needed more investment. We dubbed this our "Omnibus Motion", as it allocated $7 million in funds to over a dozen City departments and initiatives. Through this motion and others passed at Council yesterday, we added: An investment of funds to expand eligibility for the property tax increase deferral and cancellation programs for low-income seniors; Funding for the operation of a 24-hour Warming Centre to run until April 15th of this year; More staff inspectors who conduct RentSafeTO inspections in multi-residential apartment buildings; $1 million in additional funding to the Rent Bank grant program to support tenants; A new pilot program to provide multi-disciplinary outreach and mental health supports to people experiencing homelessness who are currently seeking shelter on transit vehicles; A slightly above-inflation increase for our Community Partnership Investment Program grants, which support Toronto's not-for-profit community organizations; Two new youth service hubs in priority neighbourhoods; Additional support for anti-youth violence programs that are already underway, including Think 2wice in North Etobicoke and the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) in the Jane & Finch community; Additional funds to enhance the Home Energy Loan Program, which helps you retrofit your home to reduce your environmental footprint. The funding allocated to each of the points above ranges from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to over a million. I said it yesterday at Council, and I'll say it again—sometimes the smallest amount of money can make the biggest difference. Spending for impact is the best thing we can do as a Council, and it is why it so essential that Councillors listen to their communities. A clip of me introducing the "Omnibus Motion" at Council yesterday night. I was proud to move the motion that makes these investments, but it was a huge team effort. Every Councillor should be proud of these budget add-ons, and that our Chief Financial Officer found a funding source for these small but impactful changes while still protecting all other services. After a full day in the Council Chamber, Mayor Tory approved the final budget with the above amendments. Now, our dedicated public servants will get on with delivering those services and the enhancements above to you. I want to thank everyone who took part in this budget process, whether you attended a meeting or sent my office a simple email with your thoughts. The budget sets our priorities for the year ahead, and those priorities need to be a reflection of all of Toronto. While there is much uncertainty on the horizon as we anticipate a mayoral by-election in the coming months, you can rest assured that City Council will keep going about our business to deliver results for you. Through whatever changes come our way, I will keep working hard to build a vibrant and liveable city, now and for our future. Statement on Mayor Tory's Resignation Last night, Mayor Tory submitted his letter of resignation to the City Clerk. His resignation will be effective tomorrow, Friday, February 17, 2023, at 5:00 PM. I released the following statement on Mayor Tory's resignation this past Saturday, February 11, 2023. I have included the statement in it's entirety below: "Last night, I, like many of you, learned that Mayor Tory will be resigning. At a time when our city is facing so many challenges, we need stable leadership. I respect Mayor Tory’s decision to step down and appreciate his apology to the people of Toronto. There is understandably much confusion about what will unfold in the weeks ahead. City staff are hard at work determining next steps in this unprecedented situation. I have the utmost faith in Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, the City Manager, and City Clerk to deliver a smooth transition as we continue to move Toronto forward, and I will do all I can to aid in that work. My focus is to ensure that there is no interruption of service during this time. My Council colleagues and I were elected to address the many challenges facing our city today and deliver results for our communities. This is an immense privilege, and one we not only promised to undertake but must not take for granted. I am committed to continuing the hard work needed to build a vibrant and liveable city for generations to come. The people of Toronto will get an opportunity to elect a new mayor in the months ahead. As Mayor Tory resigns from office, I want to thank him for his many dedicated years of service to our city. I will continue to keep in communication with our community and, as always, I will continue to work to ensure that your voice is heard at City Hall." Upon Mayor Tory's resignation tomorrow, Deputy Mayor McKelvie will assume many of the rights, powers, and authority of the Mayor until the position is filled via by-election. Notably, Deputy Mayor McKelvie will not assume the "Strong Mayor" powers that were recently introduced by the Provincial government. I will keep our community informed once timelines are set for the Mayoral by-election. As always, please don't hesitate to reach out to my office if you have any questions. Planning & Development Updates Open Houses: Fairview Mall (1800 Sheppard Avenue East ) & 5 Fairview Mall Drive My office has worked with City Planning to host two identical, in-person community open houses on the development applications at Fairview Mall (1800 Sheppard Avenue East) and 5 Fairview Mall Drive. The open houses will take place from 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM on Monday, March 6, 2023 & Monday, March 13, 2023 at Parkway Forest Community Centre (55 Forest Manor Road). Staff from various City departments, including City Planning, Urban Design, Transportation Planning, Transportation Services, and Parks & Recreation will be in attendance, as will representatives from the TTC and other agencies. You do not need to register to participate, and I really do want to encourage you to come out to learn more and share your questions and concerns. If you are unable to participate in the Open House, you can contact the City Planner responsible for these files, Michelle Charkow, with your comments and questions. Michelle can be reached at Michelle.Charkow@toronto.ca or (416) 338-7542. I look forward to seeing you there. If you have any questions or concerns in advance of the open house, please don't hesitate to contact my office at Councillor_Carroll@toronto.ca or (416) 338-2650. Economic & Community Development Updates Highlights from this week: Meeting our new Photo Laureate, Nadya Kwandibens, to congratulate her on her role and learn more about the impactful work she has done to showcases contemporary Indigenous lifestyles. Joining Toronto Fire Services Chief Pegg and representatives from the provincial government to deliver a donation of much-needed supplies from the City of Toronto to Syria and Turkey as they recover from a devastating series of earthquakes. Visiting Billy Bishop airport to see a wonderful new installation by artist Akshata Naik that was first developed as part of the City's ArtworxTO initiative. Meeting with the Toronto Seniors Forum to discuss how to improve services like homecare, Wheel-Trans, and other community services so that every senior has the ability and the access to services they need to live with dignity.

