During my 6 years on the board of the Beach BIA I watched our small businesses struggle, and the problem is across the city, with more and more empty storefronts on main streets becoming an increasingly depressing sight. High rents are partly to blame, but also competition from big box stores and shifting consumer habits, especially the advent of online shopping. If we do not find more ways to encourage local shopping we may forever lose all the unique small businesses that make our city an interesting place to shop and live.
- Parking
- Leases
- Small Business Property Tax Subclass
- Buying Out Commercial Spaces
- Ward 19 Business Directory
- Supporting Queen St. in the Beach
Parking
There are a few ways we can level the playing field and make shopping at our small businesses more appealing. One of the biggest issues is parking. Queen St in the Beach, for example, has had historically higher parking rates for longer hours than the entire area between the DVP and Victoria Park up to Eglinton. Only recently has some of that improved. Even though Queen St is full of empty storefronts, compared to Danforth, parking rates on Danforth are 33% cheaper and end three hours earlier.
Parking rates
The city has argued this is because of higher property values on Queen, and claim this does not change the behaviour of shoppers and restaurant goers, but that simply is not true. Before Leslieville charged parking after 6pm, there were many people who would rather hit a restaurant there because they would rather not pay for parking in the Beach. We need to unify all parking charges and hours across the main streets of the ward so no area has any unfair advantage over another.
Parking lots
One of the advantages of big box stores is customers not having to pay for parking. Why would people shop on Queen when they can go to a mall and park for free? The city needs to find a way to require paid parking in ALL parking lots of a certain size so our big box malls and plazas do not have an unfair advantage.
Parking restrictions
Café TO has been a boon to our struggling restaurants during COVID, and it is great to see it continue and expand. But there is a disconnect with rush hour parking restrictions. Before Café TO, Queen St would have no parking on the north side during morning rush hour, and no parking during evening rush hour on the south side. With Café TO, the purpose of rush hour parking restrictions is lost because the street patios stay there all summer blocking traffic, and yet the parking restrictions remain. For the duration of Café TO parking restrictions need to be removed on every block that has a street patio.
Additional pay parking
We also need more paid parking in areas that are neither residential nor retail. If people are going to drive their cars, and all the costly impacts that come with that, we should be collecting money from them everywhere they park. We already charge parking to come down to Ashbridges Bay Park, but people can park for free all along Coxwell between Eastern and Lakeshore. We should have parking meters all along that length, and in every parking lot of every park. If we are serious about getting people out of their cars we need to make driving the car a less appealing option, and new parking revenues can be used to fund better transit.
Leases
One of the first difficulties in starting a small business is negotiating the lease. Commercial leases are specific to the business and the owner, there is no set template. And often naïve business owners come in with the best intentions, pour their life savings into a business, just to find they cannot carry the lease. This is not to say we need rent controls for leases per se, but there should be public information about what to expect in a lease, and even a city service to help aspiring commercial tenants to navigate leases.
Types of leases
One thing that should be standard is the type of lease. On one end you have a gross lease, where the tenant pays one lump sum and has no idea of the breakdown of various costs the lease covers. On the other end you have a triple net lease, where the tenant pays the base rent, property taxes, building insurance and utilities, as well as other operating and maintenance costs. In the former the tenant has no idea how much they might be getting gouged, especially if the landlord’s costs go down (like the lowering of property taxes), whereas in the latter the tenant is fully aware of their costs over and above base rent.
Every lease should be a triple net lease, to ensure transparency and accountability. There should also be a publicly available commercial lease registry, so prospective tenants can see who is charging what where in the city and tailor their business plan accordingly.
Small Business Property Tax Subclass
The Small Business Property Tax Subclass was a small way for the city to give a break to small businesses. Except it has some glaring flaws. The first flaw is that the break goes to the owner of the property, not the tenant, there is nothing to stop the owner from pocketing the savings and not passing them on to the tenant, or only passing on part of the savings. This is one the reasons all leases should be triple net.
The second flaw is how they classify a “small business”. It is not the business itself that determines this, but rather the size and current value of the building. So a large corporate chain can be getting the break alongside genuine small businesses.
While it will take more work on the part of the city, we must ensure all businesses receive notification of this change if it applies to their building, measure how many businesses actually received the break and how much of it, and exclude any corporate chain from receiving it. Otherwise it is not really a small business break, it is a little bonus to landlords and corporate chains.
Buying Out Commercial Spaces
Just as the solution to skyrocketing residential rents is more public housing, the city owning commercial spaces solves the rent issues of businesses. The city should not be shy about acquiring more commercial buildings as well as residential, that is the only way to ensure affordability and prevent unscrupulous practices.
Ward 19 Business Directory
Currently business directories are in the hands of the local BIA, if there is a BIA, and sometimes they have a directory, sometimes they do not. And, even when they do have one, it is often not up to date. I pushed hard for an online business directory during my time with the Beach BIA, and we got one, but now it has been abandoned. As councillor I would create an online database of all businesses in the ward, available for the public to find their needs among local businesses.
Supporting Queen St. in the Beach
It has been heartbreaking watching Queen St turn into a ghost town with more and more vacant storefronts; it drags the whole retail strip down. There is no question of all the retail strips in the ward Queen St has the highest number of vacancies that have been vacant the longest. My time on the Beach BIA has given me many solutions to improve this, and as councillor I would champion the following actions:
- add more parking spaces. We have numerous spots where one or two parking spaces can be added to the strip without interfering with the TTC, traffic, or emergency vehicle access
- review the rush hour parking restrictions and adjust them accordingly. I fought hard against the increase of rush hour parking restrictions on Queen, even doing my own traffic study to show the city they were not taking into account actual traffic movement or the timing of Kew Beach School and daycares letting out during that time. They based their timing strictly on streetcar times, not traffic counts, and streetcar times can be skewed for many reasons. They said they would review this in a few years to see if it made a difference, that was about 6 years ago.
- eliminate rush hour restrictions on blocks with Café TO patios. With Café TO the purpose of rush hour parking restrictions is lost because the street patios stay there all summer blocking traffic, and yet the parking restrictions remain. For the duration of Café TO parking restrictions need to be removed on every block that has a street patio.
- a business directory for the ward so residents can find what they need and support their local businesses. Right now, for example, there is no business directory for Queen St in the Beach.
- a lease registry. It is much harder to understand the business dynamics of our area when there is no transparency. As councillor I would encourage all businesses renting space to share their leases so other businesses and the public can know what goes on behind the scenes. Such transparency can lead to accountability when residents know which businesses get a raw deal and which landlords are gouging.