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This week, we’ve been thrown into summer full force. With 30+ degree heat, school ending, and more and more places opening up as of yesterday, many of us are itching to get out into the city. I know everyone’s excited, and I am too. There are just a few things we need to keep in mind, like following public health guidelines and being courteous to our neighbours, to make sure we can have fun and stay safe. We all deserve some fun after the year we’ve been through, so let’s go over what Don Valley North has to offer this summer. We’re lucky to have so many places to enjoy the outdoors in our neighbourhoods. Over the past couple of years, we’ve installed new playground equipment around the ward for kids, and new adult workout stations for parents and grandparents to enjoy. Be sure to give others space when sharing these amenities. The City is also offerings free drop-in programs for children and families at our parks through the ParksPlayTO program. This includes everything from gardening to active games to arts and crafts. I love getting the chance to chat with residents at our regular park pop-ups. My team and I will also be stopping by your local park for a park pop-up sometime this summer. I know many of us are fed up with virtual meetings. Now that it’s safe to do so, we’ll be putting up my pink tent in the park for a few hours a couple times per week. These pop-ups are a chance to come say hi and chat about what’s been going on in your neighbourhood. We’ll be dropping off flyers just before each pop-up, so keep an eye out for the card announcing we’re coming to your neighbourhood. Trails are a great option, especially when it’s hot. Nestled into ravines with lots of tree cover, they’re often a couple of degrees cooler than our streets and backyards. With everyone wanting to get onto the trails these days, please remember that you’re sharing the trail with other users. If you’re training for the Tour de France, our city trails aren’t the right place. Cyclists need to be mindful of their speed, and always give enough space to pedestrians. Our trails are best for family cycling and sharing with dogs and their walkers, joggers and roller skaters. While enjoying our parks and trails this summer, keep in mind that the City has had to hire fewer seasonal staff due to pandemic costs. This means grass cutting and weeding won’t take place as often as we’re used to. All of us can help keep our parks and trails in the best condition possible by putting out litter and recyclables in the bins and picking up after our pets. Our community members also have some great initiatives in our local parks, like the Dallington Pollinators Community Garden in Dallington Park. With the extreme heat we’ve been having this week, another group of our park amenities has been totally packed: our pools and splash pads. There are COVID-19 capacity limits and measures in place to keep these spaces safe for everyone. The City is also operating Emergency Cooling Centres to ensure that heat relief is accessible to those who need it this year. If you live in a building or apartment without air conditioning, it’s always good to know where the nearest cooling centre is. For us in Don Valley North, the closest location is at the North York Civic Centre on Yonge Street. These cooling centres will follow strict COVID-19 protocols and will have staff trained to assist anyone being affected by extreme heat. The City has a helpful website with tips and resources for how to stay cool, and tenants should soon be receiving my office’s helpful Summer Tenant Guide with information on keeping your unit cool. This summer is also a great time to support our local businesses that have been struggling during the pandemic. If dining out is in your budget, try to go to restaurants that didn’t have a drive-thru during lockdown. Some of the best burgers in town are in small kitchens. I’ve also loved checking out some of our local stores and cafes. My favourite new spot is Forest Café, across from the Parkway Forest Community Centre. They have a great black sesame latte and something wickedly delicious called a Croffle (a croissant/waffle), both of which are best enjoyed on their patio tables. My daughter Martha and I love to stop by Forest Cafe in Parkway Forest for an indulgent Croffle and a latte. Many businesses have had to hit the ground running with short notice for re-openings. Remember that rules and restrictions might vary from place to place. Every surviving business is getting back into the swing of things, and they all appreciate your business and patience as we open back up. I know this summer is starting to sound like a long list of dos and don’ts, but it’s really about remembering that we’re all still in this together. As restrictions start to gradually lift, we have to get back out into the city while staying informed and keeping safe. We have to follow public health guidelines and encourage friends and family to get vaccinated to keep up the great progress we’ve had lately. Last night, I saw a great video-explainer about getting that second shot on CBC’s The National. I want to include it here for anyone in your life still making their vaccine decisions. Getting both doses helps us all enjoy a safe summer and gradually get back to normal. It has been really wonderful for my team and me to take your calls about vaccinations, hear your stories, and help you get both of your shots. It’s an honour to be of assistance in these times when one can feel so helpless. Remember, our phone lines and emails will continue to be answered daily. We’re here to help with any issues that might arise over the summer months. These summer reminders are arriving in your inbox right on Canada Day. I thought this was perfect timing, as July 1 marks the real first day of summer in many of our minds, especially for kids who are excited for summer vacation. While there’s much to look forward to in the coming months, I want to close off this E-Blast by reflecting a bit on Canada Day this year. This past Friday, I was invited to join the National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC) for a small Canada Day cake-cutting ceremony, which was then broadcast virtually to their members. At the event, I was asked to do a land acknowledgement. I did it, and it brought me to tears. I joined the National Congress of Chinese Canadians for their Canada Day cake-cutting ceremony last Friday. Canada Day means something different to everyone. No matter how long you’ve been here or how you usually celebrate, this year it's important to reflect on the thousands of Indigenous children who died in residential schools. It's an ugly part of Canadian history that we must confront, and it requires all of us to work towards real and meaningful reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. We can start by refreshing ourselves on the Calls to Action outlined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I hope you’ll join me in reflecting on how we can all work towards creating a better Canada.