"So, what happens now?" That is a question I've been asked everywhere I've gone since the Mayor formally resigned last week. It's understandable that so many should ask that question—it's quite unprecedented to be without an elected Mayor, and so early into a Council term. Well, today we got some answers. Our City Clerk has set the Mayoral by-election for Monday, June 26, 2023 (more details on that below the column). As we move towards Election Day, I want to set your mind at ease and assure you that the City will keep moving forward until a new mayor is chosen. As I shared below my E-Blast column last week, Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie has assumed many of the rights, powers, and authority of the Mayor. She is more than capable of stepping into the roles that the Mayor has played for many years and representing our city in the months ahead. Notably, Deputy Mayor McKelvie has not assumed the special "strong mayor" powers that were introduce under Bill 39. Until a new mayor is elected by you, the voters, it is no longer the case that the Mayor's Office can veto a decision of Council. This means that we are back to the old days of working by building consensus. My Council colleagues and I can support Deputy Mayor McKelvie's efforts democratically and procedurally during her tenure in the Mayor's Office. Our first order of business: making sure that all of the work triggered by the budget adopted last week continues. We will work together to hold the public service accountable and make sure these important programs move forward, just like we did before Bill 39 came into play. While this year's budget sets out new projects and programs for City staff to work on, there were already thousands of projects underway across our city. These long-term projects will keep pushing forward. Here in Don Valley North, our brand new Ethennonnhawahstihnen' Community Centre is close to completion and you'll soon hear an announcement for opening ceremonies. We have major sewer enhancements and Basement Flooding Protection projects ongoing in the ward. These are part of a 20-year strategy that continues with full funding from your water rates and development charge reserves. The repair and reconstruction of Sheppard Avenue from Bayview to Leslie is still in the cards, with another consultation meeting coming later this year and construction slated for 2024. A video showing construction progress at our new Ethennonnhawahstihnen' Community Centre & Library. Broader, city-wide projects are also moving along. We're making great progress re-naturalizing the mouth of the Don River. City crews continue the restoration and hybrid redesign of the Gardiner Expressway East, and are reconstructing streetcar tracks across the city. On the transit front, staff are also hard at work coordinating large orders of new TTC vehicles as per the funding schedule. It will be important for Torontonians to elect a Mayor that keeps future funding for these projects rolling by demonstrating a gift for intergovernmental affairs. As I've written about at length, Toronto's current financial model is very reliant on our other orders of government to realize these larger projects. On the community and social services side of things, no one is going to forget that we're tackling crises of housing supply, affordability, and homelessness. Work will continue to repair and revitalize Toronto Community Housing homes, to negotiate more affordable housing, and to secure locations for new shelter facilities, modular supportive housing, and respite/warming centres. Staff are currently hard at work transitioning our warming centre at Metro Hall to 24-hour operations. All of these solutions are designed to be ongoing, now and beyond the political term. It's understandable to feel uncertain about the future of our city in the wake of our former mayor resigning. While the mayor serves a key role in our local government, the work of carrying out the priorities the mayor sets is carried out by thousands of staff who are very much still hard at work. You will get a chance to elect a new mayor on June 26. Until then, you can rest assured that Deputy Mayor McKelvie, City Council, and the public service will keep rolling along to deliver the services and programs Torontonians rely on. That is our job and privilege, and we will keep doing all we can to make this city work for you. MAYORAL BY-ELECTION: KEY DATES Today, the City Clerk announced that the Mayoral by-election will be held on Monday, June 26, 2023. City Council will declare the Office of the Mayor vacant at our next Council session on March 29 to 31. Once the position is officially declared vacant and Council adopts a bylaw requiring a by-election to be held, the City Clerk can proceed with opening nominations. The City Clerk has set the following Mayoral by-election dates: Nominations will open Monday, April 3 at 8:30 AM Nominations will close Friday, May 12 at 2 PM Advance voting will take place Thursday, June 8 to Tuesday, June 13 By-election will be held Monday, June 26 Electors will also be provided with the option to vote by mail. Although the City Clerk would not usually announce election dates in advance of Council passing a bylaw, in this circumstance the Clerk considers it to be in the best interests of the City, candidates, and voters to announce the by-election dates as early as possible. Making the dates public now also allows the City Clerk to start making preparations including hiring election staff and booking voting locations. I will be sure to keep our community updated on the by-election in the coming months. For full details, please read the City's official news release.

