Toronto’s waterfront makeover is the largest, most ambitious such
project anywhere. It is supposed to take up to 30 years, use up almost
$6 billion of public money and yield $30 billion of private development.
Here is a refresher course for city councillors and citizens who’ve considered Councillor Doug Ford’s megamall/Ferris wheel/monorail plan and find it beguiling:
On Nov. 3, 1999, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Premier Mike Harris and Mayor Mel Lastman pledged $500 million each — seed money to remediate the contaminated soil, put in the infrastructure and complete the planning and zoning that would prepare the waterfront for revitalization.
It would take until 2003 for provincial legislation to officially establish Waterfront Toronto to oversee the project, stretching from the Humber River out to the Rouge in Scarborough. Most of the attention would be on the central waterfront area — from Exhibition Place to Ashbridges Bay — the stretch that is at or near number one on the list of most embarrassing public spaces in Toronto.
That year, city staff completed a secondary plan for the central waterfront. It sets out four governing principles: remove barriers, create spectacular public spaces and parks, promote a clean and green environment, establish dynamic and diverse communities.
As an example, big-box retail and department stores were prohibited. Retail should be street-based, community-focused, with accessible transit.
Waterfront Toronto won over its skeptics with a rigorous, transparent and painfully consultative process. For example, it embraced the dream to renaturalize the mouth of the Don River, a key project included in the environmental assessment city council approved last year.
The waterfront is a toxic mix of landowners, government agencies, competing uses, severely contaminated soil, industrial uses from the turn of the 19th century. The city of Toronto itself owns hundreds of hectares. City-run agencies wanted to hold onto their land and play developer. But every major successful waterfront project around the world has followed a strategy that established one agency as lead developer, avoiding competing interests.
Finally, on Oct. 29, 2008, city council relented. It gave Waterfront Toronto the keys to revitalization and told its own agency, Toronto Port Lands Company (TPLC), to occupy itself with managing leases.
Mayor Rob Ford and brother Doug claim Waterfront Toronto has been too slow, done too little, and occupied too much city land to be of value. They claim few Torontonians know what they’ve done, calling the arrangement a “boondoggle.”
The Fords say they can get developers to do the work quicker and net the city instant cash for its budget. And to back up their claim, they secretly met with developers, hired a consultant to produce a video trumpeting a totally different vision of “wow” projects, instructed staff to draft legal documents sidelining Waterfront Toronto, and drafted a motion to take back city lands — endangering the plan that’s been a decade in the making.
The more city councillors researched, the more the Fords’ argument fell apart. And there’s always the nagging discomfort with who’s behind the urgency to sell off waterfront lands.
In spending nearly $800 million, they’ve attracted an estimated $2.6 billion of private-sector development, including some of the world’s finest architects, planners and designers.
They’ve completed flood protection for the Pan Am Games’ athletes’ village, and with it, a good chunk of the eastern downtown. And the Lower Don Lands environmental assessment includes flood protection east of the port lands — a requirement for any revitalization. There’s Sugar Beach, Sherbourne Common, the wave decks, and some eye-popping projects about to start at East Bayfront.
Criticized for delivering a plan top-heavy on parks, Waterfront Toronto’s precinct plans, approved by city council, promise room for 19,000 residents and 14,000 employees in the Lower Don Lands alone.
Whatever the shape of the decision Wednesday, the Fords will claim victory, arguing that redevelopment will occur faster because of their intervention. In fact, the real estate market will dictate the pace of redevelopment.
Redevelopment of the 200-acre railway land area, south of Front from Bathurst to Yonge, was approved 30 years ago and is about two-thirds finished. Lower Don Lands is five times as big. It will surely take longer than the 10 to 15 years the mayor promised.
Torontonians may be embarrassed about their waterfront and want it remediated immediately. But what they want most is for the city to get it right — even if it takes another lifetime.