There’s only one month in the year that City Hall doesn’t have a cycle of standing committee meetings and a Council session: August. That makes our meetings in July jam-packed as City staff present their biggest projects so they can stay on track for their fall schedules. This particular July Council session has so many demanding items for consideration that it took Council over two hours just to review the agenda. Let’s take a look at some of the most notable items so far. A NEW REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR MULTI-TENANT (ROOMING) HOUSES Mayor Tory, after speaking strongly in favour of this new licensing framework, moved for Council to defer the regulatory licensing framework for rooming houses until our meeting in September. This presents a real chance to get this right. The important changes that I was prepared to introduce today may well be included in the improved version of this framework we see this fall. Councillor McKelvie put it the best of any of my colleagues: “We can have illegal rooming houses or legal rooming houses. There will always be rooming houses. The unenforceable, illegal status quo cannot continue. I want legal enforcement.” RECOMMENDED STEPS TO IMPLEMENT A VACANT HOME TAX IN TORONTO In a city like Toronto where housing prices seem to never stop rising, the last thing we need is homes sitting empty. That’s why Council is considering implementing a tax on vacant homes starting in 2022. The proposed tax rate is 1.0% of the property’s current value assessment. It’s important to note that this framework has multiple exemptions including for major renovations, ownership changes, and when the property owner is ill or passes away. You will have a chance to provide feedback on the proposed tax when City staff conduct public consultations this fall. During the rooming house debate, some residents complained that not enough people find out about consultations for city-wide issues. I want to assure my E-Blast readers that any city-wide consultation is always promoted through this column. The upcoming vacant home tax will be promoted here as soon as we have the dates and I encourage you to share this information with your neighbours. SHORT-TERM RENTAL UPDATES AND EXPLORING THEIR CONVERSION TO LONGER-TERM HOUSING The City required all short-term rental operators to register their properties by the beginning of this year. Now, the City is working to shut down non-compliant operators and explore ways to convert some of these homes back to the longer-term rental market. This motion at Council will create a new bylaw prohibiting anyone from advertising a short-term rental unless it is registered with the city. This is another measure that will help prevent the renting of unregistered Airbnbs and other short-term units. HOLDING (H) SYMBOL BY-LAW - 625 TO 627 SHEPPARD AVE E, 6 TO 12 GREENBRIAR RD, 1001 SHEPPARD AVE E, 1200 TO 1220 SHEPPARD AVE E, 35 MCMAHON DR, AND 40 ESTHER SHINER BLVD City Legal has asked for more time to finalize details to protect the City, and by extension Toronto taxpayers, from any potential litigation related to adding the Holding Provision to several developments on and near Sheppard that I wrote about a few weeks ago. This item will be back before Council in September with stronger provisions that mean that our infrastructure and homes are protected as critical water work to increase our sewer capacity begins in the fall. TORONTO’S TEN-YEAR COMMUNITY SAFETY & WELL-BEING PLAN The Provincial government has asked every Ontario municipality to create a ten-year Safety and Well-Being Plan as part of the provincial Community Safety and Policing Act introduced in 2019. Toronto City Staff and Council hope that this heralds a shift away from solely policing and towards governments working together to promote community safety through a variety of strategies. This plan approved at Council yesterday will guide a variety of agencies across sectors, community, and government to work together proactively to promote the well-being of all Torontonians. YOUTH SERVICE REVIEW – INVESTING IN YOUTH OUTCOMES In the very first meeting of this term back in 2018, I moved a motion to have staff complete an exhaustive review of all our youth programs and services. It was challenging for staff to produce this report because we’ve never had a framework to measure the success of the youth programs we deliver. I’m very pleased that this report proposes real rubrics to assess all types of programming for violence prevention and at-risk youth. This is an important first step in demonstrating the true impact of these youth services and it shows us how to best spend our youth dollars for maximum impact. WATER USERS CONSULTATION ON WATER FEES, CHARGES AND PROGRAMS This item has a boring name so that you won’t look at it or attend a virtual consultation. However, I highly recommend doing so. Toronto Water would like to one day adopt a best practice common in other cities: adding a stormwater surcharge to properties that over-develop or over-pave their land. We have considered this every few years since Mississauga began collecting the charge. Once again, we have put it off. For now, staff will focus on water conservation and stormwater issue related to industrial water clients. I have asked staff to transparently name any future consultation on this issue. I’m a big fan of being upfront with people about things that could adversely affect their pocketbooks, and will keep you updated when this item again comes under review. LDD MOTH (EUROPEAN GYPSY MOTH) INFESTATION I know how bad the LDD Moth infestation is in Don Valley North this year. We were one of the first communities to really be hit hard by these insects last year, and now they’ve spread to almost every corner of the city. In response to this infestation, Council will be directing our Parks, Forestry and Recreation department to increase their efforts to combat LDD Moth population for the upcoming season. CHANGES TO YARD WASTE PROGRAM: SUPPORTING EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY & BIODIVERSITY Council considered two items related to the future of our yard waste services. One item recommended making paper yard waste bags mandatory to prevent workplace injury for our garbage collectors and make the process more efficient. Staff also recommend leaving yard waste on our properties one month longer, to mid-April. They found that leaving yard waste on our properties just a few weeks longer helps the survival of many species who spend the winter living under the very plants we gather up in the spring. Council has sent these two items back to staff for further analysis, outreach, and consultation. I’ll provide an update on these items when they return to Council. NET ZERO BUILDINGS STRATEGY & NET ZERO CARBON PLAN Council adopted a Net Zero Buildings strategy to help achieve Toronto’s TransformTO goal of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions city-wide by 2050. This strategy sets out to reduce building emissions by requiring emissions levels to be tracked, disclosed and audited, establishing sector-specific emissions standards, and making retrofits more accessible. The City’s own building portfolio has set goals to achieve net zero emissions in City buildings through a variety of strategies like fuel switching, retrofits, carbon offsets, and on-site renewable energy solutions. Existing buildings are currently Toronto’s largest source of emissions, even more than automobiles, and these plans will tackle those emissions head on. ENDORSING THE CALL FOR A FOSSIL FUEL NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY Together with Councillor Mike Layton, I have moved a motion to have Council endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. We know we need to drastically cut our emissions if we want to limit global warming and mitigate some of the worst impacts of climate change. For me, endorsing this treaty is also about being proactive. The below clip from CBC’s The National shows that young people are already moving towards the renewable energy sector. This is where the market is headed and Toronto needs to be on board. STOP EXCESSIVE CONSTRUCTION NOISE - GETTING THE PROVINCE TO BACK OFF FROM OVERRIDING TORONTO’S NOISE BYLAW At the beginning of the pandemic, the Province moved to suspend the City's long-debated Noise Bylaw that protects residents from excessive noise. Council has now formally requested that the Provincial government repeal its current regulation that has allowed construction to take place from 6 AM – 10 PM, seven days per week. Council wants to regain control over our noise bylaw and go back to our policy of 7 AM – 7 PM on weekdays, 9 AM – 7 PM on Saturdays, and no construction on Sundays. I know many residents in our neighbourhood have really been suffering with these extended construction hours, and I hope the Province will grant Council’s request. FEASIBILITY OF RESTRICTING THE SALE OF CONSUMER FIREWORKS I’ve heard from many people in the community who are concerned about the increase in unsafe firework use during the pandemic. After this request from Councillors Nunziata and Grimes, the Municipal Licensing and Standards department will look into the feasibility of restricting the sale of fireworks to the public to prevent these dangerous incidents from occurring. REVIEWING SERVICE LEVELS FOR GRASS CUTTING SERVICES Grass cutting services have been slowly declining over the past several years due to ongoing budget cuts to our City departments. Council will be asking staff to review the current service levels and report back to the Budget Committee on what would be needed to increase the number of cuts per season to keep our public spaces looking their best. I hope you found these Council highlights helpful and informative. We are taking a short break from the E-Blast and will be back the first week of August with more important updates for our community. My office’s phone line and email will continue to be answered over the next two weeks, so please don’t hesitate to reach out about any issues that may arise.

