Category Archives: AS21stC 2024

AS21stC 2024

The fight isn’t over: Murphy’s Law Round 2

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Despite numerous valid concerns, Toronto and East York Community Council approved the new Murphy’s Law development unanimously and without an ounce of scrutiny. But the fight isn’t over yet, there is still a chance to convince the rest of council, or sway councillors who already voted yes at community council, to not approve the new design.

Yes, it’s a LONG shot, yes, council has become a rubber stamp for developments, yes, residents have zero influence beyond convincing our elected representatives, but we can’t go out without a fight. We have to try and use every tool in the toolbox.

Unfortunately, after Ford gutted many planning laws and gamed the OLT to exclude residents’ voices, there is really only one mechanism left, and that’s an old fashioned letter-writing campaign. Hiring lawyers to represent a neighbourhood or having the president of an RA reach out to councillors or the mayor is all well and good, but it’s only one email from one person. But if HUNDREDS of emails come across the desks of councillors and the mayor, we might just be able to get some concessions, or at the minimum, get the can kicked down the road giving us time to find new ways to resist.

However, there are some unwritten rules to emailing politicians that most people are unaware of. Following these rules greatly increase the chances of your email being seen by a politician, breaking them pretty much guarantees your email ends up in the trash.

The rules of emailing a politician

I learned these rules from a friend who spent nearly two decades working for an MPP, and I have managed to engage many politicians of different levels of government across the political spectrum and gotten at times quite fulsome responses, despite the fact I am not their constituent.

There is no guarantee of a response, as many local residents know it’s hard enough to get Councillor Bradford to respond to any concern, never mind a campaign fighting against a development, but the hope is if enough volume crosses the desks of council and the mayor we might budge them.

  1. Email each politician separately. When you send mass emails, with the entirety of council CC’ed, it goes in the trash.
  2. Address the email using the politician’s name in the subject line and in the greeting of the email. This makes it obvious you are addressing that politician directly, and it’s not just a template sent to everyone.
  3. Do not use form emails or templates. When a politician receives a hundred of the same email, it goes in the trash. Even if you fill out the section forms have to add your own words, if the rest of the email is clearly from a form, it goes in the trash. Basically anything that makes it look like you’re trying to mass communicate with a few clicks and didn’t take the time to individually write a politician, it goes in the trash.

    That said, you can totally send every politician the same body of email, they won’t know you sent everyone the same email. As long as it’s a unique email individually sent and personally addressed, for all they know they’re the only one you wrote to.
  4. Be respectful. Whether you’re bashing the politician you’re writing to, or someone else in their legislature, it’s not likely to get you far. No cursing, no insults, no slang, be as professional as possible. You want to win them over with your logic. Emotional pleas can work, but it’s tricky, you have to make your case about emotional impacts without sounding emotional.
  5. Don’t write an essay. Keep it as short and to the point as possible. A basic introduction, lay out your points in a list so it’s easy to identify your concerns, and then a conclusion and thank them for their time.
  6. Include your full name and all contact info. Emails without such contact info go in the trash, because who knows who’s sending them. They could come from a bot, or a Russian troll, or the same guy with 100 email addresses that likes to stir up trouble. You need to include your address and phone number. The politician will know you’re a real person and, even if you’re not their constituent, may decide you’re worth responding to or listening to.

There are easy ways to do this, in particular a little email add-on called mail merge (for Gmail or this, for Outlook), but if you’d rather not get into add-ons and figuring them out, thankfully there are only 25 councillors and the mayor and it’s not terribly hard to copy and paste their names and emails into your email.

Sample email DO NOT COPY VERBATIM!!!

Here is the email I will be sending. You can cherry pick what you like from this but remember the rules, you will need to rewrite this in your own words, and maybe change the order of the items as well.

Subject: TO: Councillor <name>, please don’t approve the new design of 1684-1702 Queen St E

Hello Councillor <name>,

My name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches-East York. Toronto and East York Community Council recently approved the new design for 1684-1702 Queen St E (the Murphy’s Law site) and I implore you to please not approve it as the new design will have many negative impacts that the old design did not.

