Toronto real estate: New condo buyers could face big bills at move-in time

Thousands of people who’ve bought preconstruction condos in the City of Toronto over the last two years or so could find themselves faced with an unexpected extra bill when it eventually comes time to move in.

If city council goes ahead with a proposal to double development charges, those extra costs — some $7,671 on the average one-bedroom unit and $10,624 on the average two-bedroom — are likely to land right in the laps of unsuspecting buyers.

“Most new condominium contracts provide that the buyer is responsible for any increased development charges that the developer incurs after the date that the agreement (of purchase and sale) is signed,” says veteran real estate lawyer Mark Weisleder, who writes about real estate law for The Star.

The get-rich-quick mentality that became the hallmark of the condo boom of the last few years may have also left thousands of buyers of preconstruction units vulnerable.

Some buyers became so convinced they could make a quick buck by the time the unit was built and ready to occupy, they didn’t have lawyers even review the complex sale documents and may not know the clause even exists, says Weisleder.

Real estate lawyers have been able, in many cases, to negotiate a cap on any potential increases from developers keen to make the sales targets needed to get bank financing, but others have simply refused to assume the possible risk, he notes.

“I always recommend the cap, and while many developers agree, some developers still refuse to give it.”

While it’s almost impossible to determine exactly how many buyers of preconstruction units could be impacted if city council supports staff recommendations to double development charges, there were more than 20,000 condos in the preconstruction phase across Toronto as Q1 of 2013, according to market research firm Urbanation.

And thousands more are just in the excavation phase and also likely to be impacted. That’s because development charges in Toronto only kick in after the foundation has been poured and the “superstructure” building permit is issued.

“Builders have two choices here — they can pass the added costs on to buyers or they can absorb them. But these proposed increases are so great, they can’t be absorbed in most cases,” says Bryan Tuckey, president of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), the umbrella group for the development industry.

“It has been brought to the City of Toronto’s attention that there are a number of buyers who will be impacted.”

A city official declined to comment on the issue, other than to say that any increases would likely be phased in over a year, to July, 2014, and are need to cover the costs of city services, from transit to sewers and water mains, that are impacted by every condo project that’s built.

The increases would still leave Toronto development charges below what’s charged in 905 municipalities.

Developers have asked the city for more time to assess the impact and have cautioned that the sudden jump (increases in 2008 were phased in over four years) could further threaten the condo industry, which has already been impacted by softening sales and tougher mortgage lending rules imposed by Ottawa that have knocked many first-time buyers out of the market.

This could knock out more, notes Tuckey.
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Miss CHIN International Bikini Pageant 2013

TORONTO - Sabrina DiBella was the big winner at the Miss CHIN International Bikini Pageant Saturday.

And she was stunned.

“I’m still a little shocked that my name was called but I’m thrilled,” DiBella said after beating out the other finalists at one of the most popular events of the CHIN International Picnic at Exhibition Place, traditionally held every Canada Day long weekend.

The 33-year-old from Toronto said she had been going to the picnic since she was little but only thought about competing in Miss CHIN after entering her first bikini competition last year and finishing as a runner-up.

“It was a great experience and whether I won or not wouldn’t have mattered but, right now, winning is a good feeling,” she said.

DiBella said she was eager to help market and support CHIN.

She works at ErinoakKids, a treatment and development centre for children with disabilities. DiBella works one-on-one with children with autisim.

“I love it,” she said of the demanding job.

Ky Williams was first runner-up and Jenn Willum second-runner up from a diverse group of competitors who reflected CHIN’s multicultural identity.

This year marks the 47th edition of the CHIN Picnic.

“My dad (Johnny) started it back in 1966 as a celebration, almost as a gift back to the city for being licensed as a multicultural broadcaster and it grew from a small little gathering amongst his friends,” explained Lenny Lombardi, president of CHIN Radio International.

“As more languages were added to CHIN Radio, he extended the invitation to different communities. It’s a cross-section of so many cultures and groups that come together to celebrate together through music, culture, song, dance and food. It’s something that we’re very proud of and after 47 years, it’s something that continues to work and thrive.”