I know that summer is far from over, but I want to talk about something I saw while vacationing. I think it has important lessons for how we should start to look at housing options here in Toronto. A couple of weeks ago, we headed out west to visit my sister-in-law and parents-in-law in Vancouver, masks, wipes, and Purell in tow. My dear sister-in-law, Nancy, is always on the lookout for anything that might be interesting to me on the municipal or urban planning front. Way back in 2012, she took me for a walk in her neighbourhood and showed me a construction site. She had been to a meeting and heard that this property, formerly three single family dwellings in the middle of a residential avenue, was being turned into something called ‘cohousing’. The architect's rendering of the cohousing complex I visited in Vancouver. Ten enterprising community members had come together to develop this property into a small complex of 31 individually owned housing units with a communal activity centre at the rear. The housing units would be self-contained with kitchens, bathrooms, and everything else a person would need, only a bit smaller. Together, the residents would run the communal spaces which include a workout room, laundry room, craft studio, children’s playroom, and a generous sized communal kitchen, dining, and living room. On our recent visit, Nancy suggested that I go take a good look at the finished product. Residents have been happily ‘cohousing’ here for over seven years now and their little complex is quite beautiful. As I stood in the back alley taking a photograph of the communal building, a resident drove up to the underground parking entrance and asked what I was doing. When I explained that I was a Toronto City Councillor, she beamed with pride and said, “Well, come on then. You’ll be wanting a tour.” The underground parking entrance at the back of the complex. Above is one of the community common spaces. My tour guide proceeded to show me around the entire housing complex. She took me on a tour of the many communal spaces, showing me the laundry area, the children’s playroom, and the gorgeous communal kitchen. I asked if each family really does keep their commitment to the co-housing responsibilities. She answered “Absolutely!” without a moment’s hesitation. The few residents who found that cohousing wasn’t to their liking have moved, easily selling their units at a profit as there is a waiting list to get in. You won’t see pictures from inside her own unit, as I felt photographing that would be a bit too invasive, but she was delighted for me to see it. It was a lovely one bedroom apartment with a gorgeous kitchen and a walkout patio lined with flowers. My tour guide on the left, and the communal kitchen space on the right. I also noticed something quite telling when she took me up to the complex’s rooftop garden. From our vantage point, I could look down at the next couple of blocks in the neighbourhood. Renovations were underway or completed on many properties, and it took me a moment to realize that these renovations looked different than what we typically see in Toronto. None of the renovated properties I could see were a ‘Monster Home’. The newer builds tended to be only slightly boxier and larger than neighbouring homes. The big difference was that almost every new property also included a new laneway home at the rear. My tour guide pointed out one property where she knew the owners. These owners had moved into the new laneway home and their main house, once renovated, was rented out to their daughter’s family and a basement tenant. “That is a very common scenario in these homes,” my tour guide said. When I looked further down to the main arterial avenues, I realized that there wasn’t quite as much high-rise condo construction underway as I remembered from my last trip to Vancouver four years ago. A view of the complex from the rooftop garden. I’m sharing all of this with you because it relates to the tipping point we find ourselves at in Toronto with respect to the high-rise building boom and neighbourhood densities. Many of us are fed up with massive development projects of 30 and 40 storeys. At the same time, we vigorously oppose any change to conventional, single-family dwelling neighbourhoods. The cohousing complex I visited in Vancouver provides a shining example of some of the creative solutions we need to embrace to address our housing shortage here in Toronto. From the street, you can barely tell that this is a 31-unit building. The architects designed it to fit in almost seamlessly with the surrounding neighbourhood. A picture of the front of the cohousing complex. Cohousing is not technically an affordable housing project. However, the land the former three houses sat on was cheaper to buy and construction costs far less than a high-rise building, so the units ended up costing less than usual market value. Unit owners help with gardening and communal space management, allowing them all to pay a more affordable maintenance fee. Lastly, Vancouver planners required the group to include two affordable rental units in their project and these units generate a small source of income to be used towards the complex’s communal costs. Cohousing also provides an excellent example of how we can create opportunities to age in place in our communities. My tour guide was the perfect example of that. Still a firecracker at age 75, she was able to downsize from a single family home and stay in her beloved neighbourhood. She’s found an extremely tight-knit community in her cohousing complex, and loves being surrounded by a mix of renters, families, and older adults like herself. We have a housing shortage here in Toronto just like Vancouver, perhaps even worse. The difference is that creative solutions are visibly addressing the challenge out west. What I saw on my vacation were innovative residents maximizing the potential of single-family properties while maintaining or even enhancing the quality of the neighbourhood. Moreover, with every new home they created by adding gentle density, they seem to be slowing the need for rapid high-rise condo development. An illustration of what cohousing could look like here in Toronto. I wonder if we have it in us, Toronto residents, planners, and politicians, to reward those that propose housing solutions that are somewhere in between the mega-high-rise and the monster home. Cohousing doesn’t exist in Toronto right now, but there is a small group trying to make it happen. Cohousing Toronto is currently in the process of searching for a site to build 15 to 30 cohousing units. If they were to walk into the North York planning office and say, “We have purchased three properties on a residential street and we are going to create a community of 30 units of housing and manage it by consensus,” what would the planner say? What would the neighbours say? How would the local politicians speak to the matter? Would these reactions be any more or less angry than they are when a 31 storey building is proposed nearby? Would they be any more or less angry than when a single family renovation designed to look like a four storey building spilling into the ravine is proposed? Or, would we have it in us to open our minds to hear the possibilities? Without new approaches, Toronto’s housing crisis will continue to gather steam and our ward will continue to be inundated with high-rise condominium applications and proposals for monster homes. Perhaps it’s time we start to move away from our Toronto housing extremes and start to look at something in between. If we want positive change in our neighbourhoods, we have to be open to these new ideas and maybe change a bit ourselves, too.

After reading the title of this week's E-Blast, you may ask yourself "Why should I care about growth across the entire province?" You may only be interested in Don Valley North, or just the neighbourhood you live in. While I could discuss planning on a local basis alone, it wouldn't give you the whole picture. This summer, my team and I have been hosting a number of pop-ups in parks across Don Valley North, and many of the attendees asked to sign up for the E-Blast to learn more about development applications in their own neighbourhoods. The biggest thing that governs planning and development decisions in your neighbourhood is a Provincial Policy Statement called “More Homes, More Choice: Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan”. I’d like to walk you through the planning process, and how this Provincial Policy Statement has impacted it. The new Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs, Steve Clark, introduced the “More Homes More Choice” Action Plan early in the first year of the new government. With many of our children and grandchildren depending on a growth in new housing stock, the title sounded good, but the devil was in the details. My team and I held a park pop-up at Bestview Park last Saturday, and it attracted a lot of community feedback for an upcoming development. The Plan was numbered Bill 108 and its guiding principles were to: encourage an increase in the mix and supply of housing; protect the environment and public safety; reduce barriers and costs for development and provide greater certainty; support rural, northern and Indigenous communities; and support the economy and job creation. Bill 108 hoped to achieve these principles by changing the Ontario Planning Act to require more density in cities, especially around transit. The Bill also streamlines the provincial appeals process through a new appeals body called the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). Developers may apply to the OLT when they do not like the local municipal Council decision, or when they face strong community opposition. However, we are getting ahead of ourselves. The tribunal comes much later in the process, the City’s role still comes first. Here are the basic steps we follow in North York: A landowner – you, me, or a big developer – applies to build on their property or change the use of their property. A preliminary stage of approximately three months begins. This includes assigning a City planner, reviewing the application to make sure it complies with both City and provincial policies as required by law, and reporting to North York Community Council. The City, at the developer’s expense, mails notices of the first statutory community consultation through Canada Post. The local Councillor always expands the statutory notice area, so that a much larger group than the provincial policy requires will actually get an invitation mailed to their door. Based on community reaction, and further review of the details such as angular plane, massing, separation distances, shadowing, traffic modelling and available green space, a series of meetings between applicant and planner take place to adjust plans to resolve these issues accordingly. This stage can take months, depending on the level of change needed to the application. Here in Don Valley North, depending on the size of the application or level of community impact, I like to create a working group and hold meetings to address