One of my good friends, Margaret, lives close to the waterfront in a condo. She has access to something that keeps her healthy and makes me jealous: Bike Share. When she moved downtown, she took her car with her but it spends most days in its underground parking spot. Margaret takes the TTC to work and hops on a Bike Share rental bike for short trips in her neighbourhood. She's able to find docking stations pretty close to wherever she's going. Earlier this week, the CEO of the Toronto Parking Authority, which runs Bike Share for us, presented an expansion plan that will finally bring Bike Share stations north of the 401. Right now, Don Valley North has no stations. By 2025, we could have as many as 16. The timing of this couldn't be better because our cycling infrastructure is about to increase as well. A map showing new Bike Share stations that will be installed by 2025. This coming Tuesday, Transportation Services staff will return to Don Valley North to hold another consultation on the Sheppard Avenue Reconstruction. I wrote about this project at length in my E-Blast back in November 2021, just before the first community consultation held in December 2021. As I mentioned then, this project will completely reconstruct Sheppard Avenue East from Bayview Avenue to Leslie Street. Major road reconstructions like this only happen once every 75 to 100 years, so it's essential that we build our new road with both our current and future communities in mind. Since that first meeting, staff have been hard at work refining their design to incorporate community feedback. At this Tuesday's meeting, they will show us their updated design to turn this section of Sheppard Avenue into what is called a Complete Street. Complete Streets are a concept that has been around for over 20 years. Today, it is common policy in many major cities across Europe, North America, and Australia to introduce Complete Street designs whenever major road repairs are due. This is the accepted definition of a Complete Street: "Complete Streets are streets that are safe for all users, regardless of age, ability, income, race, ethnicity, or mode of travel. By using a Complete Streets approach to designing road networks, cities can create spaces that allow all users to thrive—not only motorists." A video explaining the concept of Complete Streets. Given that definition, the only question is: "Who would want to build an incomplete street?" Here in Don Valley North, we have every kind of road user described above, all living in a densely populated space. I know that you and I can agree that all of us deserve to be accommodated on our streets. On Sheppard Avenue, this means making some changes that will take some adjusting to. I really want to encourage everyone who is able to come out to the community meeting this Tuesday. Staff have had over a year to physically be out on this section of Sheppard studying the road and to consider every piece of input they heard from you at our first meeting or through the first survey. They also heard from me and my team after we spent a couple of months working out of a storefront office at Sheppard and Greenbriar during the election period. All of this has given staff an enriched perspective, and it will make the presentation at this second meeting well worth listening to. It includes your input and some real improvements. I also want to be absolutely upfront about what hasn't changed since the first design was shown. The reconstruction still includes separate bike lanes and pedestrian enhancements at intersections. I am solidly in favour of these. Too often in community consultations, politicians stay neutral. That is required at certain stages of the process, but in this instance we are talking about a very important road in our community. I want to be genuine and clear about how I feel. The current intersection at Sheppard Ave E & Rean Dr. The planned intersection at Sheppard Ave E & Rean Dr. I've spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about radical Provincial policy changes on planning and development that require the City to approve more density around subway stations. We have a housing supply and affordability crisis, so it is hard for us to reject all of those Provincial changes. Here at the municipal level, it is still my duty to find ways to make our neighbourhoods liveable for everyone within whatever framework the Province sets. I firmly believe that increasing mobility options around subway stations is one of the best ways to achieve that. As a neighbourhood becomes more densely populated, it is very important to make it easier to do short trips without the car. These trips are what tend to jam up our major roads—people turning left and right, parallel parking to pop into a shop, etc. Imagine you could take a safe, pleasant walk to the nail salon. Imagine hopping on a Bike Share e-bike to meet a friend for coffee at Bayview Village Mall. Most importantly, imagine that all of these mobility options attracted more car-free residents in the towers going up along Sheppard Avenue. This will not only stop our traffic problem from getting worse, it will also make our street more vibrant and our neighbourhood more liveable. On top of all of that, it will help us meet our climate goals. An illustration of a Complete Street. I like having multiple consultations on a project. I always want the community to see the impact they can have when they engage. But stretching the consultation process out over time can have its risks. Sometimes, people form a strong opinion at the first meeting and forget that there are more steps in the process. Word can get around that a design was shown and disliked but it's a done deal. People can forget than another consultation is coming, and that there were real reasons for looking at this kind of change in the first place. In the time between community meetings, it's up to me and my team to remind callers that there will be changes and design improvements deserving of everyone's consideration at a follow-up meeting to come. When we meet on Tuesday, I sincerely hope that people will come with open minds, ready to hear the principles behind this project and learn the facts. Our ward has many residents who want and need bike lanes. More and more folks are moving to Don Valley North without cars. They deserve to be able to walk safely to the subway station to get to work. Transportation staff have worked very hard to design the road in a way that not only lets these residents happily co-exist with their neighbours who drive cars, they've designed it in a way that will give everyone more options to get around. Let's see the new design, share our feedback once more, and keep moving forward to build not only a Complete Street, but a complete community along Sheppard Avenue East.

In one of my E-Blasts last spring, I reported with a great sense of optimism that the City had redesigned its snow clearing contract system. I firmly believed that better winter service was on the way, both for Don Valley North and Toronto at large. After a few significant storms this season, it is clear that our new contracts are not meeting our expectations. We're a winter city, and we should not have to fight with snow after every storm. Today, I want to take a look at the issues our neighbourhoods are experiencing and think about what we can do going forward to ensure that our City services live up to the standards that you deserve. My initial optimism about our new contracts stemmed from the presentation staff delivered to Council and the answers we received to our many questions last year. We learned that we would get a whole new set of contractors and that they would be organized in a completely different way: We would reduce the number of contracts and have each one assigned to a specific geographic location (usually two city wards), making it easier to follow up on issues and get consistent results. We also learned that there would be penalty and reward systems built into the contract to incentivize good service. At the beginning of this winter season, I gave this new system the benefit of the doubt and instructed my team to do the same. We knew that there would likely be a slight adjustment period as the new contractors got used to our neighbourhoods. However, we are now well into the winter season and we continue to see a consistently unacceptable level of service. Most frustratingly, we're seeing some of the chronic