  • it violates the Queen St E Urban design guidelines that are still part of the Official Plan
  • it will greatly overshadow properties to the north, in particular 7 and 9 Orchard Park Blvd are going to lose almost all light in their yards 6 months of the year
  • between the new residents and the closure of Penny Lane it will increase traffic on Orchard Park Blvd, a very narrow one-way street, and will reduce the only exit of Orchard Park Blvd to one lane
  • despite the promise of Councillor Bradford that no new street parking permits will be issued, anyone driving to visit residents of the new site will impact local parking
  • it has no affordable units planned, and the city doesn’t need yet more unaffordable market rate units
  • there is already fierce competition for scarce local programs and extracurricular activities for kids, and the closest school, Duke of Connaught, is already at capacity
  • transit only seems sufficient on paper, taking the 501 or 503 during morning rush hour becomes extremely crowded soon after entering Leslieville
  • this is intended to set a precedent for more density around the area that will only exacerbate the above issues

For these reasons I ask you to please consider not approving the current design of the development and work with the developer to find a compromise that respects the existing residents of the area and will not contribute to worsening current issues with density. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Adam Smith
416-454-5014
339 Woodbine Ave
Toronto ON M4L 3P5

Councillor contact info

Here is a spreadsheet of the councillors’ names, emails, and ward numbers:

Toronto Council email list

Good luck everyone, and don’t hesitate to ask me any questions.

Cheers,

Adam Smith, 21st Century

AS21stC 2024, Uncategorized

The long shadow of the Murphy’s Law development

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It was another bang of my head against a brick wall in my latest deputation at the Toronto and East York Community Council. No amount of information or statistics seem to matter, it’s a rubber stamp committee. I don’t know why they don’t just end the farce and let the public know these decisions are a fait accompli and there’s no point to deputing.

This time I even got into the measurable impacts on the shadowing of the houses to the north, one of which is going to pretty much lose all their sunlight in the colder months. No one cared.

Here is my full deputation with sources:

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches East-York.

6 years ago the application for 1684 Queen E was approved and conformed to the Queen E urban design guidelines. Had that been built I would not be here. Instead, they demolished a Day’s Inn doubling as a women’s shelter, closed Murphy’s Law bar, dug a massive hole in the ground… and then sat on the property until it was no longer economically viable in its approved form. After leaving a dangerous, ugly, and poorly fenced pit in the ground for 5 years is this committee prepared to allow the first private developer to go beyond 6-storeys?

This application is slightly better, 10 storeys instead of 11 and better setbacks on the front, but still violates the guidelines and the expectations of many residents. The planning report from staff says it “meets the intent of the guidelines.” If the intent was to have buildings greater than 6-storeys, the UDGs would have mentioned that. I ask the committee: are residents allowed to know what can be built in their neighbourhood? Or does anything go?

Many locals enjoy seeing the sky and walking in the sun, if Beaches residents wanted to be hemmed in by tall buildings they wouldn’t have moved here. The north side doesn’t have the setbacks of the approved design and creates a shadow over twice the length, greatly overshadowing backyards to the north. (start slides) Here are the shadows of the approved design in blue… and here are the shadows of the latest design in orange. As you can see, some of the green backyards are going to lose sunlight for more than 5 hours, and the poor people at 5 Orchard Park blvd are reduced from about 5 hours of sunlight, one hour of which is almost full sun, to a tiny sliver for an hour. While the mid-rise guidelines mention 5 hours of sunlight at the equinoxes for public realm, it also mentions minimizing shadowing of private open spaces.

I personally feel this building to be just another boring, boxy, bland stack of cubes just like the majority of new builds out there and does not complement the heritage building of Murphy’s Law. I was surprised to find that planners on a thread on UrbanToronto.ca feel the same.

There is no indication of just how many units will be affordable, and the last thing this city needs is more unaffordable market rate rentals.

Regardless of being created 14 years ago, the Queen East guidelines are a legally recognized document that council approved, and as of today are still a part of the Official Plan. At the Jan 22 Planning and Housing Committee Councillor Bradford said expecting these guidelines to be respected is “misinformed at best or maybe even misleading at worst” but as council has not seen fit to remove these guidelines from the Official Plan you can forgive residents for having the reasonable expectation that the existing guidelines still apply. They are called guidelines for a reason, they aren’t called the Queen St E wishful thinking, or the Queen St E exercise in futility. The only thing misleading seems to be council misinforming residents by having the guidelines included in the Official Plan.