and attempt to resolve the biggest points of concern to the community and City planner. While this is not a legislated part of the planning process, I consistently push for it because the best advice comes from the community, when they work through the issues together. The later stages of the process include the developer’s resubmission, which incorporates changes to their plan. This can become very technical between City planners and the developer, and may take several months. A final staff report to be voted on by Council and the Mayor may take anywhere from 9 months to 24 months from the date of application to complete. Once the Mayor and Council vote, if approved, the developer’s team must meet a number of technical infrastructure requirements to be able to receive a building permit. This can take another 6 months to a year before construction begins. The City process often seems opaque or mysterious, but those are essentially the basic steps. What complicates things is that at any point after the first few months, the developer can unilaterally decide the City process is being somehow frustrated and appeal directly to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) for provincial permission to move ahead. Before the pandemic when we could meet together in-person, we always emphasized the importance of each member present sharing their suggestions and concerns. This is why City planning staff begin reviewing the application against provincial policy at the most preliminary stage. They know that ultimately, if the developer appeals to the OLT, the City planner will have to defend the recommendations they write in the final report to Council. When everything hinges on a Provincial policy designed to increase the supply of housing, I know that it sounds like the fix is in against the City and community groups alike. You can take heart from the fact that the provincial planning appeal process has been changing. While the provincial adjudicator still often sides with the developer on large applications, the previous provincial government added an element that requires the developer to achieve something called minutes of settlement with the City. While the current provincial government took away the residents’ support office with Bill 108, which makes it harder for residents to launch their own OLT appeal, they left the most crucial thing in. Minutes of settlement are a document that sets out the foundational points of an agreement reached between two or more parties. This document is produced after the negotiations of the agreement or settlement, and is signed by both the parties involved and their respective lawyers. In the development process, developers need to sign a minutes of settlement with the City. If residents are engaged in the City process and have worked with the planner to include their conditions, needs, and reductions, the developer will likely honour these requests to get quickly to their required settlement. I've been fortunate to meet with community members in-person again as the number of positive COVID-19 cases has decreased, but we need to keep doing our part to keep the community safe. Right now, there are a number of development applications at various stages of the process in Don Valley North. Recently, we discussed the application at Tyndale University at length at one of my Park Pop-ups. It’s a good example of what I am discussing above. It is a large application with a change of use involved. This application is still in the preliminary stage, and consultation notices won’t be mailed out until September. In the coming weeks, as City staff return from August holidays, my team and I will send out an E-Blast that will present updates on all the ongoing applications in the ward, and when you might expect the next meeting regarding each. In the meantime, remember that while City planners are busy carrying multiple applications and tribunal cases at a time, your Councillor’s office is always available to discuss any development. Virtual meetings about something as challenging as planning and growth are so much more effective when the number of participants is manageable. My team and I are happy to meet with any group, no matter how small, as it can help us all prepare for the much larger statutory meetings. Please call my office if you’d like to set something up. I continue to hope and pray for the day when all discussions and meetings, large or small, can happen in person again.

There is an old rule of thumb in politics: If a topic is loaded with controversy and it’s not your responsibility, avoid it at all costs. As the fourth wave of this pandemic threatens to arrive in Toronto just when we want our children to return to school, I am going to break that rule. I need to talk about vaccine passports, even though it is controversial in some circles. A picture of me getting my second dose at Women's College Hospital back in June. This issue is not my jurisdiction. While some of you may want Toronto to implement its own vaccine passport system, there’s legal debate over whether a municipality is able to have a proof of vaccine system of its own and actually enforce it. However, there is no doubt that we need one. If implemented at the Provincial level, that system would stand on much firmer legal ground. We need our Provincial government to act now and implement vaccine passports. Luckily, Ontario does not have to go first. This wheel has already been invented in Quebec, which announced last week that it is implementing a vaccine passport system for non-essential services. Health officials in Quebec anticipated the future need for a proof of vaccination system and began early to issue QR coded receipts to those who received their first and second doses. The QR codes can be printed and issued on paper or stored on a mobile phone, and are scanned to pull up information about a person’s vaccination status. Quebec's system uses QR codes to check people's vaccination status. The QR codes can be kept on your phone, as pictured above, or on paper. They also had their draft approach to a passport system evaluated by a professor of bioethics at the Université de Montréal, Vardit Ravitsky. Dr. Ravitsky has said that Quebec’s system is nuanced and non-discriminatory because the vaccine passports will only be used in the event of an outbreak and only to access non-essential services. The province of Quebec’s Medical Officer of Health announced on Tuesday that the full system goes into effect on September 1st. The QR code proof of vaccination will be required in non-essential places such as theatres, restaurants, concerts, and sporting events. In other words, an outbreak in Quebec means a proof of vaccine crackdown instead of a business lockdown. François Legault, Quebec’s conservative Premier, recently commented that "People who have made the effort to get their two doses must be able to live a somewhat normal life." His comments clearly resonated with Quebecers. Vaccination appointments doubled in the days following his first vaccine passport announcement. So where are we at in Ontario? On Wednesday morning, the front page of the Star confirmed our worst fears and announced that a fourth wave is bearing down on our province. Appointment requests in testing centres are doubling and tripling every day while vaccination appointments have slowed to a crawl. The number of doses administered across the Province each day has dropped significantly over the past month. With daily case counts on the rise, there is a clear need to implement this system to save the lives of Ontarians. Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the science table, has warned that the daily case count could climb to 1200 by the time kids head back to school in September. We know that with case counts that high, it’s not just unvaccinated people whose health is threatened. We’ve already had to delay hundreds of thousands of surgeries, medical procedures, and health consultations during previous waves of the pandemic. We also have to look out for children under twelve who aren’t able to receive the vaccine and can still be at risk for severe complications from COVID-19. Vaccine passports are also necessary to save our local businesses. Our cafes, restaurants, theatres, boutiques, and other establishments have suffered tremendously under previous lockdowns. Those measures were absolutely necessary prior to mass vaccination, but now we have another option to keep businesses open and viable. I loved doing my best to support local restaurants by ordering takeout during our lockdowns, but now we need to do everything we can to keep these businesses open. By issuing vaccine passports, anyone heading to a restaurant or gym can be assured that everyone present is vaccinated. These businesses can remain open without increasing community spread. Vaccine passports will also provide a powerful incentive to those who are currently unvaccinated and want to be able to head to the movies with their family or enjoy drinks at a bar with their friends after work. The fact is that while we do have one of the best vaccination rates in the world, there are still 1.5 million Ontarians who are unvaccinated. We need a bigger incentive to get those folks to get the vaccine. While the Quebec model rolls out, our own Premier and his Minister of Health insist that we Ontarians are all too befuddled to handle any kind of vaccine passport system and would quickly lose our proof of vaccination. I’ve spoken to many residents this summer who have happily showed me their vaccine receipts or tell me where they’re keeping them. One woman even showed me a laminated receipt and recommended that I tell all of you to get yours done at the print shop in the Galati’s plaza on Leslie. Whatever system the Province wants to use, I am confident that all of us vaccinated citizens could manage it. Could someone lose their proof of vaccine or try to make a fake? Sure, but that’s not a reason to have no system at all and end up locked down again. So I say, “Get on with it, Doug! And don’t reinvent the wheel. Learn from Quebec.” To be fair to our Premier, I also want to see our Prime Minister move quickly to implement the vaccine passport for international travel that was announced yesterday, as well as expand this mandate to domestic flights. I recently flew to Vancouver, a four and half hour flight. At no point did anyone ever ask me if I was vaccinated, let alone ask to see my receipt. A year and a half into this pandemic, it’s beyond time we take stronger measures to reduce virus transmission everywhere we can. COVID-19 may be with us for a while yet. Those of us who are vaccinated still need to be careful and adhere to public health measures. At the same time, however, we deserve a life that is as normal as possible. Businesses deserve to remain open, and our frontline workers deserve to never be plunged back into the chaos that erupted in our hospitals earlier this year. It is time to make sure that all of our vaccine efforts don’t go to waste and that the fourth wave is the shortest wave yet. It is time for our province to implement proof of vaccination.