issues that my team and I worked hard to resolve last season right back at square one. The perfect example of this is Ravenscroft Circle. Last winter, my office took several calls from neighbours on Ravenscroft that their street had been missed after the January storm. After weeks of reporting and escalating with staff, nothing was done. It took me visiting the street in-person and putting out a video on social media to finally get that street cleared. Afterwards, I was assured that the street would be flagged both for the rest of the season and for next year. Lo and behold, Ravenscroft has been missed multiple times this winter. I know that this experience is not unique to Ravenscroft. It seems like none of the issues we flagged with staff last year have been identified to this year's contractors, leading to the same frustrating issues repeating again and again. The video I made last year drawing attention to snow clearing issues on Ravenscroft Circle. In the wake of these issues cropping up across the city, an interesting conversation has emerged: whether or not we should bring winter maintenance services in-house. Our winter services have been contracted out since shortly after amalgamation. We've re-tendered the contracts a few times, but new models and new contracts are clearly not solving the issues. Torontonians' disappointment with the service continues to grow with each passing year. Whenever another Councillor brings up the "new" idea of bringing snow clearing in-house, I love to remind them that we had that system in the legacy city of North York. Our sidewalks, roads, and windrows were done by our own City employees, and we had arguably the best snow operations in all of old Metro. I know from speaking with many of you that you miss the old days of North York snow clearing, as it was done to a much higher standard than what we're seeing now. What could our streets look like if we brought our snow clearing back in-house, and could ensure accountability across the city? Unfortunately, we can't implement that system right now. We're at the beginning of a seven-year private contract, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look to the future and imagine how we can do better as a city. When I talk to folks in the neighbourhood, I find that you understand and expected the City to use private contractors for one-time capital projects like road reconstruction and water main restorations. However, when it comes to recurring services like snow operations, you expect dependable service. I believe that bringing our winter operations back in-house would deliver that service you deserve. I also want us to think hard about what we truly want and expect from our public services all year round. We're all focused on snow right now, but I know that there are other areas where we can do better. This past fall, I had the pleasure of chatting with many of you at your doors and hearing about the issues that matter to you most. What I heard again and again is that people feel like Toronto isn't quite living up to its potential. Folks want to see a clean, beautiful city. One where trees are trimmed, streets are swept, garbage bins in parks aren't constantly overflowing. We might not be able to make these things happen tomorrow, but let's start a conversation and start working towards the city we all want to live in. Let's identify where our services are falling short, and how we can bring them up to snuff. I've long been an advocate of enhancing our public services and keeping them in-house, because that is the best way to hold our operators accountable. My fellow Councillors haven't always agreed with me, but I'm seeing more and more of my colleagues warm up to this idea as we work through yet another frustrating winter season. For the rest of this winter, rest assured that I will be hard at work flagging issues in our neighbourhoods and getting staff to supervise the living daylights out of every contract. Keep contacting my office with your issues and concerns, as this is the best way for me to advocate for our neighbourhoods. And while you're staring out the window as more snow comes down this Friday, take the time to imagine what else you'd like to see improve in our city in the years ahead. We can do better, and create a city that we're all proud to call home.

On Monday night, I attended the second of two community open houses about the redevelopment of Fairview Mall. Dozens of residents came out to share their thoughts and ask their questions. Whenever we get the community together on a development application like this, I hear two seemingly opposing major concerns: 1) that we don't have enough housing in the city, and 2) that we're building too many high-rises. While these seem to be in opposition, the actual solution to our housing crisis acknowledges both of these concerns: Building "missing middle" housing in every corner of Toronto is essential to creating a city that is truly liveable for both current and future generations. A picture of me with neighbours at one of the two Fairview Mall Redevelopment community open houses that took place this month. Fundamentally, we need to shift away from our current model that seems to only build tall towers and single-family homes. We need to increase options for gentle density in our neighbourhoods, including duplexes, triplexes, low-rise apartments, garden suites, and more. These efforts are encapsulated in our Housing Action Plan 2022-2026. It is a massive document that highlights the progress we've made tackling the housing crisis and the steps we're taking to build a wider range of housing across the city. It also outlines the changes made in response to several new Provincial rules around our planning processes and zoning permissions. Today, I've pulled out the pieces that are the most timely and relevant to our neighbourhoods here in Don Valley North. TEMPERATURE CHECK: OUR HOUSING CHALLENGES First off, I know that our city seems busy enough and it can be hard to imagine it getting even busier. The reality is that our city keeps growing and ignoring that reality would be dangerous, not just to our own futures but our kids' and grandkids' futures as well. We are in a housing crisis, and it will only get worse if we don't take bold action to tackle it now. Since Council adopted the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan, some progress has been made on the creation of affordable housing, specifically: Approving over 20,000 affordable rental homes for City financial incentives Securing over 3,600 affordable and supportive housing opportunities for people experiencing homelessness Launching the Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition (MURA) program to support the purchase, renovation, and operation of about 140 homes that will remain permanently affordable Despite these successes and a general increase in housing supply across the city, challenges remain with the availability and affordability of housing in Toronto. Between 2017 and 2022, we needed to build 300,000 new homes to avert a housing crisis. Only a third of that number materialized. This is why we need a comprehensive plan to tackle our housing crisis. Sticking to the status quo won't get us the results we need fast enough. Our new Housing Action Plan attempts to marry Provincial intentions with the City's vision that we create a range of housing and affordability types to accommodate growth in the most liveable way. THE HOUSING ACTION PLAN 2022-2026 The new Housing Action Plan will be advanced across City divisions and includes five streams: Official Plan, Zoning and Guideline Amendments Advancing Housing System Policy and Program Initiatives Leveraging Public Land to Increase the Supply of Housing Preserving the Existing Rental Housing Stock Public Accountability and Reporting on Progress The first item on that list is the most impactful, in my opinion. Currently, over 35% of Toronto's land area permits the construction of large homes, but they're limited to one or two units. These are the "monster homes" or "McMansions" we often see crop up in the neighbourhood. What if instead of one giant home for one family, there were options to build a similar sized building that housed up to four households? The Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) Study has been exploring just that. City staff have been researching and consulting on opportunities to double or quadruple housing permissions