Well over 100,000 people are expected to attend the picnic this year which continues with events Sunday and Monday.
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How Toronto got the CN Tower

You would be hard pushed to name a building that has defined Toronto more than the CN Tower. Love it or loathe it, the massive concrete structure has dominated the city's skyline and provided a visual reference point for outsiders for almost a generation.
The tower itself is something of an oddity. Its practical use is as an AM, FM, UHF, and cell transmission tower, but a built-in observation deck, glass floor and rooftop fright-fest entice more than 1.5 million tourists a year up the dizzying exterior elevators.
Sydney has the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, New York has the Brooklyn Bridge, and Toronto has the CN Tower. The slender concrete column is an international icon that has made the city instantly recognizable. Few buildings are able to do that.
The CN Tower turned 37 this week - one step closer to middle age. Had things worked out just a little differently, Toronto would have got more than just a communications tower. This is the story of how Toronto's architectural wonder came to be.

The land now occupied by the CN Tower's hexagonal foundation was, in its original form, water. Almost everything south of Front Street is built on fill, dumped construction material dropped in to the lake over the last 100 years that gradually extended the shoreline south to its present position.
The new space gave Canadian National Railways room to build a tangle of sidings, roundhouses, and train sheds around the Union Station corridor. For much of its early life the reclaimed land south of Front Street was a sprawling industrial area of soot-stained concrete and surface parking. The Gardiner Expressway zipped past just to the south and silos dotted the lake shore.


It was in the 1960s, when Toronto's buildings began to head skyward, that things began to change. As Mies van der Rohe's Toronto-Dominon Centre then Commerce Court West each claimed the title as tallest in the city, TV and radio reception became patchy and viewers increasingly found episodes of Ozzie and Harriet, Lassie, and re-runs of The Andy Griffith Show were being blasted into static oblivion.
The solution was to build a transmission antenna tall enough to beat even the highest Bay Street bank tower. The project was also a good excuse to partake in a little building bravado by snatching the title of the tallest freestanding structure from Moscow's Ostankino Tower, also a TV and radio mast.

In fact, the tower itself was one of the few pieces of the larger Metro Centre project ever to be built. Had it been realized in its original form, Union Station would have been demolished and the Yonge line would have gained a Queens Quay spur through an expansive new retail and commercial district.
Early plans for the broadcasting tower were vaguely similar in appearance to Seattle's Space Needle and developers promised a large triangular reflecting pool surrounded by a 10-acre park at the base of the tower for skating and wading. A mall and beer garden would also be built, they said.


Metro Centre died when the provincial and federal government recommended Union Station be retained and CN and CP, the principal backers, subsequently pulled out. The earmarked land would, however, provide space for the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, CityPlace, and CN's new radio mast.
At the time CN and CP jointly owned CNCP Telecommunications, a company developed out of the company's old wire service businesses, so building a large concrete signal hub wasn't entirely unusual for the transportation company.