Councillor Bradford also mentioned the “provincial planning statutes that the city is statutorily required to comply with” but what policy is he specifically referring to? Even the most recent 2024 Mid-Rise guidelines limit the height of the building to the right of way width. This is the same province that doesn’t allow resident representation at the OLT, removed rent controls on newer buildings, weakened heritage considerations, swept away development fees, limited conservation authorities, eliminated requirements for shadow and wind studies and urban design, overrode globally recognized municipal green-building standards, and is now removing affordable housing requirements at major transit station areas. Does any of this sound like good planning principles we should be adhering to or resisting?

No information or statistics seem to matter. No one is willing to address that the area has already greatly increased in density, or that this is not a transit hub, or the lack of amenities and youth program space, or the closest elementary school is fully at capacity, or that Canada just depopulated and over 200K units are going to be vacated the next 30 years as the Boomers move on. (see my previous deputation for more info)

So I’m going to introduce some new facts. When you take into account the demolition, excavation, construction, and all the embodied carbon of the materials, development is the largest source of carbon emissions in the city, a fact the city hides by exempting those emissions. Yet ironically we claim to be in a climate crisis.

Because our stormwater infrastructure is overloaded, new builds have to include massive storage tanks in their basement, an unproven experimental measure. For this development the basement storage tanks weren’t enough, they also needed rooftop storage.

The current development frenzy is not just about profits. Canada is one of the highest percentage of housing to GDP in the OECD, more than double the average. Senior governments are using development in a desperate ploy to prop up flagging economic growth. We’ve been putting too many housing eggs in the economic basket, and those chickens are coming home to roost, as evidenced by the glut in the condo market and falling housing prices. The demand isn’t there, which is why development after development keep failing, leaving other empty holes in the ground, and yet we keep approving more?

None of this is building towards a sustainable future, quite the opposite, and it’s time council acknowledged it. If the developer can’t make enough money to build within the guidelines they should hand it over to the city for a 100% public 100% affordable building. Thank you for your time.

Adam Smith, 21st Century

AS21stC 2024

Overdensifying Main and Gerrard

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I attended the community “consultation” for 143-147 Main St on Feb 12th. It was the usual: developers and planners present and justify their plans, making overreaching and greatly impactful applications seem reasonable and fair. It is abundantly clear the goal is to densify every major intersection in Toronto, and overdensify anything remotely close to a major transit area. Farther below are my comments and questions at the meeting, but here’s the main takeaways:

  • Regarding tenant parking, the idea (which is the idea for the majority of new builds) is that renters in new builds simply won’t also be car owners. There are currently parking spots for some of the 7 existing units, but the 4 spots in the new building will be entirely for temporary parking. And Councillor Bradford has made it clear time and again no new street permits will be issued. Meaning existing tenants wanting to move back into the new building will have to sell their cars or find somewhere to store them.
  • having a minimum of heritage-like details is good enough, reaching the level of aesthetic detail of the original building is not required, and only the first two floors (matching the existing building) need to have anything resembling heritage details, the rest of the building can be fully modern
  • the immense size and lack of setbacks compared to the rest of the area doesn’t matter, as this is meant to be the first development to set a precedent to justify building up the entire intersection anywhere from 2-6 times the height of existing buildings
  • rents on existing units will be somewhat maintained for ten years (they never specifically answered my question on the 2-bedroom units that will be replaced with a 2-bedroom + den and a 3-bedroom), but the rest will be market rent. When I asked that considering market rent is always changing and is currently falling if there is a minimum rent to make this a viable business case they could not answer, stating ultimately that is up to the owner.
  • The massive empty wall on the north side, that will tower over the area for who knows how long, the developer considers a bunch of staggered simple grey panels to be aesthetically pleasing and interesting enough for people to stare at.
  • there was a written question in the chat regarding the closest school Kimberly Junior Public School being at capacity but they never answered that one

In case anyone wants to know what evidence fuels my opposition to increased density, you will find a comprehensive list with supporting links here:

More Density, More Problems

Here is my full question and comments:

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches East York. Thanks for the presentation, I have some quick comments, and then a few simple questions.