Over the course of my career as a City Councillor, I’ve watched three mayors grapple with their place in provincial and federal elections. It is a minefield for any politician to comment on another order of government’s race, and this is especially true for the leader of the largest city in Canada. Despite the challenges, Toronto’s mayor has to have a plan for how to navigate these elections. Pundits would never let such a leader ride out an entire campaign period without saying a word. I think John Tory must have carefully considered the communications strategies of his predecessors, mixed in a little of his own personal style and inclinations, and then got to work. He has chosen to send the same message, openly and transparently, to each party leader in the campaign outlining exactly what Toronto needs from our federal government in order to recover, rebuild, and to support our nearly three million residents. His letter was addressed individually to four party leaders, giving each of them the opportunity to respond and outline how they will address Toronto’s priorities. The Mayor’s letter focuses on providing adequate funding to five areas: COVID-19 relief Housing and homelessness Public transit Mental health care Community violence prevention I endorse every point the Mayor makes above. I’m particularly happy to see that Toronto’s transit upgrade needs feature prominently in the document. John Tory is careful to balance the needs of the existing system with requests to support the expansion of the system. You’ve heard me on this point many times, dear readers. We can’t dream of new lines endlessly while letting the system we ride today fall apart. Significant Federal commitment to renew vehicles on current subway and streetcar lines has already been made. Any government, new or re-elected, has to wrap their head around the less sexy types of transit spending like this because of what they can do for our economy. A simple thing like ordering new vehicles generates thousands of jobs up and down the whole manufacture and supply chain. Good for John to remind them of this. Most importantly, the Mayor’s letter makes it clear to the party leaders that Toronto needs continued federal support during this pandemic and beyond. We already receive federal funding in many of the areas outlined. These federal programs and funding commitments need to be maintained and expanded in order for Toronto to succeed and continue to be the economic engine of our country. Mayor Tory reminds the federal leaders that we are banking on these dollars to serve people in crisis and each party needs to make sure these funds and included in their budget plans for our nation to recover. No new Prime Minister would be able to cut these funds and say, “Sorry, I just didn’t know.” There is only one point I would add to the Mayor’s list. We know that women have been the hardest hit by this pandemic. They are overrepresented in job losses and early indications show that women have also seen a stagnation of upward mobility in their careers as they prioritized their children during the global pandemic. This brings us to what should be the most crucial election issue of them all: child care. Adopting a motion that I moved with Councillor Layton, Council has already taken the position that we support the proposed federal investment in building a $10/day child care system across the country. Toronto’s own child care strategy has been on hold during the pandemic, but it must be kickstarted back to life if we are to see full economic recovery for every family. We planned, with partnership from both federal and provincial governments, to make child care more affordable, expand the number of child care spaces, and improve the wages and working conditions of child care workers. All political parties should embrace this as an urgent component of economic competitiveness on the global stage. Countries that already provide a nation-wide, quality child care system will see their cities recovering faster and being less reliant on COVID relief handouts to support families left behind. I heard a great quote the other day that cleverly explains what we need to do to fix child care, especially in Toronto where it is most expensive. I posted it to social media. Perhaps you noticed it: “If you were trying to build a great healthcare system, would you build great hospitals or would you give a bunch of cash to the sick people?” That quote and all of the points in Mayor Tory’s letter are worth thinking about if you look out the window and spy a fully-vaccinated federal candidate heading towards you door. I want to encourage you to ask them about your city. Go ahead, be a little Toronto-centric! We are the financial centre and economic engine of the entire nation and yet we’re extremely reliant on higher orders of government to fund our ever-growing portfolio of projects and services. I think it’s fair to ask any federal candidate, “What are you committed to do for Toronto? Do you endorse our Mayor’s official letter to your party’s leader?” and then see what they have to say.

Regular users of the City of Toronto’s five public golf courses know that our Parks & Recreation department has been conducting an operational review of our courses. The City has held a virtual community consultation meeting for each course: Scarlett Woods, Humber Valley, Don Valley, Dentonia Park, and Tam O’Shanter. I’ve been keeping an eye on these consultations and having discussions with engaged local residents and people in the world of golf course design. I have some opinions about what we should do to revamp our golf courses and maybe even see them start to bring in some revenue for our city. Unfortunately, my ideas don’t seem to have any place in the conversation our Parks department is leading. In fact, they are firmly identified as “not open for discussion”. A slide from the presentation given at the City's public consultations held as part of the golf course operational review. Some of of the ideas I think we need to pursue were not open for discussion. For those who are not golfers, it should be noted that Toronto is not exactly swimming in public golf courses. There is one in Scarborough, one in North York, one along the subway line in the east end, and two in Etobicoke. While our public courses did see a slight uptick in games played during the pandemic, they have been on a steady decline for the past few years. This decline in registered games is a bit mystifying to me. I know that whenever I try to hit the driving range on a weekend, I can barely make it into the parking lot. The courses around the edges of our city are regularly packed, so why doesn’t this interest translate into more bookings at our public courses? What I’ve learned is that golf interests are changing, and our public courses aren’t keeping pace with these new trends. Other courses, some of them publicly owned in other cities, offer golf simulator lounges, heated driving ranges, and restaurants capacble of hosting a charity gala. Many of these changes are being driven by a new, younger group of golfers who will keep this sport alive and keep our courses viable. This incredible two-storey driving range at a public course in Burnaby, BC shows an innovative way to generate more revenue from our golf courses. There is a big difference between golfers my age and older and the new wave of young golfers. Here is what I learned about older golfers on public courses, by and large: If you are healthy, you make the time for a four hour, 18-hole game. If you are able, you take time to play without renting a cart. If you are slowing down and tightly budgeting, you play a quick 9 holes. Older public golfers tend to watch their food spending. Increasingly, young adults are joining the world of golf. For them, work is very demanding and their workplaces certainly aren’t comping a club membership. This is what younger golfers are looking for in a course: You like a golf course with a driving range and room for lessons with a pro. You rent a cart to save time. You love a good clubhouse with a golf simulator and a liquor license. You are driving the trend toward 12-hole courses. This second list of younger golfers’ preferences is the key to keeping our golf program alive. The problem with the current golf course review is that we are being asked to discuss improvements to the program without being honest with ourselves about whether or not the necessary investment is even on the table. If we look at pre-pandemic times, our golf courses were operating at a loss. They do generate about $5 million in revenue annually from game and lesson fees, the pro shop, and concession operators, but this doesn’t fully cover their operating costs and doesn’t even begin to put a dent in the millions of dollars of capital repairs needed at our courses. If we want to make our golf courses more profitable and reduce the cost of operating them, we need to invest in these facilities to attract the next generation of golfers. This photo shows the clubhouse at the Scarlett Woods public golf course in Etobicoke. It hasn't seen an upgrade in decades. The 12-hole model presents a great opportunity for our public courses. A game of twelve holes can be played in two and half hours. Courses specially designed for these short games are popping up in Mississauga, Brampton, Pickering, Ajax, London, and across the USA. Courses that convert to 12 holes find they attract more frequent golfers. Additionally, the redesign frees up new space to churn more revenue