in these areas by permitting residential buildings containing up to four units across Toronto's largely single-family neighbourhoods. This could include duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes but would still have to follow a process, including for building permits and technical plans. Staff will soon report back to our Planning & Housing Committee with the results of this study and final recommendations for implementation. Staff are also exploring opportunities to increase housing options by allowing 4- to 6-storey walk-up apartment buildings to be constructed along major streets as part of the Major Streets Study. Here in Don Valley North, many of our major streets have already been intensified, like Sheppard Avenue, Don Mills Road, and Leslie Street. Other roads, like Victoria Park Avenue and Bayview Avenue, still have fronting single-family lots. These spaces could provide opportunities for the creation of new low-rise buildings on transit routes that bring gentler density to our neighbourhoods. A rendering of one type of low-rise housing options that could soon become more widely permissible through the Housing Action Plan. These are the types of changes that are needed to meet our housing demand while keeping our neighbourhoods liveable. The inclusion of "missing middle" buildings like townhomes, low-rise apartments, triplexes and more will allow us to accommodate more people in our neighbourhoods in a sustainable way. The City also needs to continue to deliver and ramp up our innovative affordable housing programs to meet our housing goals. Some of our current programs include: The Housing Now Initiative, which has identified 21 City-owned sites (including one right by Leslie Subway Station) that could deliver 14,000-15,000 homes in new mixed-used, mixed-income, and transit-oriented communities. The Open Door Affordable Rental Housing Program, which has committed funds to support the delivery of over 20,000 affordable rental homes through grant funding and financial incentives. The Home Ownership Assistance Program, which has helped over 1,200 low- and moderate-income families secure affordable home ownership. These programs are essential to achieving our affordable housing targets, particularly in the rental market, but they are becoming increasingly difficult to deliver in the face of Provincial and Federal changes to housing programs. Without committed financial support from other levels of government, we may be forced to scale back these ambitious programs to fit our new reality. Our Chief Planner perfectly encapsulated the challenges we're facing in his closing remarks in the Housing Action Plan: "While the City of Toronto is committed to continuing to take action (within its jurisdiction) and has already made significant financial investments toward increasing housing supply, participation from the federal and provincial governments is critical to deliver the 'right' supply needed. Most urgently, the City needs reimbursement of the $120 million per year in lost revenues from the changes incorporated in the Provincial Bill 23 changes to development charges and elimination of Section 37. Without these funds and other improvements to the Provincial Planning legislation, the City of Toronto will be unable to provide the services essential to support growth, unable to continue operating existing housing programs necessary to scale up supply, and unable to deliver complete communities that include both housing and the necessary supporting infrastructure." We know that it's not enough to just build more housing—we also need to build complete communities: community centres, parks, child care, libraries, schools, hospital capacity, transit, and hard infrastructure. We're setting out a new vision for what our neighbourhoods can look like, a vision that both accommodates growth and keeps our neighbourhoods liveable, but we can't achieve it on our own. City Council, and any future mayor, will need to keep working hard to lobby our Provincial and Federal governments to make this vision a reality. The success of Toronto is essential to the success of our province and nation, and it's high time we got the support we need to ensure that Toronto is once again a place that folks from all walks of life can comfortably call home.

In my role as Chair of the Economic & Community Development Committee (ECDC), I spend a lot of time focusing on our city's economic recovery. In past E-Blasts, I've mentioned the importance of our employment zones and reanimating the downtown core. I've included blurbs about various programs the City runs to support our local businesses and our cultural sector. Today, I want to focus on Toronto's essential service that underpins all of that economic recovery work: the TTC. In a city as large as Toronto, a healthy transit system is the key to a healthy city. You can think about the TTC like our city's circulatory system: it gets people to work, to school, to the grocery store and their medical appointments; it lets residents and visitors alike access our restaurants, theatres, and shops. It also takes cars off the road and is an essential part of our plan to reach Net Zero by 2040. Without it, our city just can't work. My fellow committee members and I over at ECDC, and all of the staff and stakeholders we work with, cannot achieve a fulsome recovery for Toronto without a strong transit system, and that transit system is in trouble. The TTC is still struggling to return to its pre-pandemic state of normalcy. As work-from-home continues, ridership remains stubbornly low. In 2018, annual ridership stood at 521 million rides a year across transit modes. 2022 finished off with just 320 million rides. We are heading back to normal from even smaller numbers in 2020, but not fast enough. A graph showing TTC annual ridership numbers from 2015 - 2022. It would be convenient to blame the pandemic for all of our transit woes, but it wouldn't be accurate or helpful. To truly recover the TTC and our city, we need to be honest about the fact that our transit system wasn't particularly healthy before COVID-19 arrived in town. Ridership reached its peak in 2016 and then began to stagnate. By 2018, it had dropped by nearly 20 million rides annually. State-of-good-repair (keeping the fleet and infrastructure that we have in good working condition) was in a dire state of backlog. There seemed to be no end in sight for annual fare increases because the whole system had been grossly underfunded since 1995. Transit systems in other major Canadian and U.S. cities receive predictable operating funds from their Provincial and State partners. That is not the case here in Toronto, where historically over two-thirds of operating funding comes from fare revenues. Comparatively, other North American cities rely on fare for less than half of their operating costs. This is why the sudden COVID-19 ridership collapse devastated our system far more severely and far more quickly than in other cities. Every city tried to maintain as much service as possible for frontline and healthcare workers, but here in Toronto that was a tall order. The other orders of government helped out with temporary funding, but by early 2022 they were tired of helping. Funds for the TTC have dried up, so now what? This recovery period is an opportunity to address not only pandemic impacts, but to acknowledge why we fell so hard in the first place. Now is the time to build back a strong, sustainable transit system. We owe it to not only every Torontonian, but also to the 6.5 million people living, working, and moving throughout the GTA. So how do we save our transit system and our city? The one thing we have to guarantee is reliable service. In practice, this looks like our buses, streetcars, and subway trains running frequently and, importantly, on time. It means deploying shuttle buses quickly and effectively when we do run into service outages. It means continuing our efforts to make our transit system safe. We need this not only to attract riders back to the system, but to keep the riders we have. Toronto Star columnist Matt Elliot recently wrote an article explaining the "death spiral" that transit systems can find themselves in when they respond to low ridership with service cuts. Without new revenue sources or enhanced funding from other orders government, the TTC may feel that it has little choice but to claw back service in the face of shrinking