It’s great that you guys somewhat maintain details on the first two floors that mimic the heritage of the original building, although the curved row of bricks above the existing second floor windows and the multicoloured brickwork would be nicer, but then it stops there. What you describe as a “sleek and minimalist aesthetic” to me is just another boring boxing bland stack of cubes like 90% of the new builds out there. You call it an aesthetic but it just seems like a cost cutting measure, as fine details are expensive.

There is no set back on the front of the building, so it will appear to tower over all the surrounding buildings. In particular the south and north faces create a massive wall dominating the landscape. As there is no guarantee the other developments directly to the north will ever actually happen, if this gets built alone it will stick out like a sore thumb for the foreseeable future, something we’ve seen in a few developments in the area.

Generally I feel it’s too big for this site and doesn’t integrate with the existing streetscape, and I would like to see the heritage aesthetics continued on the entire building.

I know you asked us to refrain from question about existing tenants, but it’s not clear if that meeting will be open to the general public and I only have one question about that. I’ve read the housing issues report, it says “Rents for replacement units to be the rent at first occupancy” but does that mean the 7 replacement units are going to be at the same rent as the existing units, especially considering one of the 2-bedroom units will now have a den and one of the replacements is going from a 2 bedroom to a 3 bedroom?

Do we know what will the rent be on the remaining units? And please don’t say market rent, because that is not static and is constantly evolving and happens to be falling right now. To justify the business case for building this development at some point there was a calculation of what the rents must be to support the desired revenues of the property owner, and I would like to know what the initial asking rent will be, or is that something only the property owner knows?

Lastly, the north face of the building, it’s not clear to me what those details are, are they panels on the side? The Lakehouse condos on Queen St left a massive empty brick wall on the streetscape for over a decade now. As you stated this building is the only one planned at the moment, if this building goes up before any buildings directly to the north of the site are there any plans to put something on this massive empty wall? For example a green wall, or some kind of public art?

Thank you for your time.

Adam Smith, 21st Century

AS21stC 2024

The Death of the Queen St East Urban Design Guidelines

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Councillor Bradford and the Planning and Housing Committee have made it official: the Queen St E Urban Design Guidelines are a sham and they have no intention of honouring them. Regardless of those guidelines being developed 14 years ago, they still reflect the sentiment of residents, and the majority of developments that were supposed to be subject to those guidelines have violated them. Now they’re basically obsolete, if they ever were truly valid. I contend the entire process of developing the guidelines was a farce in order to stop residents challenging developments and there was never any intention of following them.

You can read my full deputation below. Councillor Bradford had absolutely nothing to say about any of the stats I brought up, in particular future supply and demand, all he could focus on was the guidelines and one out of date photo. He seemed to take the whole thing very personally, and at one point even had to be put in his place by the chair when he pounced on me and wouldn’t let me finish answering. He also tried to make a motion about my out of date photo, but that got shot down too.

Ironically he made it seem my only focus was the Lick’s condo when he was the one who couldn’t stop talking about it, while my actual concern was the current development and I only mentioned Lick’s to give context to the guidelines. Worst however, was when he projected some kind of false pretense on me, saying, “I think that comes across as misinformed at best or maybe even misleading at worst.” I’m not sure what precisely was misleading about stating the factual history and content of the guidelines and the expectation they would actually guide development. Here is Bradford’s statement with my rebuttals:

“So Adam Smith likes to come down here from time to time with good intentions, but I feel like whenever I listen to his deputations it’s always like opening up a time capsule [I’ve never before spoken of the guidelines or the history behind them until this deputation]. We talk about the Lick’s development from so many years ago, when there was a lot of ink spilled at the time about that. You know I go down to Queen St all the time, I think it looks fabulous, you know [see below for a pic of the empty brick wall]. And so when you have individuals who come down and make deputations it’s almost misleading like these guidelines from 14 years ago are the law [as part of the Official Plan they still a legal document, and as the name suggests, they are meant to GUIDE, that is their purpose], completely ignoring the planning paradigm and the provincial planning statutes that the city is statutorily required to comply with [the province has imposed many inequitable and unjust things on the city since Ford took power, it doesn’t mean we roll over and take it just because Ford says so]. Whether we like it or not we’re not living in 2012 anymore. I think that comes across as misinformed at best or maybe even misleading at worst [the only thing misleading is the guidelines themselves misleading the public]. And I don’t think that’s how we build cities [the current policy of overdensity is strangling the city], I don’t think that’s how we build community [communities are already strained with too much demand for too few services], and I don’t think it’s particularly helpful in the Beaches. So a position like that would likely come at the expense of affordable units for families, for seniors, for workers, that our community so desperately needs [we need CURRENT housing to be affordable, building new affordable housing does nothing for EXISTING tenants]. A position like that would probably come at the expense of the enhanced childcare spaces, on the work that we’re doing in the public realm [one daycare does not justify 350+ more units]. And again I remind folks, these positions and decisions that we make are difficult, but we have to consider all of the factors on front of us, try and come up with a balanced position, and one that moves the city forward, not one that’s handcuffed to a world we were living in 15 years ago [some people want to preserve their neighbourhood, and there’s nothing wrong with that!].”