Clarification: Councillor Chin Lee’s claims he was strong-armed by Councillor Doug Ford seeking support for the administration’s plans applies to the effort to dismantle the public housing board, not waterfront revitalization.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
Here is a refresher course for city councillors and citizens who’ve considered Councillor Doug Ford’s megamall/Ferris wheel/monorail plan and find it beguiling:
On Nov. 3, 1999, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Premier Mike Harris and Mayor Mel Lastman pledged $500 million each — seed money to remediate the contaminated soil, put in the infrastructure and complete the planning and zoning that would prepare the waterfront for revitalization.
It would take until 2003 for provincial legislation to officially establish Waterfront Toronto to oversee the project, stretching from the Humber River out to the Rouge in Scarborough. Most of the attention would be on the central waterfront area — from Exhibition Place to Ashbridges Bay — the stretch that is at or near number one on the list of most embarrassing public spaces in Toronto.
That year, city staff completed a secondary plan for the central waterfront. It sets out four governing principles: remove barriers, create spectacular public spaces and parks, promote a clean and green environment, establish dynamic and diverse communities.
As an example, big-box retail and department stores were prohibited. Retail should be street-based, community-focused, with accessible transit.
Waterfront Toronto won over its skeptics with a rigorous, transparent and painfully consultative process. For example, it embraced the dream to renaturalize the mouth of the Don River, a key project included in the environmental assessment city council approved last year.
The waterfront is a toxic mix of landowners, government agencies, competing uses, severely contaminated soil, industrial uses from the turn of the 19th century. The city of Toronto itself owns hundreds of hectares. City-run agencies wanted to hold onto their land and play developer. But every major successful waterfront project around the world has followed a strategy that established one agency as lead developer, avoiding competing interests.
Finally, on Oct. 29, 2008, city council relented. It gave Waterfront Toronto the keys to revitalization and told its own agency, Toronto Port Lands Company (TPLC), to occupy itself with managing leases.
Mayor Rob Ford and brother Doug claim Waterfront Toronto has been too slow, done too little, and occupied too much city land to be of value. They claim few Torontonians know what they’ve done, calling the arrangement a “boondoggle.”
The Fords say they can get developers to do the work quicker and net the city instant cash for its budget. And to back up their claim, they secretly met with developers, hired a consultant to produce a video trumpeting a totally different vision of “wow” projects, instructed staff to draft legal documents sidelining Waterfront Toronto, and drafted a motion to take back city lands — endangering the plan that’s been a decade in the making.
The more city councillors researched, the more the Fords’ argument fell apart. And there’s always the nagging discomfort with who’s behind the urgency to sell off waterfront lands.
In spending nearly $800 million, they’ve attracted an estimated $2.6 billion of private-sector development, including some of the world’s finest architects, planners and designers.
They’ve completed flood protection for the Pan Am Games’ athletes’ village, and with it, a good chunk of the eastern downtown. And the Lower Don Lands environmental assessment includes flood protection east of the port lands — a requirement for any revitalization. There’s Sugar Beach, Sherbourne Common, the wave decks, and some eye-popping projects about to start at East Bayfront.
Criticized for delivering a plan top-heavy on parks, Waterfront Toronto’s precinct plans, approved by city council, promise room for 19,000 residents and 14,000 employees in the Lower Don Lands alone.
Whatever the shape of the decision Wednesday, the Fords will claim victory, arguing that redevelopment will occur faster because of their intervention. In fact, the real estate market will dictate the pace of redevelopment.
Redevelopment of the 200-acre railway land area, south of Front from Bathurst to Yonge, was approved 30 years ago and is about two-thirds finished. Lower Don Lands is five times as big. It will surely take longer than the 10 to 15 years the mayor promised.
Torontonians may be embarrassed about their waterfront and want it remediated immediately. But what they want most is for the city to get it right — even if it takes another lifetime.
Clarification: Councillor Chin Lee’s claims he was strong-armed by Councillor Doug Ford seeking support for the administration’s plans applies to the effort to dismantle the public housing board, not waterfront revitalization.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
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