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THE STATE OF OUR TORONTO.

Actual Rendering Of Proposed Waterfront Development

The picture at left shows city council's current plan for waterfront development. Where did this plan come from? It was paid for and promoted by Ottawa, the province, and city hall in support of a strong condominium builders 'shadow' lobby. Could this have been for the purpose of paying off a huge city deficit, including a new 2-3hundred million dollar deficit incurred by the city through 2009-10?

The buildings envisioned here are mainly residential/commercial condominiums. The lighting in the picture is very effective, and the carefully laid out rectangular buildings look reassuringly solid and new.

One of the nicest things about condominiums is that they are owned by the people who live in them.

Another really nice thing about condominiums is that if you are a developer (a person who builds and then rents or sells the buildings you have built; and do this for a living) interested in making a good profit from building a condominium, it's a really great investment. Once permission has been granted by the city to build it, your company, along with supporting financial institutions, pays construction companies to erect the building. Real estate companies who bid to you for the right to be your sales agents, sometimes by offering you a piece of their commission on every sale, then will sell the units to their new owners; and when the building is completely sold, it falls under the Condominium Act, which tells the residents how to maintain it. That means you as the developer, bank, construction, and real estate company can walk completely away from the project with a very comfortable profit in your pocket. One can easily understand why developers, banks, construction, and real estate companies like to erect high rises. It's a legitimate way to make lots of money.

Of course, if the high rise condominium (high rise here indicating ten stories or more) is located in a prime area with a beautiful view, you as a developer can charge more for the units; while the construction costs remain approximately the same. So it makes good sense for you as a developer to try to obtain the nicest areas with the nicest views in which to build your condominiums; because the profit you make will be much bigger than if the condominium is just --say-- in the middle of a field somewhere.

The downside

The downside of this is the effect it has on the rest of us. If the condo developers use up the lands with the beautiful views, it means we have to move in to one of their condominiums to enjoy them. And what if we either can't afford the very large prices of the condos with the nicest views, or we kind of like where we are living now, but would also like to have the views available to us?

Perhaps it means we are out of luck, because there just won't be any views not taken up by development.

The other down side of developing the areas of the city with beautiful views is that development means they will become covered with concrete buildings. Using concrete is the way in which we put up buildings to last a long time. But concrete development is not as beautiful to look at or enjoy as flowers, trees, parks, activity areas, and walkways; despite the attempt of architects to embolden designs to make them unique and interesting.

The developers choose

In fact, the proposal offered to the city by the Waterfront Development Board was chosen because it is more populated and less green than a second counter-proposal submitted to them for consideration.

This idea of a development board considering two choices and requiring a decision between them has a name. It is called "false choice", because those making the decisions are fooled into thinking there are only two choices when in reality there are very often other choices that aren't presented. The waterfront design that was chosen by the developers’ committee was picked because it is ‘more populated’.

To many of us, if both designs are crowded the less crowded one looks better because it is closest to ‘completely uncrowded’. If we'd really like ‘completely uncrowded’, but that was not given us as an option, we'd pick "less crowded" because it's closer to what we really want. The developers’ committee chose the more heavily populated version because they will make more money from it. They then sent their recommendation to city council to adopt their preference. The developers had only paid for two choices, and neither of them was ‘completely uncrowded’. This leaves the city with a false choice. But it doesn't, really, because a few years ago, the original environmental assessment that recommended 'completely uncrowded' was changed to allow development by a process known as 'bumping up'.

Will city council agree?

It's a fair question to ask why the developers believe city council would choose the heavier condominium development and not a parkland waterfront. The answer is that the city is extremely cash-strapped; and the sale of those lands to developers will bring a very large dollar to help alleviate the city debt. And since the city is now allowed by the City Of Toronto Act to levy new taxes, every condominium that is built is subject to a brand-new and substantial "development tax", demanded by the city for new buildings and paid by the builders. Of course, the builders download a price that includes all the expenses of building their new buildings, including the development tax, to whomever purchases them. Every condominium to be built is charged the development tax before the first concrete is poured. [The reason for the city being cash-strapped is that it spends more than its income, which means that either it is not earning enough money or that its spending is out of control.]

This means that the city is willing to sacrifice waterfront lands to development as a quick cash grab, and that new condominium purchasers will be paying the city's development tax when they buy their new homes.

If I were a developer, I'd be happy as clams about paying the development tax; and I'd encourage the city to develop new homes and especially condominiums anywhere and everywhere it could so that my buyers could pay that tax and so the city would think that --because it's making lots of money to help cover its enormous debts-- it should give me every possible opportunity to develop more condos. In order to develop a 'shadow' lobby, I'd get my people on city planning committees and economic development committees and greening the city committees, and, really, anywhere I could in order to foster the idea that lots of development is what the city needs. I'd sweet-talk a mayor who wants to spend a billion dollars leaving a 120-year-old "legacy" of traffic-jamming streetcar right-of-ways to the city rather than a beautiful unobstructed waterfront into thinking that more development was a wonderful way to pay off the couple of hundred million my "legacy" leaves the city in debt easily over time.

But I'm not a developer; and this article is coloured by my concern (as is rightly the concern of a future Mayor) to the city's well-being. In this instance, my concern rests with what we in 2010 are leaving for generations yet to come. Are we leaving grace, beauty, open spaces, waterfront views, flowers, trees, birds, a clean environment, and a luxurious lifestyle for all, or a great view for just a few based upon a frantic cash grab opportunity to make up for misguided budgetary expenditures?

Can we begin to look at what we are doing now in terms of the future, or must our vision be mired firmly in the present alone? Other candidates are so favourable to cash grabs that they are willing to sell off the city's assets, such as Hydro or city-owned properties, with no in-depth thought about the consequences of those ill-conceived actions on the city's ability to flourish as an independent entity into the future.

Think about which kind of vision you would rather have leading your city.

What are the alternatives?

Here are some pictures of cities that have developed their waterfronts. To be fair, some of them are in the process, after discovering their mistakes, of slow re-purchase and tearing down the built-up areas. Developers don't care if you tear down their developments, because by the time that occurs, they have already walked away with their profits. They really dislike, however, the idea of preventing the developments; because that means their profits will have to be made elsewhere, and perhaps not be as large or easy to earn.

Toronto, having established a committee to help guide its growth on which both developers and tourism-driven business consultants play a major role, is in the process of covering our waterfront area with a wall of concrete buildings. The advice given to the city by this committee has been unequivocally to seek new development, infrastructure, and tourism. I'm not certain that the advice coming from those folks is entirely in the interests of the future of our city, but I'm sure as shootin' sure that it's in the interests of the folks who are in the building business.

I think the BIG question that hasn't been asked is, "Which waterfront would we like to leave to future generations?"

Will we leave our children and their children Brooklyn?

NASA Photo of Brooklyn New York's Waterfront

Image courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center


Or will we leave them Chicago?
Google Photo

(Yes, it's true. Chicago's entire waterfront has looked like this since the
early 1900s, when infilling of the shoreline extended it a full half-mile into the
lake. Toronto's shoreline is thus far mainly vacant. Do we want to save it
as it is, and make it more beautiful; or do we want to develop it into a
condo section of town?)


Perhaps the answer is, "where is the vision"?

Google Photo

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