At 553 metres, the scale of the CN Tower was immense. 56 metric tonnes of soil was hauled out of the ground for the 17-metre foundation pit. The hexagonal structural core of the tower was surrounded by poured concrete shaped using a massive mold called a slipform.
Each new section was built on top of the last, aided by a crane perched on a 500-tonne platform on top of the rising column. 1,537 workers worked on the project 24 hours a day, five days a week, from official groundbreaking ceremony on February 6, 1973.
The tower always had its detractors. The Canadian Owners and Pilots Association warned that "sooner or later an aircraft is bound to strike it possibly killing people in the tower and on the ground as well as those in the aircraft." The Federation of Ontario Naturalists estimated 1,000 birds a day could be killed in foggy conditions during peak migration periods.
"We'll live to regret it if we let this monstrous dart go up," Alderman Elizabeth Eayrs told city council.
Ironically, improved reception actually had a negative impacted on some TV content. As a TV writer for in the Toronto Star predicted, the stronger signal killed the tradition of American networks releasing their new shows on Canadian television ahead of the U.S. premier in an attempt to discourage cross-border viewing.
The added range from the new CN transmitters made Canadian signals stronger than those that used to bleed over the border from New York, which would potentially allow Americans to easily tune in to Canadian stations and catch a sneaky glimpse of All In The Family.
Despite the outcries and accusations CN was building an "obtrusive monument to itself," the gigantic, $21 million construction project was allowed by council, but not before it had already reached 300 metres in height.
By August 1973 the concrete stump was the tallest structure in Toronto and in February 1974 it claimed the crown as the tallest in Canada, taking the mantle from the Inco Superstack, a giant chimney in Sudbury.
Just 18 months after the foundations were scooped out, work began on the seven-storey observation deck, revolving restaurant, and radome - the inflatable white donut-shaped object at the bottom of the main pod where much of the communications and other electronics are housed.
CHUM-FM, CBC Radio 2 (then CBC Stereo), CKFM, CHFI, and CHIN were the first stations to move their equipment in '73.
Unlike the main support column, the pod was supported by a steel frame. Dizzying photos show metalworkers straddling massive I-beams with nothing between them and a 1,100-foot drop to the rail tracks below.
Above the top SkyPod, the top observation level, a Sikorsky helicopter named Olga was called in to complete the final step - hauling up the 102-metre antenna mast in pieces from the ground. The 42 sections were delivered in March 1975 and would be the last that contributed to the overall height of the CN Tower.

Disaster almost struck as Olga was being used to dismantle the crane and construction platform that was perched at the top of the concrete core. While removing the first piece of the boom, a sudden shift caused the supporting bolts to seize, effectively tethering the aircraft to the tower.

With fuel running low, steel workers had to burn off the stuck bolts to avoid a crash. The helicopter landed with 14 minutes of gas to spare.



The incident underlined the need for adequate safety features in large freestanding towers. In the event of a fire, the main 1,776-step staircase would be one only two safe exits from the main pod. To illustrate the dangers, on 27 August, 2000 the Ostankino Tower caught fire 458 metres above the ground, killing three people.
To combat these risks, the CN Tower is fitted with fire-proof materials and an extensive sprinkler system fed by a pair of 68,160-litre water tanks at the top of the main column. One elevator is powered by emergency generators and is designed to remain active in an emergency.
A fire house on the ground is capable of reaching the upper levels and, just to be safe, the kitchen in the restaurant doesn't use an open flame during cooking.
Naturally, the current owners are keen to stress there has never been a fire since the building opened to the public, but that doesn't mean it's never happened. On July 8, 1975, molten metal from a welder's torch dripped down an elevator shaft and ignited a patch of tar-based waterproofing, leading to two uncontrolled fires about 150-metres above the restaurant.

Four nearby workers scrambled to safety up a flight of stairs while others on the lower levels were able to descend. Chemical extinguishers put out the fire while the emergency services were assembling at the base of the tower but the damage was estimated at around $1,000. The four welders workers were treated for smoke inhalation and minor cuts.

The CN Tower was officially completed on April 2, 1975 and opened to the public on June 26. A variety of attractions have been added since: the highest wine cellar in the world, the incredibly unsettling glass floor, and most recently the terrifying EdgeWalk experience.



CN sold its stake in the tower in 1995, prompting a crisis about what CN should stand for now the railways were no longer involved. The new owners opted for the slightly clunky "Canada's National Tower," which is admittedly better than the Canada Lands Company Tower.
Maple Leafs fans hoped the new 16.7 million colour LED light display that adorns the elevator shafts and main pod could be used as a goal light during their heartbreaking and brief cup run this year. No dice, said management. It's Canada's tower - no corporations allowed.
CN TOWER FACTS:
Total cost: $63 million ($21 million in 1973)
Height: 553.33 metres (1,815 feet and 5 inches)
Weight: 117,910 metric tonnes (130,000 tons)
Concrete: 40,524 cubic metres (53,000 cubic yards)
Tensioned Steel: 998 kilometres (620 miles)
Reinforcing Steel: 4,535 metric tonnes (5,000 tons)
Structural Steel: 544.2 metric tonnes (600 tons)
Steps to the top: 1,776
Minutes for a full restaurant revolution: 72
MORE IMAGES:

Train sidings in the rough area of the CN Tower

Welder after the 1975 fire

The CN Tower's shadow falls on a surface lot in 1975

Parking lot at the foot of the CN Tower

The unfinished CN Tower from the Gardiner

The construction platform and crane

The pod in the early stages of construction
Construction from the railway lands

A model showing an early concept for the SkyDome

The CN Tower with GO trains on the Union corridor
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Get the dirt on Toronto condos using new review site

It could be one of the best, or worst, things to hit the Toronto condo market since websites like Yelp turned the tables on restaurant criticism.

A new crowdsourcing site, thedirt.co, officially launches Monday, with a mobile app for iPhone. It joins a number of other sites, like rateyourcondo.ca, that are trying to take word of mouth about condos in the city to an online level, which may be good news for consumers, but not so much for some developers.

So far, the fledgling site has comments on about 400 of the more than 1,300 registered buildings in Toronto — from buyers, renters and the equivalent of condo plane-spotters who just get a kick out of taking a look around and uttering an opinion.

“You’ve got developers and (real estate) agents who are always going to tell you how great their condos are, but a lot of consumers have a tough time discerning what is a good and what is a bad development,” says the site’s co-founder, Brandon G. Donnelly.

“They want to know about the quality of the development, how well is the building managed, what are the demographics and the vibe.”

Donnelly is unabashed in admitting the site is built on the Yelp.com model, where online users rank everything from restaurant meals to local businesses in a sort of collective protecting of the unsuspecting masses.

There are no guarantees, of course, that they really know what they are talking about, although some have become such regular, and well-regarded, critics, they’ve become minicelebrities of sorts. Donnelly is hoping a few of those will emerge here in Toronto over time.

“I hope our reviews will really be able to give a sense of who is in the buildings,” and whether it’s a platform for parties or a welcoming place for, say, the over-50 buyer.

In time, says Donnelly — a former architecture student who worked for more than three years in the commercial real estate industry — there will also be commenter profiles, as there are on the two-year-old rateyourcondo.ca, so that you’ll know just who’s talking, be it a twenty-something renter or a veteran condo buyer.

Buyers are all bound by a few common concerns: how high are the maintenance fees, how much noise will we hear from the units above and beside us, and what are the overall demographics of the building, says downtown realtor Mark Savel.

“Sites like this help you get a lot of raw content from people who actually rent or own in the building. It’s a good way to get a bit of insight.”

Many such sites have come and gone over the years, notes realtor and condo investment expert Brian Persaud, but none have really achieved the critical mass needed to be successful. As well, very few owners are really willing to dish the dirt on their own buildings for fear of driving prices down or being unable to sell if the building gets tainted, he added.

That’s why he prefers online forums at sites like UrbanToronto.ca and buzzbuzzhome.com,which can contain some important condo tidbits.

Better yet, “I just like talking to people. I find word of mouth is the best.”

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Ford accuses Liberals of trying to force tax increase

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford accused the provincial Liberals Thursday of trying to force the city to hike taxes, keep the land transfer tax and bring back the car tax.

Ford fired a few more shots in his ongoing funding fight with Premier Kathleen Wynne including a claim Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s office gave no advance warning the $150 million in provincial funding was being cut.

The mayor has spent a week raging at Wynne’s government in a bid to stop the cut that starts with a $50 million blow to the city’s 2014 budget.

“Just as we’re closing in on our (fiscal) goals, the province pulls the rug out from under us,” Ford said in a press conference. “They’re trying to force us to keep the land transfer tax. They’re trying to force us to increase taxes. They’re trying to force us to bring back the vehicle registration tax.