The other deputant James Gray was clearly a plant, apparently he is part of the pro-development group More Neighbours. He had nothing to say other than, “I live 300m away and I support this development” so that Bradford could then lob leading questions at him.

The last deputant Mark Richardson is the creator of HousingNowTO, which uses affordable housing as thinly veiled advocacy for development in general. If Richardson advocated for fully public affordable housing (not P3s) and rolling back the loss of rent controls his stance would have more credibility; as it stands he comes off as shilling for developers to profit the housing industry under the guise of providing affordable housing.

There was an interesting moment during the first item on the agenda, about tree protection and development. A city staffer said, “Fundamentally, a tree that’s protected by the tree bylaw and it is in healthy condition, forestry staff will generally use the process to protect that tree. However, there’s been very clear direction from council in the past that if a tree would be removed as a result of development that is permitted by zoning, including zoning that’s varied as through a minor variance, that we should not stand in the way of development. We should allow that tree to be removed.” This just goes to show the development-at-any-cost ideology of council.

It really doesn’t matter what information is thrown at council that calls into question the sustainability or need for further development in our already strained city, they will rubber stamp pretty much any development. The real question is, is it because they feel it’s fruitless to resist the province and Premier Ford, because he has gamed all the laws in favour of development, or because they are in on the game?

Here is my deputation with supporting links:

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches-East York. 1631 Queen E and 1080 Eastern is yet another development that makes a mockery of the Queen St E urban design guidelines.

The guidelines were a reaction to the Lakehouse Beach Residences at 1960 Queen E, aka the Lick’s condo, which saw a 6 storey condo rise up over a row of one storey retail shops, leaving a massive empty brick wall looming over the streetscape. This chicken bone development, whereby corner buildings are much larger than the buildings mid-block, used to be considered bad planning, but it seems Toronto has completely discarded what used to be good planning principles.

The guidelines intended to rein in plans at Queen and Woodbine, the Heartwood condos, aka the Shell Station, and while they were being developed there was a moratorium on development applications. The city held massive meetings with the community, planners, and developers present, and the resulting guidelines residents thought were in good faith. Then a funny thing happened.

During a short window when the guidelines were submitted but yet to be approved by council the moratorium was lifted, and the developer snuck in their application during that window, and discarded the guidelines. The guidelines required a setback at 3 storeys and to preserve the view of the historical clock tower, but the developer ignored this to build 6 storeys straight up, the sad irony being that the guidelines still contain this violated requirement. No amount of testimony at the OMB mattered, it was ruled that the guidelines didn’t apply because the development application predated them.

The Murphy’s Law condo at 1684 Queen E also violates the guidelines, and so does this development. While the Queen St building only goes an extra storey, putting an 18 storey tower directly behind it completely negates the purpose of the guidelines in keeping building heights in line with the character of the neighbourhood.

As you can see, the tower planned on Eastern will dominate the landscape for blocks, and any claim this doesn’t set a precedent is false. The community was told the Licks condo was not supposed to set a precedent, but when it came to the Shell station application the developer cited the Licks condo as an example. As if this development isn’t paving the way for another 18 storey tower next door where the Beaches Cinema is. The official plan may have changed, provincial planning laws may have changed, but what hasn’t changed is the community’s desire to preserve the nature and character of our neighbourhood.

