Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Doug Ford’s blurry “backroom vision”

I stopped paying attention to Toronto’s waterfront revitalization a few years ago, but not for the reason you might imagine. I did so because real progress was being made. Finally.

I’m paying attention again because a careless city councillor would destroy all the gains, in search of a chintzy, unsustainable, dubious plan conceived behind closed doors:

Monorail where a LRT was planned, worlds tallest Ferris wheel, mega mall serviced by a Yorkdale-sized parking lot, no doubt. All on Canada’s most valuable real estate.

“Backroom vision,” boasts Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, and a man so at odds with democratic processes that he makes people nervous.

Hidden behind Doug Ford’s smile is a penchant for speaking fractured truth.

Waterfront Toronto has done nothing to revitalize the waterfront, he says. And they have no money to fix up the tainted soil and tame the floods that an overflowing Don River might cause, thus safe-guarding the properties for redevelopment. Thus, Toronto needs a private sector infusion of waterfront wow.

Even without closely following the issue, one knows he’s wrong on the first count. Google West Don Lands, East Bayfront, Keating Channel Precinct. Sugar Beach, Wave Deck.

No money? Created in 2002, they have only what the city, province and federal governments gave them. But city council asked for and will receive a business plan on how to pay for the $634 million flood control plan where the Don meets the lake. Waterfront Toronto is to deliver the plan Sept. 7 to its board, one day after Ford is expected to take his half-truths to the executive committee, led by his brother mayor.

I’d stopped paying attention because the surrounding communities were happy with the proposals flowing from Waterfront Toronto, an agency established by the federal, provincial and city governments to take the lead on reclaiming our waterfront.

The bright minds in the urban planning family seemed engaged and connected and involved in seeing the plans come to fruition. They entered the international design competitions, participated in charrettes, spoke out at city council, sat on peer review committees.

A blue ribbon task force on the city’s fiscal future recommended the myriad of waterfront land owners and agencies get out of the way and let Waterfront Toronto lead the revitalization. Council agreed in 2008. Last year council approved an award-winning environmental assessment that outlines exactly where housing, transit, roads, retail, recreation, schools, libraries, infrastructure and other features are to go on the Port Lands; and how to solve the flood problems.

It’s because all this has been done that Doug Ford can ride in with, rumour has it, Australian developers ready to score a quick hit on the taxpayer’s coattail. And yet the duplicitous Doug suggests Waterfront Toronto has been under-achieving, if not utterly useless.

Wherever waterfront revitalization is done — from Barcelona to Boston, Amsterdam, London and Sydney — advisers recommend that politicians and city staff get out of the way and let a waterfront authority lead the vision.

Toronto, miraculously, considering the myriad of agencies and owners at play on its waterfront, was headed in that direction. Now, the Fords want to jerk it back to the kind of developer-led madness that gave us Harbourfront, a made in Toronto embarrassment.

Yes, the Ferris wheel and mega mall might earn the city immediate cash — money the Fords will use to replace the $250 million they are giving up by ending the land transfer tax. But it will only last one year. Then what?

This central waterfront area is Toronto’s greatest asset — as attractive and valuable a site as one can imagine. International waterfront experts marvel and drool at what we have — under-developed parcels of land almost the size of the downtown, right next to the downtown.

The views are spectacular; the potential enormous and lucrative. Allow some itchy-finger cowboy free reign on this range and only when the smoke clears will you realize the mess left behind.

Origin
Source: Toronto Star 

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