ridership and the resulting low revenue. But doing so will only push more folks off of transit, further reduce our fare revenues, and make our budget problems worse and worse. We need all levels of government to acknowledge the necessity of this transit system to the economic health of not just our city, but our province and nation. It is high time we restored reliable service to our transit system. This relies both on political directive and proper management. Irrespective of pending service cuts, we have been seeing unreliable service on the TTC for quite some time. Subway trains continue to run behind schedule. Buses and streetcars are nowhere to be found, only for four to show up in quick succession. This is not a transit system Torontonians can rely on. TTC management, all the way up to CEO Rick Leary, needs to recognize these problems and stamp them out ASAP or else face the consequence of that transit death spiral. Once we get our base service back up to snuff, we can start building a vision of what our ideal transit experience looks like. This vision has to factor into our broader conversations about economic recovery. New York City recently released their "New New York" Recovery Plan, and transit solutions are central to their plan. It took bold leadership and extensive cooperation to prepare this plan in NYC, and it's high time for such an exercise in Toronto. TTC Chair Jon Burnside could start preparing for this exercise right now so that it is ready to move forward in partnership with a new mayor. To develop this vision, we need to deepen the conversation with riders and determine how to bring their loyalty back. Leadership means being willing to truly hear what riders and others need to get off their chests. It will take a concerted outreach effort to get out beyond just those who faithfully attend TTC Board meetings. We need to hear from every type of transit rider from every corner of Toronto to make this system work. In conversation with riders, we can start boldly planning for the future of the transit system that everyone rides today. What do riders want to see change? What will it take to make it sustainable for the future? How can we make sure the TTC is a better partner to all other GTA transit systems so that no job or school in the region is out of reach? The TTC is essential to the health of our city, both socially and economically. We need to acknowledge its past, fix its present issues, and imagine a bold and sustainable future that will support our city for generations to come.

We are in the middle of a jam-packed Council session. Below, I've shared updates on some of the most important items we're considering. Some of these items have already passed at Council, while others will be considered tomorrow. Here are some of the biggest issues we're tackling this month: COMMUNITY SAFETY ISSUES AND RESPONSE Council had a lengthy discussion about safety on our transit system in the wake of yet another violent incident this past weekend. We grilled TTC CEO Rick Leary, Toronto Police Deputy Chiefs, and City Staff to ensure that everything possible is being done to stamp out these incidents. This motion includes directions to tackle this safety issue from a number of angles, including by developing a 5-Year Safety Strategy, calling on cell phone providers to ensure service in the transit system as soon as possible, and calling for greater investments from other orders of government into addressing the root social causes of crime, including investments in mental health services and housing. SMARTTRACK STATIONS PROGRAM - UPDATE SmartTrack is a transit program designed to increase transit choice for riders. A couple of years back, City staff sat down with Metrolinx and reviewed which SmartTrack stations were made redundant by the introduction of Premier Ford's Ontario Line and which still made sense as connectors to the TTC. We are down to five stations, which the City will fund in partnership with other orders of government. We are also asking the Province to guarantee that they will cover the costs of any contract overruns. 2023 FINANCIAL UPDATE AND OUTLOOK The City's Chief Financial Officer and the City Manager provided Council with a document that carefully details the fundamental flaws with our city's funding formula. It shows the imminent need for a new fiscal framework, as I've written about at length in past. I will be writing about this report in detail when part two, which includes proposals for our fiscal plan, is delivered to Council in July. OMBUDSMAN TORONTO REPORT: INVESTIGATION INTO THE CITY'S PROCESSES FOR CLEARING ENCAMPMENTS IN 2021 The Toronto Ombudsman, who provides the independent and impartial review of City services, delivered a comprehensive report on the City's approach to encampment clearing in 2021. This motion will see Council endorse the Ombudsman's recommendations to work with those who reside in encampments using a human rights and culturally responsible approach. It also calls on the Provincial government to develop a regional approach to homeless, and calls on both the Provincial and Federal governments to increase their support for pathways out of homelessness. Building affordable and supportive housing is essential to reaching the goal of no encampments in city parks. INTERGOVERNMENTAL ADVOCACY EFFORTS ON TORONTO'S REFUGEE CLAIMANT SHELTER RESPONSE As I've shared in past E-Blasts, our shelter system is at capacity. In particular, our city is struggling to adequately support the refugees who are arriving in Toronto into our shelter system. Our city is committed to supporting refugees and asylum seekers, but we cannot do that without adequate financial support. This motion calls for an intergovernmental strategy to make sure Toronto is properly equipped to receive refugees in times of humanitarian crises. 3377 BAYVIEW AVENUE - OFFICIAL PLAN AND ZONING BY-LAW AMENDMENTS – REQUEST FOR DIRECTIONS Last year, the development proposal at Tyndale University was appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal by the applicant. At this Council meeting, City Planning Staff and the City Solicitor brought forward a settlement offer and request for direction on legal strategy for the hearing, which is scheduled for July of this year. Due to Provincial requirements, this settlement offer must be kept confidential until it is approved by Council. I will be writing a full column with all the details on this settlement offer next week, as all the relevant information will be public at that time. Stay tuned. 20 GODSTONE ROAD - ZONING BY-LAW AMENDMENT APPLICATION - ONTARIO LAND TRIBUNAL HEARING - REQUEST FOR FURTHER DIRECTIONS As mentioned in past E-Blasts, the development application at 20 Godstone Road has also been appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. Through the settlement process, City Staff were able to secure enhanced site organization and additional protections for the tenants of the existing older rental building on site. The new buildings will now be 12 and 6 storeys and surround the existing 15-storey building. A rendering of one of the proposed buildings at 20 Godstone. FEDERAL ELECTORAL DISTRICTS REDISTRIBUTION AFFECTING NORTH YORK The Federal government is redistributing our electoral ridings. This has led to a proposal to eliminate a riding here in Toronto: Don Valley East. On a per capita basis, Toronto is already the least represented community at every level of government. Through this motion, City Council is strongly objecting to this proposal and urging the Prime Minister to reconsider this change. We have to recognize that all major Canadian cities are growing and that the people in them need adequate representation. PROTECTING ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE FOR ALL ONTARIANS Tomorrow, the Ontario Government will be ending the Physician and Hospital Services for Uninsured Persons Program, removing access to vital care and supports from over a million Ontarians, many of whom are newcomers or members of marginalized communities. Today, Council unanimously approved my and Councillor Chris Moise's motion to call on the Province to reverse this decision and continue to support the critical health care access that this program facilitates. There are a few other significant items that Council has yet to consider, which I will share an update on in next week's E-Blast. As always, feel free to reach out to my office with any questions or comments.