The completely useless deception of the urban design guidelines aside, there are more important issues with this development. Like the majority of recent development applications this is another example of overdensity. The WestBeach condo has 89 units, the Queen and Ashbridge condo added 551 units, the Murphy’s Law site has 216 units planned, and now with this development we are supposed to absorb another 328 units? This is not a major transit hub, have any of the planners tried to take the 501 or 503 downtown during morning rush hour? Have any of the planners tried to get childcare in this area, or fought to be first in line to sign their kids up for extracurricular activities? Duke of Connaught is the only public school in the catchment area, and it’s fully at capacity.

If we project future demand none of this makes sense. I won’t go into each item on this list, but if you look at the vacant units section, there are over 46,000 units vacant or under construction.

VACANT UNITS

Units for rent: 8864

Rental units under construction: 5475

Unsold condo units under construction: 10,000

Vacant homes: 2161

Vacant under appeal: 17437

TCHC vacant/under repair: 2770

TOTAL: 46707

The next 30 years will also see over two hundred thousand units become available as the Boomers move on. When you add up all the aged care beds currently and under construction, and then look at the 65 and over population, a generously conservative estimate of all remaining seniors being coupled up in homes means there will be potentially 223,000 housing units that will be vacated within the next 30 years. When the 447,000 seniors not currently in aged care need that type of housing, why are we focused on rentals when the real demand is for senior living communities?

AGED CARE

Private retirement homes: 8996

Long-term Care: 15184

Under construction: 5364

TOTAL: 29544

HOUSING VACANCY PROJECTION

Population 65 and older: 476990

Pop. 65 and older minus aged care beds: 447446

Potential newly vacant units next 30 years: 223723

Canada also just depopulated due to the drop in immigration targets combined with our below-replacement-value birth rates, rates that are declining world round since the 70s. Project these numbers and it makes no sense to build more units for a population likely to plateau or even decline in the next decades. Do these numbers ever enter into calculating how many units we actually need to serve future demand, or are we just blindly building?

Then there is the ongoing issue of affordability. Less than a third of these units are slated to be affordable, and according to staff at the Oct consultation they haven’t even determined what type of affordable that will be. Market rates are unaffordable to anyone not in the top 30% of incomes, if we’re not building ALL units to be affordable we aren’t serving the needs of residents.

I ask every city planner and councillor, how does any of this development frenzy qualify as good planning? It wouldn’t have ten years ago. It’s not based on evidence or best practices or projections of demand, it is purely ideological to prop up flagging economic growth and the profits of the housing industry. Toronto should be fighting the province at every turn, not caving to their environmentally destructive and unsustainable developer-driven agenda. Thank you for your time.

Adam Smith, 21st Century

AS21stC 2024

Refuting 6 Dawes Rd

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On Nov 27, 2025 I deputed at Toronto and East York Community Council regarding yet another oversized development planned for 6 Dawes Rd. You can watch the deputation here:

Councillor Moise interrupted me twice, first when I called out Mike Harris and Doug Ford for removing rent controls, and again when I called out the influence of developer donations on the premier, councillors and mayoral hopeful Councillor Bradford.

When Moise first interrupted me I thought there was a technical issue, but people watching live told me nothing happened. The second time it was clear he didn’t like me calling out politicians. What other opportunity does a citizen have to speak truth to power in Toronto other than a deputation? I broke no rules, and if my words are considered slanderous that’s for a court to decide, not the chair of the meeting. The first woman to speak said, ““The Toronto and East York Community Council is a sham, a kangaroo court. Why should we spend our precious time deputing for you? Why should we lend any credibility to your puppet show?” and yet she was not stopped.

Doug Ford is provably in the pocket of developers, the Greenbelt Scandal illustrates this well enough if his rabidly pro development-at-any-cost-policies don’t make it clear. Councillor Bradford too, as developers held a $100K fundraiser for his failed mayoral bid. I didn’t know anything about Councillor Moise until this meeting, and when I looked him up, lo and behold, he is also taking massive amounts of donations from developers, over $10K out of $90K. Not to mention improprieties with a developer appointment to a Moss Park Arena board, his behaviour when imposing the unilateral renaming of Dundas Square, and concerns have led to multiple groups opposing him to spring up, one straight up called stopchrismoise.ca (which has a more comprehensive list of his exploits).

What’s worse, Moise’s developer backers are from Fitzrovia, and who is the developer behind 6 Dawes? Fitzrovia! I can now see why he was trying to muzzle my deputation.