from a driving range and a golf school. Here is an interesting side benefit: 12-hole golfers find they have more time, post-game, for a clubhouse meal and a drink. Charity organizers look for 12-hole courses with event facilities to hold tournaments inside core cities. These tournaments attract more participants that can stay for the full reception and more fundraising. I’m not suggesting we switch any of our five courses to the 12-hole model just to convert the additional real estate to community gardens and splash pads. This might be an unpopular opinion to some, but I think the leftover real estate should be used to enhance the City’s golf program overall. Back before the pandemic, I visited the two municipally-owned golf courses in Burnaby, BC. One course, the Riverway, sits in the centre of the city and boasts Burnaby’s number one choice of wedding venue for multiple years running. The other is located along the city limits and boasts a massive double decker driving range to die for. A photo of the Riverway public golf course's indoor event space in Burnaby, BC. It has been the City's most popular wedding venue year after year. These courses show us what our golf courses could be. Yes, they’d need some upfront investment, but they have the potential to more than pay for themselves once they get up and running. Investments like heated driving range facilities and first-rate event venues allow these courses to generate revenue year-round. There is one more potential use for the land that’s freed up when a course converts to 12 holes: housing. Our five public courses are located in places where we needed to dedicate large green spaces, so in some cases housing development isn’t advisable. However, if one if one or two of them did present opportunities to sever some property to develop profitable housing, that revenue could be used to build stronger programs at the remaining courses that could include all of a young golfer’s bells and whistles. Our public golf courses need a revamp. In my view, it’s not such a crazy idea to find ways for our courses to generate more revenue and try to make them pay for themselves. Toronto’s golf courses are a great public asset with a ton of untapped potential. If we broaden the conversation and make some of these bolder ideas open for discussion, we have a real chance to promote a great sport that lets players of all ages enjoy the great outdoors, right in the middle of our city.

I’m afraid that we all have to care about back-to-school this year, even if our own children are grown or we have none at all. Children across Ontario are heading back to school right as we head into the fourth wave of the global pandemic. How our province handles this return to the classroom could well determine whether we beat this fourth wave or have to deal with the very dire COVID-19 projection numbers released by the Ontario government’s advisory Science Table yesterday. We need to do whatever we can to get this reopening right and keep school outbreaks down. The City of Toronto does not have jurisdiction over schools, which have their own governance system and are completely funded by the Province. However, we think of Toronto’s school boards as our municipal-level brothers and sisters. We at the City know we should do everything in our power to help our school boards succeed. That’s why we’ve taken two big steps to help keep our schools safe this fall: deploying Toronto Public Health to monitor schools and aid in vaccination efforts, and adding additional service to the TTC to make students’ journeys to and from school safer. At Toronto Public Health (TPH), preparations are underway to support screening, testing, and vaccination efforts in schools. While it is the Ontario Ministry of Education that sets out health and safety measures in schools, TPH supports school boards in creating the safest environment possible in their schools. In addition to masking, handwashing, sanitizing protocols, and COVID-19 screening for staff, students, and visitors, TPH has recommended additional measures to keep schools safe. TPH recommends that junior and senior kindergarten students wear masks indoors. They also stress masking and physical distancing in music classes where the virus could spread more easily. TPH has been carefully monitoring COVID-19 activity across our city since the pandemic began. In the fall, this monitoring will include assessing case numbers and outbreaks in Toronto schools. TPH has a team of 102 public health nurses who will provide strong support to our schools. If a COVID case is confirmed at a school, principals will dismiss the impacted cohorts and TPH will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the potential risk to the rest of the school population. Another essential element in keeping our schools safe is regular COVID-19 testing. We know that kids under 12 aren’t currently able to receive the vaccine, so we need to keep a close eye on cases to ensure they don’t spread rapidly. TPH has partnered with Ontario Health and local hospital partners to provide testing support to schools. This includes an expanded take-home test program that makes is easier and less invasive for kids to get tested if they have symptoms. For students age 12 and older, it’s essential to achieve the highest vaccination rates possible. TPH is going to continue to work closely with schools, school boards and healthcare partners to facilitate easy access to vaccines. This will include setting up mobile vaccination clinics in schools for youth and their families, particularly in communities with low vaccination rates and higher COVID-19 risk. While it’s important that youth get vaccinated, anyone who interacts closely with children needs to get vaccinated too. This is especially true for parents, caregivers, and educators who interact with children under the age of 12 who are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine. This is the best way to protect our young children, friends, families, and other loved ones from experiencing severe illness and complications from COVID-19. If all the talk about vaccine passports and kids at risk has helped you decide that now is the time to get vaccinated but you don’t know where to start, feel free to call my office. We are a friendly voice from your neighbourhood and we’re happy to help walk you through the steps to get your vaccine. Toronto Public Health will be hard at work this fall helping schools implement safety measures, setting up vaccine clinics, and monitoring the daily COVID situation in our schools. While we know these in-school measures are vital, there’s another piece that’s essential for keeping our students safe—transit. We know that high school and post-secondary students in particular will begin adding bodies to the transit system as they return to the classroom. The TTC has already begun preparing for September crowding. We want to see ridership increase on our transit system but efforts must be made to keep everyone safe. To accommodate the increased demand our transit system will face when school starts next week, the TTC is: Increasing service system-wide to support the expected increase in ridership, including 25% more subway trains on Line 1 and Line 2 at peak times on weekdays. Deploying an additional 180 special school trips to manage anticipated high school student ridership and communicating with school boards to determine hot spots, student volumes, and start and dismissal times. Increasing or restoring service on nearly 30 bus routes that serve post-secondary institutions and other major transit corridors, and implementing new periods of express service on four routes. Restoring service on nearly all 900 series express routes and introducing new service on the 938 Highland Creek Express, adding new weekday midday and early evening service on 960 Steeles West Express, and new weekday midday express service on 941 Keele Express. Additional express routes are planned for October. Maintaining service flexibility, adjusting service to meet demand, and continuing to operate demand-responsive bus service to supplement scheduled service. Just as at school, the best way to stay safe on a busy bus is to wear a mask and be fully vaccinated. I know many students are itching to get back into the classroom after a year of mostly virtual learning. It’s important that our kids follow all the necessary public health guidelines to keep themselves, their families, and their friends safe, both inside the classroom and on the bus. The rest of us also have a role to play in beating this fourth wave and keeping schools open for our kids. Experts at the Ontario Science Table have told us that we could see daily caseloads spike significantly in October if we don’t follow public health guidelines, up our vaccination rate, and reduce our contacts. We can avoid a catastrophic fourth wave if we cooperate with masking, screening, and passport policies wherever they are required. None of these measures are easy for those who have to impose them. They do so to keep us all healthy. We also need to advocate to our Provincial government to spare no expense in keeping our schools and our kids safe this year. We know that virtual school has had an impact on many children’s mental health over the course of the pandemic. We need to ensure that our kids have a safe return to the classroom and get to stay in those classrooms. Know that here at the City, we are doing everything we can to support our students as they finally get back to school.