In last week's E-Blast, I mentioned that City Council was considering a settlement offer for the development application at Tyndale University. Council approved the settlement terms last week, which means that the full details are now public. In this column, I am going to lay out everything you need to know about this development and the settlement offer, including the property's heritage designation and what it means for the development, what has changed through the settlement process, next steps, and why it was necessary to accept these settlement terms. A photo of Tyndale University as it currently stands. To provide a bit of background, I first visited Tyndale University in the summer of 2018, shortly after Premier Ford announced that he was doubling the size of Toronto wards. The Chancellor of the University invited me for a tour, and I was delighted to see one of the finest examples of mid-century architecture in our city. I still remember my first glimpse of the interior chapel inside the "Mother House". I went a little weak at the knees—I had to sit down and stare before walking any further down the aisle. Years later, when I learned that Tyndale and their brand new development partner, Markee Developments, applied to build housing on the site, my first thought was to make sure that chapel would be preserved inside and out. Today, after a couple of years of planning process, community consultations and working groups, and the Ontario Land Tribunal appeal and settlement negotiations, I can confirm that the Mother House of Tyndale University will be preserved. Heritage Planning staff did a fulsome review and recommended a heritage designation for the site. This designation preserves the chapel and does permit a portion of the building, which was later built to house a high school, to be demolished. The Toronto Preservation Board and City Council approved the heritage review for this property and the final settlement offer guarantees the preservation of the chapel. An important term of the settlement that the community can be proud of is that a view to the front door of the Mother House and the chapel steeple will be preserved all the way to Bayview Avenue via the location of a new park added to the development. The "Mother House" chapel. Now, to get into the full settlement offer. As I mentioned last week, Provincial policy allows a developer to enter into confidential discussions with City Planning and make their final settlement offer to Council confidential. This is the route Markee Developments chose, which is why I have not been able to share details of the settlement offer thus far. I am glad I can finally share them with you all now. Here are the main changes that our City Planning department secured at this site: The number of buildings was reduced from 15 to 12 To accommodate the reduction in total buildings, the tallest building, located at the lowest elevation point at the north, is now 24 storeys As part of this change, the building closest to Bowan Court has been reduced to four storeys Every building has sufficient setbacks from the ravine The property has a Heritage Designation with clear sightlines to the Mother House and an accompanying preservation plan The new road built on the site will be fully public The affordable rental units on the site will be guaranteed affordable for 99 years The overall number of units proposed at this site has not changed much. The settlement offer includes 1510 units of housing. At the beginning of this process, I held a few of my trademark Park Pop-Ups at Bestview and Saddletree Parks so that residents could drop by and ask some initial questions. Back then, I said that while I wasn't opposed to housing being built at Tyndale I hoped the number of proposed units could be reduced. The Park Pop-Up I held in Bestview Park was very well attended by neighbours with questions about the proposed development at Tyndale. A reduction of units hasn't been offered, and I have to acknowledge the reasoning behind that. Toronto's housing shortage has now reached the point of deep crisis, and that is in large part why the Provincial "More Homes Built Faster Act" is now much more permissive about density. Metrolinx getting further along with a transit plan that includes Bus Rapid Transit on Steeles Avenue is another reason for this level of density. We need to build this level of housing if we want to tackle our housing crisis and give our own kids and grandkids a chance to live nearby. The biggest disappointment of this settlement process is that there are far fewer affordable rental units than originally proposed. Some of you will remember that the most compelling thing about this proposal was that almost 50% of the homes were going to be affordable rental homes. Unfortunately, the Provincial policy changes included in Bill 23 led to a significant reduction in the number of affordable units here. The settlement offer proposed 205 affordable units. I worked with City staff to negotiate an additional 34 affordable units as an in-kind community benefit contribution. As a result of this reduction, the developer is also receiving a smaller affordable housing subsidy. They are receiving just a third of the Open Door intergovernmental housing funding that they initially requested, as the number of affordable units has reduced to one third of the original proposal. A conceptual rendering of one of the public spaces at Tyndale Green. Now, to talk about next steps. The Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) hearing is going to proceed as scheduled this coming July, as a community group has applied for party status and will participate in the hearing. If the settlement between Markee and the City is approved by the OLT, the development will move forward in four phases. These phases are important to ensure that this housing actually gets built in a timely fashion. Here is a breakdown of the four development phases: Phase 1: The two largest buildings at the north of the property, and the majority of the large public park that leads to the chapel Phase 2: Four buildings and the remainder of the large public park Phase 3: Three buildings, the public road, a second public park, and a large privately-owned public space Phase 4: The remaining three buildings at the rear of the property The affordable units mentioned above will be spread out over all four phases, and 17 of the additional units I negotiated will be included in the first phase. This will be a big project, which is why it was so essential that City Planning lay out clear guidelines for each phase. A conceptual rendering of Tyndale Green. To close this off, I want to talk about why City Council approved this settlement offer. I've spoken to many folks across DVN who have the impression that City Council can stop a development in its tracks or demand any changes we want to the site. Under our current Provincial government's planning policy, this is not the case. City Planning and City Legal staff always adhere to good planning principles and try to secure the best outcome possible for our communities. They made their recommendations based on what they know, from their experience, would be defendable at the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT), the Provincial body that will make the ultimate decision on this application. If we did not reach a settlement offer with the developer, there would be a high chance that the developer would receive a much more permissive approval from the OLT. Staff are the experts, and Council took their advice when we voted to support both the heritage designation and the amended application settlement at this site. I will be sure to keep the community updated when the OLT hearing for this application is completed this summer. In the meantime, you can find all of the relevant materials of the settlement offer at the link below, and you can always reach out to my office with any of your questions or concerns.