There is no argument that can be made that explains why developers who are neither friend nor family nor constituent would donate to a politician unless it’s to get something in return. That is the definition of being in someone’s pocket, and if Moise wants the same level of financial support in the next election he’s going to protect those developer interests.

Below is my full 5 min deputation (due to the huge number of deputations they reduced speaking time to 3 mins), fully sourced. You can find even more information on the reality of housing in my 2022 platform. If you share my understanding of housing policy destroying the livability of our city please like and share.

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches East York.

Housing policy in Toronto is unhinged from reality, and 6 Dawes is a prime example, however my comments can apply to most recent development applications in the city, like 985 Woodbine Ave.

The condo boom was built on the notion that small-time investors would buy units and rent them out. But costs were too high for affordable rent, and now many would-be landlords are unable to rent and make a profit. The panic to sell off units has created a glut in the condo market with prices falling dramatically.

Because of this failure developers are scrambling to pivot to building rentals. The 6 Dawes development went from a reasonable 17 storey condo to a massive 56 storey rental tower. Developers don’t build to provide housing, they build to make profits for their investors. A rental building takes far longer than a condo to turn a profit, so the only way to satisfy investors and lenders is to build MUCH larger and charge high rents.

At the community consultation the developer admitted it will be unaffordable to 70% of Torontonians. To put it in context, the average income for a Torontonian is $62,000, and market rent for the average 719 Sq ft unit is $2909, which to be affordable at 30% of income requires making $116,000, nearly double the average. With the condo market crashing with plenty of supply and prices coming down, why would the top 30% of incomes spend their money renting when they can own?

The real source of rentals being unaffordable is a lack of rent controls, in particular vacancy decontrol, thank you Mike Harris. And increasing supply only lowers the price of rentals on the market, it does nothing for existing renters who have seen their rents skyrocket due to a lack of rent controls on newer buildings, thank you Doug Ford.

There is still the question of demand, doing the math between vacant units, units mid-construction, and changing population and demographics. We currently have 6914 apartment rentals on the market (according to Realtor.ca), 6952 condos for rent (according to  Realtor.ca  ), 5,475 rentals and 11,000 unsold condos mid-construction, 2161 vacant homes declared by owners and a whopping 17,437 deemed vacant but under appeal, and TCHC has 679 vacant units and 2091 units vacant but in need of repair. Our homeless population is estimated to be 15,400 people, we could house them all and still have room for future demand.

The next 30 years will also see over a hundred thousand units become available as the Boomers move into retirement homes or pass away. There are 8996 beds in private retirement homes (with 1243 units for couples) and 15,184 LTC beds, for a total of 24,180 beds for seniors. Currently there are only 5,364 new beds under construction for a potential future total of 29,544. At last census in 2021 Toronto has 476,990 people 65 and older. Taking a very loose and generous estimate, if every bed in aged care is taken up post-construction, and the remaining seniors are all coupled up, there are 223,723 housing units that will be vacated within roughly the next 30 years. The real question is, when the 447,446 seniors not currently in aged care need that type of housing, why are we focused on market rentals when the real demand is for senior living communities?

There is also the drop in immigration targets combined with our below-replacement-value birth rates, rates that are declining world round since the 70s. Project these numbers and it makes no sense to build more units for a population likely to plateau or even decline in the next decades.

Take investor profits out of the equation, the current economics still cannot create housing that is affordable. Labour and materials are too expensive, and the more builds the more demand will increase their price. Add in the cost of shoring up our inadequate infrastructure, in particular stormwater drainage and sewage, and the externalized cost of the increase in pollution and carbon emissions, not just from the construction of the building, but also the embodied carbon in all its materials (which we currently exclude). And our lack of electricity capacity, not just for new builds, but also increased demand from electric vehicles and electrification of transit, the phasing out of natural gas, and hotter summers with more A/C usage. All with no clear plan for where Toronto’s future electricity is going to come from.

When you include the other new towers planned around Main Square, it assumes Main Station and Danforth Go can handle thousands more people without ever taking into account the picture from the ground. Morning rush hour crowding at Main Station is returning to pre-lockdown levels, and the Relief Line will be no help farther west. Don’t look to Danforth GO to get downtown, which only has frequent service between 7:13-8:43am and 4:03-5:35pm and is really only good for going to and from Union Station.