Toronto has been struggling with homelessness for decades. Even before the global pandemic began, Mayor Tory and Council made a commitment to deal with overcrowding in our shelter system. While working to create 40,000 affordable homes across all types of housing, the Mayor also committed to create 1,000 net new shelter beds by the end of this term of office. Toronto has an acute housing shortage, which allows landlords and owners to capture maximum value for any type of housing. At the same time, our public social housing corporation has a waitlist of over 78,000 after twenty years of underfunding. This leaves those experiencing deep poverty without any housing options at all. While the majority of our shelters are located downtown, we need them across the city to best help shelter residents access the affordable housing and employment opportunities they need to transition out of homelessness. The pandemic, of course, added an extra set of challenges to our existing housing and homelessness crises. COVID-19 spread very quickly through our shelter system due to overcrowding. Toronto Public Health and our Shelter, Support & Housing Administration (SSHA) moved quickly to move shelter residents into emergency leased hotels that were able to support necessary COVID-19 safety measures such as social distancing. With funding help from the Federal Government, over twenty of these hotels have set up temporary programs for residents including health supports, harm reduction services, COVID-19 testing arrangements, and vaccination programs. In Don Valley North, the Edward Village Hotel is being used temporarily as a shelter with 296 rooms. SSHA has a lease on this hotel and others like it until April 2022. Our operating partner Fred Victor Housing, local services agencies, and our local police Division 33 have been working with the shelter residents to mitigate the impact on the surrounding community, and we saw some improvement over the summer. However well these hotels have been managed, they are not meant to be permanent and we know that they are far from the ideal situation. From decades of running a shelter system since the first big growth in homelessness in the eighties, we know that a shelter works best at 100 residents or fewer. This allows residents to receive the specialized supports they need to address whatever is making them unable to maintain a lease and stay employed. Many of the emergency hotels in use for the pandemic have over 200 rooms. This is necessary to accommodate public health measures, but ultimately this is far too many residents to run an effective program indefinitely. The above graph shows the cumulative number of residents who entered the shelter system each month (year to date) in 2020 and 2021. Click on the graph to view it in detail. The spaces in our temporary shelters also do not count towards Mayor Tory’s original commitment to create 1,000 new shelter beds in our system. So what about those 1,000 additional beds for after the pandemic? SSHA has continued to work on expansion across the city. They hope these new facilities will be ready early next year when shelter residents who have not yet found permanent housing need to be moved out of the temporary hotel accommodations. Residents in the east end of Don Valley North will receive a notice this week of a new facility that SSHA has purchased on Placer Court near McNicoll Ave. They are hoping to open this shelter with one of their operating parnters, Homes First Society, in early 2022 with 58 beds. The absolute maximum at this facility would be 87 beds, well within the SSHA optimum guidelines. A rendering of 101 Placer Court. Toronto’s employment opportunities and its affordable rental housing are spread across the city. This means our 1000 new shelter beds also need to be spread across the city. It’s the best way to provide the kinds of support that help shelter residents find their way out of the system and into their own permanent homes. City Council has given SSHA staff the authority to create new shelters, so the shelter at Placer Court isn’t something that we’re going to vote on at Council. However, SSHA and their operating partner, Homes First Society, will be hosting a community feedback session on Wednesday, October 6 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM. They would like to meet with the neighbouring community and businesses to describe the program at Placer Court and share information on how the city is helping homeless individuals make their way into permanent homes. While my office isn’t running this consultation, I want to make sure people can easily access the information they need to join this community meeting. Sign up for our list on my website and we will send you the link once it’s available, which will be 24 hours before the meeting takes place. I hope you will tune in to this meeting not just as one of many who may live nearby, but to learn more about what we can do to end homelessness and rebuild lives in our city.

BY SHELLEY CARROLL Calls to my office about parking come in many shapes and sizes: "Why can’t we park anywhere for longer than three hours?" "Parking is impossible at my kid's school!" "How can I park downtown with a lane of construction on every block?" "Why are construction workers allowed to park on my street?" "Can't I just park on my front lawn?" My DVN Ward Team spend lots of time on these questions — clearly it’s on your mind. Parking rules are somewhat adaptable, so we can sometimes provide the change you're looking for. There are, however, some non-negotiables. North York design Firstly, parking on the street overnight is illegal throughout the former North York, Etobicoke and most of Scarborough. In these areas, it is illegal to park on any street for longer than three hours. In the old days, North York led the way on creating these rules. North York was designed as a suburban setting with off-road parking planned into every parcel of land, with few exceptions. Taking lessons from the mature city to the south, early North York planners required generous driveways for single-family dwellings and parking lots for all multi-residential apartment buildings. They secured generous easements wherever there were no sidewalks with the idea that one day, every home would have a sidewalk in front. The feeling was pedestrians should be safe from cars speeding down our generous new roads and cars should be tucked in garages to leave sidewalks clear and safe for kids to play. This expansive planning resulted in daunting snow clearing for every homeowner, so the City of North York put in place the greatest snow clearing in the land — not just prompt ploughing but also professional sidewalk clearing. Later, a North York commissioner invented the windrow-clearing truck after his dear friend died of a heart attack digging out the heavy snow left in his driveway. Default rules Today, the default parking rules extend to cover Etobicoke and Scarborough. As a result, the snow clearing service North York developed is provided in all three suburban regions and rarely does a car get in the way of doing a good job. The quality of these services is an issue for another column, but for this parking discussion it's fair to say that changing these parking rules would result in a radical overhaul of our winter street maintenance regime. So who is breaking the rules? We know from Don Valley North residents who live near the sites of new development that, every day, construction workers park in the nearest local street and stay longer than three hours. We send police officers to ticket them, which means for the next few weeks, workers simply take turns moving the cars every three hours. In Henry Farm, we actually created "no parking any time" zones because the nearby development in Parkway Forest was going to continue for the better part of a decade. My office is happy to work with neighbourhoods to apply for a "no parking" zone, but residents must understand the rule will be enforced for everyone. In Henry Farm, a resident very thoroughly polled the street so the parking change was implemented smoothly. The same collaborative process is used when there are issues with school parking — we consult with the school principal, the parent council and the local community before we make changes. Downtown challenge Don Valley Northers who work downtown often complain about the number of lanes given to construction sites, sometimes for as long as 18 months. It disrupts not only car and cycling traffic but sometimes takes out valuable pay-and-display parking spots. The Mayor and downtown Councillors have worked hard to reduce this disruption lately, but there are a couple of things to consider here. First, thank your lucky stars we don’t have this challenge locally. Development lane closures are very rare up here, and can usually be coordinated to require only temporary lane closures where major arterial roads are concerned. Downtown, where buildings are built right out to the lot line, vast amounts of underground public parking have been created over the last decade. When a development requests a lane closure, alternative parking options are analyzed. Private property There is one more non-negotiable: if you are thinking of creating more parking on your front lawn, you need to make a trip to the counter at North York Civic Centre. Municipalities everywhere — not just Toronto — are clamping down on paving surfaces on private property without permission. In every sub-division, calculations were made long ago to ensure the correct amount of natural absorption of storm water. In these days of increasingly extreme weather, it's critical to consult with City Hall before widening driveways or paving parking. City staff will help you achieve what you want without exacerbating local basement flooding issues. And if you see a neighbour parking directly on the grass or notice any other chronic parking infractions in your area, let us know so we can send over a bylaw enforcement officer. Myself and my team are happy to address any questions or concerns and we have a local bylaw enforcement officer who can be the bad guy on our behalf. There really is a proper place for everyone’s car. Community Events & Notices