The Economic and Community Development Committee (ECDC), which I chair, will meet next Tuesday and we're in for some lively debate. We have a number of meaty items on the agenda, which I want to break down for you today. Let's take a look. HOLD THE CHICKENS If you've been watching the news, you may have heard something about backyard chickens here in Toronto. Since 2018, the City has been running the UrbanHensTO Pilot Program, which has allowed residents in select city wards to keep hens. Having backyard hens is work. It takes real commitment and maintenance. For that reason, allowing them in Toronto went quite smoothly. Only about 100 households participated in the pilot. Due to the level of care involved, homeowners often sign up for one spring/summer season but don't return to the program the following year. The pilot has been quite successful, but City Staff do not recommend extending the program city-wide at this time. Given the current risk of Avian Flu, we are winding down the program. Current participants will be allowed to keep their hens until the end of the animals' lives. When the risk of flu has passed, a city-wide permission would be manageable and it might be a discussion to revisit. ENHANCING OUR WARMING CENTRE MODEL This year, there was a big focus on our warming centres and what our city can do to offer more safe, indoor spaces to those experiencing homelessness in our harshest season. ECDC asked Shelter, Support & Housing Administration (SSHA) staff to prepare a full report on how we can improve this model, and how we might be able to run our warming centres 24/7. We know that we can and should do more with our winter strategy, and this report outlines just how to do that. This week, I announced the proposed changes to our warming centre model. The report coming to Committee next week includes lessons learned from the 24/7 pilot and shows us what would be required to provide more access this coming winter. With just $5 million from our partner orders of government, we could operate two warming centres 24/7 and run additional temporary services for much of the winter. The report also recommends raising the temperature at which we open the temporary sites. If we adopt these recommendations, warming centres will open when temperatures reach -5°C, up from -15°C, and whenever Environment Canada issues an extreme weather warning. However, we cannot fully implement this plan alone. Serving the homeless is wealth redistribution in its purest form, and property taxes are not structured to do that. Property taxes are not collected based on your wealth—income taxes are. That is why this report calls on the Federal and Provincial governments to help fund our expanded winter strategy. I trust that our partners at both levels of government see the urgency of this work and will provide the support necessary for our city to achieve these goals. CHANGES TO THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE Getting the unemployed and under-employed through the right doors and into sustainable employment is absolutely key to our city's health. Toronto Employment and Social Services (TESS) has, since amalgamation, been connecting people with employers and employee training. TESS includes several social services under one banner because it helps connect those to the wide range of supports they need to find successful work. For those that need them, TESS provides pre-employment capacity-building programs. Rather than send clients to job interviews endlessly with no success, TESS refers clients to partner agencies and programs that get people ready to be successful at finding and keeping a job. One of our TESS centres. All of that is about to change. Premier Ford is uploading the management social and employment services to the Provincial government. Under this new model, employment services will look quite different. The Province will contract a provider of these services in each municipality and set strict criteria around how the program should be run. For clients in Toronto, this will feel like a deep cut. The Provincial model does not include the pre-employment services we've been delivering for decades. The item coming to ECDC on this will be quite an eye-opener for Council members. City staff first informed Council about these changes when they were announced by the Province in 2021, and we were comforted by the news that Toronto would be near the end of the list. This gave staff lots of time to make their case to the Province for continuing our long-successful approach to getting challenging clients employed. Since 2021, staff have been following the changes in other municipalities. They've noticed that the Province is being very prescriptive—some might even say rigid—in their approach. They leave no grey area for additional service, even if it might lead to successful employment for another Torontonian. City staff explored presenting a bid to become the contractor that delivers employment services in Toronto, but found that we would not be funded to deliver the kind of service we have in past. Instead, City staff recommend letting the Province choose a contractor, who we will work with to build additional programs that lead to true workforce development. THE HONOUR IS ALL MINE Last but not least, I want to highlight that while ECDC deals with some very serious and very human issues, we sometimes get rewarded with very special moments. One such moment is coming on Tuesday, when we welcome Lillian Allen to be named our latest Toronto Poet Laureate. Lillian Allen, our next Poet Laureate. I can honestly say that Lillian was instrumental in forming some of my politics and my feminism. In my twenties, my husband and I were all about enjoying the city before settling down and having a family. We spent many nights at the Bamboo Club and other venues in and around Queen Street, where Lillian would show up and riff her unique brand of Dub Poetry with the musicians on stage. She spoke about what it could mean to be a woman in this city if you weren't born with privilege—what it would feel like to be a powerless social worker or the even more powerless client before them. She spoke of the pain of childbirth, and then that the pushing continues as a mother has to give birth to the life that baby will lead. Toronto's next Poet Laureate, Lillian Allen, fills up everyone who listens to her. My thanks to the panel who have brought her forward to inhabit this role.