Considering all the costs, the lack of infrastructure, a more realistic projection of demand, and the mismatch between incomes and rents, take it from an Adam Smith, the economics don’t add up.

With a premier and councillors and mayoral hopefuls openly and unabashedly in the pocket of developers the city’s hands are tied. Resisting developers will trigger ministerial zoning orders to ram development down our throats. When do we stop catering to the destructive and impossible infinite growth economy and start focusing on a sustainable circular economy?

Housing has become an economic crutch for the flagging growth of secular stagnation, and the powers that be see no other way to keep profits flowing than to just double down on overdensity in the hopes people will keep moving to Toronto, despite the cost of living making it increasingly unattractive. Our urban area population centers are already the densest in North America, but it’s still not enough.

The only rationale that explains why 17 storeys is now required to be 56 storeys is that 6 Dawes is not about housing people, it’s about profits for the housing industry. More density only worsens the livability of our city and takes us further from ever creating the kind of system we need to weather the coming storm of climate change. We need to focus on the 3 Rs: repair, renovate, retrofit, and where it is appropriate to build anew, the economics are clear, only a public housing model can ever provide the affordable housing we need.

Thank you for your time.

AS21stC 2024

Restore the Wards

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Hello, my name is Adam Smith; lifelong Toronto resident, father, activist, and two-time candidate for Toronto councillor.  I created the Restore the Wards campaign to convince provincial parties and candidates that restoring Toronto’s wards prior to Ford’s 2018 mid-election slashing was an important issue in the 2022 Ontario election.  Sadly, it was not.

You know the elite have won when the people reject democracy. In 1975, two years into our last era of high inflation triggered by the OPEC oil crisis, Rockefeller and his fellow elites at the Trilateral Commission published a paper called “Crisis of Democracy”.  Do you know what they felt the crisis of democracy was?  An “excess of democracy”.  Yes, ironic as that sounds, they found that too many people exercising their democratic rights was interfering with the elite’s ability to impose their agenda.  Sounds diabolical?  It’s easily found:

The Crisis of Democracy

“some of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy…  Needed, instead, is a greater degree of moderation in democracy…  the effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups.”

47 years later and it would seem they’ve accomplished their goal.  Voter turnout for the provincial election was an all-time record low at 43%.  With Ford getting 40.88% of the popular vote that means 17.58% of eligible voters gave Ford 100% of the power.  Due to the distortions of our archaic first-past-the-post electoral system, the NDP had just shy of quadruple the number of seats of the Liberals, and yet the Liberals had more of the popular vote, while the PCs now have a super majority, controlling over 66% of seats.

The Restore the Wards campaign was a dismal failure.  Not only did it not pick up steam with the public, very few candidates beyond the NDP pledged to restore the wards, and only two Liberals and nearly a dozen Greens pledged.  From reactions on social media I can tell you that the majority of people seem to think less democracy is a good thing, that less politicians is always a move in the right direction. 

Cynicism and distrust is super high, people who complain about never being heard and having no say are ironically clamouring for less representation and more concentration of power.  And whether they realize it or not, that means they are asking for even more elite and unaccountable politicians, because with larger wards it will be even harder for someone lesser known and independent to ever get a foothold  against a candidate with elite connections and a deep election war chest.  City hall will become even more overtly partisan.

The longer Toronto stays in 25 wards the more likely it will remain this way, and we will continue to have the least amount of municipal representation for a city our size in the developed world.  It’s always been obvious to some that we don’t actually live in a free and democratic society, that ultimately the elite run the show and we’re all just along for the ride.  Unfortunately more people are finally waking up to that reality, it’s just too late to do anything about it.

It’s a shame to end this campaign on such a sour note.  I truly believed what Ford did to Toronto was a travesty and an attack on democracy, but very few seem to agree, and so many seem not to care.  Which is exactly where the elite want us.  They strived for “apathy and non-involvement”, now it’s clear they have it. 

I will continue trying to fight for increased democracy and a more equitable society, I encourage others to do so too, but the elite have the public so well-divided and thinking only of themselves that such a goal seems ever more a fantasy.  Stay well everyone…

Adam Smith, 21st Century