Budget

FoNTRA asks City Planning to ensure that Studies, Plans and Guidelines directed to City building are properly prioritized

FoNTRA’s examination of the Study Work Program updates reveals some concerning trends. The waiting list for studies and plans is long, and getting longer. This trend appears to be especially true for heritage-related studies, including HCD studies/plans, CHRAs, and City-Wide and Area Guidelines. We have compiled the Study Work Program data for these categories by status (Completed, Forecast, Active and Hold) using the updated reports – see attached.

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FoNTRA provides comments on Multi-Tenant Housing Report in areas of Enforcement, Budget and Evaluation

The City proposed a new Regulatory Framework for Multi-Tenant Houses across Toronto in 2021. The current status report indicates that the regulatory framework will not be completed prior to 2023, given the number and complexity of the directions required by City Council in October, 2021; however some initial planning work has been completed.

We have reviewed the June 16, 2022 Status Report in the context of the earlier reports (June 2021, and October, 2021) and FoNTRA submissions. FoNTRA expressed qualified support both times. Referring back to FoNTRA’s concerns detailed in our June 25, 2021 letter and supported by our document “Questions regarding implementation of Multi-Tenant Housing Report”, our updated comments on some areas previously identified.

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2022 Capital and Operating Budgets

  1. The importance of Good Planning in the Race to be Better

    We recognize that this year the City continues to face fiscal challenges on a scale that is unprecedented.  We believe that the City should be bold, not shy away from making investments and raising revenue. It is apparent that the way the City, the province, the country, and the world, work have been changed indelibly and permanently as a consequence of the pandemic.  If people can work from anywhere, they will still work from somewhere. Will that somewhere be Toronto?  Or Whitby, or Scottsdale, or Barbados?? The call has been “to build back better”.  This is right. The legacy of the pandemic will be the “race to be better”.  What has Toronto going for it? Its brand?  “Diversity Our Strength”, “You Belong Here”?  Toronto not only has to remain a good place to live for all its (diverse) people, but become a better place. 

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2020 City of Toronto Budget

FoNTRA understands the importance of a vital and active planning function to the longterm health of the whole city including thriving and complete communities. City Planning Division activities basically consist of two streams: undertaking planning studies, and creating plans; and managing development applications. Conducting pro-active planning activities such as Avenue Studies, Secondary Plans, Zoning By-law Updates, Heritage Conservation District (HCD) Studies, Cultural Heritage Resource Assessments (CHRA) and neighbourhood-specific Design Guidelines are vitally important. The underlying principle is that the Study Program is critical in order to strengthen the position of the City in dealing with development applications. Unfortunately the waiting lists for studies and plans are long, and getting longer.

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Budget Committee 2019 – FoNTRA comments

FoNTRA understands the importance of a vital and active planning function to the long- term health of the whole city including thriving and complete communities. Planning activities such as Avenue Studies, Secondary Plans, Zoning By-law Updates, Heritage Conservation District (HCD) Studies and neighbourhood-specific Design Guidelines are urgently required, yet the waiting lists for such studies and plans are long.

The City Planning Division is swamped by site-specific applications, including Zoning By-law Amendments (ZBAs), and minor variance and consent applications to the Committee of Adjustment. In addition City Planning is forced to deal with the backlog of appeals resulting from the influx of appeals made before the cutoff for the OMB and the establishment of the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal. (LPAT).

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