BY SHELLEY CARROLL Last weekend we heard the tragic news that three young men are dead after a Friday night party gone wrong. By the time we were waking up and reading about it, police had already established that the condo unit where the violent incident happened had been rented out via Airbnb. The local councillor, Joe Cressy, spent the weekend speaking with media about the need to expedite Council’s new bylaws on short-term rentals. Joe spoke mainly within the context of how this is impacting condo life downtown, but he knows we have a problem north of the 401 as well. New bylaws I want to assure you, especially those dealing with this in your neighbourhood, that City staff and all of us on Council are acutely aware of your concerns. The bylaws City Council passed are designed to address the problems created by short-term rentals while acknowledging the limited circumstances that would allow them to be used as an occasional source of income. Here is a FAQ our Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) department prepared about the new bylaws: Freeing up the rental market Whenever Airbnb lobbyists visit councillors, they tell us their hosts are nice people who have a big basement apartment they want to rent out so they can age in place, or a nice young teacher who wants to travel in the summer while her apartment earns income to pay off her student loan. That's all fine — and if it's an accurate representation of their business, Airbnb should have no qualms about the City's new bylaws because those scenarios would be legal. However, Airbnb and other short-term rental companies continue to appeal our bylaws in court. What we must stamp out, particularly given our current housing affordability crisis, is taking a legitimate basement apartment right out of the rental market to list it on Airbnb. Landlords are given a licence to operate a second suite because our city needs housing options. The tenant will have a certain number of days a year they can list their apartment but landlords cannot evict them to host a short-term rental. In our single-family neighbourhoods — like many in Don Valley North — we must stamp out property speculators buying multiple dwellings and renting them out for parties. If you own a home and you are a snowbird, you can still list your property (as long as it's your main residence) for up to 180 days a year. What the bylaws assume is that if this house is your own personal home, you will exercise some caution in renting it out short-term so that your home is not destroyed during a wild party or tainted by violence. Enforcement Should Airbnb and other short-term rental companies drop their legal challenges, I want City Staff to be ready to enforce. Last year, when we had hoped to start enforcing our new rules, Council made room for 37 dedicated staff positions in the Municipal Licensing and Standards budget. I made a point of getting a status update before adopting this year’s budget. Carleton Grant, the head of MLS, assures me the positions were not filled pending the long LPAT hearing and its results, but he’s ready to proceed now. Setting up a specialized enforcement unit and hiring and training specialized enforcement officers can begin right now. On the strength of our LPAT decision, Mr. Grant wants his new team out in force this summer, just as the party season ramps up. As always, I will keep you up to date through this e-blast. Community Events & Notices

BY SHELLEY CARROLL I'm writing this just after leaving a celebration in the office of Budget Chief Gary Crawford. Our cause for celebration? The 2020 City Budget was adopted unanimous Councillor Filion — one of our longest-serving Councillors — remarked that this unanimous budget vote was the first of its kind. The reason is simple: it comes down to you. Many of us on Council have voted against Mayor Tory’s budgets over the years because of a chronic tendency to over-promise and then under-fund initiatives. This year, the Mayor did the right thing by explaining to Torontonians early on that more investment was needed and, therefore, more taxation. He was rewarded for his honesty with widespread community understanding and Council's support. Transit I’ve already outlined in earlier e-blasts how much of the Mayor’s City Building Fund (CBF) tax will go directly to transit. Most of that money will go toward speeding up state of good repair work for the TTC. During my speech in Council, I said: "Anyone who has ever stood in the sweaty darkness of a stalled Line 2 train knows why the extra dollars are needed now.” What I didn’t realize was, as I was saying that, Line 1 was down at Davisville Station. We will all pay a little more at home but every unplanned TTC service disruption demonstrates why that's needed. New vehicles of all types will be purchased with the remaining transit dollars. Housing A third of the new CBF tax dollars will go to improving housing affordability. The how and where will be the subject of a future report. The budget we adopted already strengthens the funding outlook for rent-geared-to-income housing by increasing the Toronto Community Housing Corporation budget. I’ll be looking to ensure the new CBF dollars go beyond public housing to create more affordable solutions for low-income and middle-income families struggling in the private housing market. Community services There was even a surprise successful amendment yesterday. Since the Mayor and Budget Chief had already introduced a motion to increase the number of dedicated youth hubs in libraries and community centres, a majority of Councillors were finally convinced to invest in increasing library open hours to make sure the services are there when youth need them most. The Budget also invests in critical front-line services: hundreds more police officers on the ground in communities across the city, dozens of new paramedics to keep up with the demands of our aging population, and more transit operators to address the persistent service issues we see with the TTC. So with all of this unanimity, is there nothing to worry about for the next year? I wish I could say that's the case. As several councillors and Mayor Tory remarked, next year is when the real impact of provincial cuts to childcare and public health funding will come home to roost. The province In April 2019, when the province’s first budget was announced, we learned that Doug Ford's government was withdrawing from the childcare growth plan and in fact rolling back past support. We received one-time funding from the province to mitigate the immediate impact. Even with that one time fund, the city had to put up an increase in property tax dollars or risk losing 186 subsidies spaces for the children of low-income working families. If the province chooses to go ahead with de-funding childcare operating dollars next year, 1160 subsidized childcare spaces will need to be cut. That's more than any of our property tax pockets can absorb. A similar challenge will come to Toronto Public Health. The province's drastic cut to public health funding garnered huge attention last spring and Premier Ford agreed to slow down his cuts to preventative health services in municipalities. In 2004, the provincial government began funding municipal public health services at a rate of 75 cents for every dollar spent directly as a result of SARS. Let us hope that the value of municipal public health has been made crystal clear to our current provincial government in light of COVID19. Local impact Here in Don Valley North, we will have money for capital. That means we will have dollars to spend throughout the year to see the completion of some of our Participatory Budgeting project winners and there will be a new PB process later this year. But these are all made possible through community benefit funds. The City will continue to feel the most pressure when it comes to your day-to-day services. As the weather starts to warm up, my DVN team and I will be out canvassing door-to-door to hear your concerns and learn where to invest city funds the most wisely. Councillor Mike Colle put it best when he spoke to this year’s budget: “Every day is budget day when you are listening to your residents. Collecting feedback on how we spend people’s money happens 365 days a year.” Community Events & Notices