“Why should Toronto be forced to keep the land transfer tax by the province? Why do we have to bring back the car tax?”

Ford said he won’t support bringing back the car tax — which he successfully campaigned on cutting — and still wants to cut the land transfer tax by 10% — around $34 million — in the 2014 budget.

Behind the scenes Thursday, the mayor’s office also fired back at Sousa’s claim he had tried to have a “discussion” with Ford about the funding cut but didn’t hear back.

A mayor’s office official speaking on background provided e-mails showing first contact between Ford’s chief of staff and Sousa’s chief of staff was on June 13.

On that day, Sousa’s chief of staff left a voicemail for Earl Provost, Ford’s chief of staff, and a phone message with a receptionist before e-mailing Sousa’s letter detailing the funding cut to Provost.

Provost responded minutes later confirming he would respond when he read the letter.

A provincial source speaking on background said Provost was left a voicemail the next day but they didn’t hear back from him.

Provost responded by e-mail June 19 with Ford’s letter and a request from the mayor for a face-to-face meeting with Sousa.

The two eventually met on June 24 where Ford was told in the meeting the funding cut was a done deal and a “decision from cabinet.”

Ford came out of the meeting fuming and accusing Sousa of blindsiding the city.

But Sousa said he “initiated the discussion at the start.”

“I made a call to the mayor’s office, saying you’re going to receive a letter, I think it’s important for us to have a discussion relative to what’s in this letter and the net benefit that you’re going to have as a city but it’s important for us to have that discussion,” Sousa said. “Correspondence was made between my office and his office. Frankly, it’s up to the mayor to ask his staff why that didn’t happen.”

City manager Joe Pennachetti will be bringing a report to city council next month showing the impact of the funding cut which will start with a $50 million reduction in 2014.

Susie Heath, Sousa’s press secretary, issued a statement ahead of Ford’s press conference that said cutting funding for social housing is Ford’s choice.

“Just as he has chosen not to benefit from land transfer or vehicle registration powers that he holds under the City of Toronto Act,” Heath stated.

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Sunrise Propane found guilty in blast that killed worker

TORONTO - That poor man didn't stand a chance to survive the Sunrise Propane explosion five years ago.

In her damning decision released Thursday, Justice Leslie Chapin found Sunrise Propane guilty of nine regulatory offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Environmental Protection Act, including failing to provide safety training and a safe working environment as well as ignoring numerous orders to clean up after the blast. They were acquitted on one count under the EPA.

Sunrise directors, Shay Ben-Moshe and his brother-in-law Valery Belahov, could face millions of dollars in fines for the violations.

Ignited by leaking propane vapour during an illegal truck-to-truck transfer, a deadly fireball lit up the sky at 3:47 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2008. Part-time Sunrise employee Parminder "Rocky" Singh Saini, a 25-year-old from India who came to study at Sheridan College just eight months before, was killed in the initial blast. It was also blamed for the fatal heart attack of district fire chief Bob Leek, 55, who rushed to the scene on his day off. More than 12,000 residents were evacuated and dozens of houses destroyed as metal debris and asbestos rained down from a series of explosions.

In her decision, the judge found Saini was never trained or properly supervised. The student had been hired to fill taxis with propane, yet was left alone, virtually in charge of a station where tankers were being filled.

"It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous workplace than a yard filled with propane where a leak could cause explosions given that there are so many possible sources of ignition available at any given time," Chapin wrote in her 135-page judgment.

"Given the evidence, the only rational inference I can draw is that Mr. Saini was not provided with sufficient information and instruction because of the way he reacted to the sound of the explosion," she continued. "Mr. Saini ran in the direction of the explosion instead of away from it."

Chapin also found Sunrise failed to properly oversee their truck drivers or update them on safety concerns. "In an inherently dangerous industry the defendants were required to take steps to ensure that their truck drivers were knowledgeable about the risks of handling propane and how to avoid them."

Sunrise's preventative maintenance system was "woefully inadequate" and she found it "shocking" that the company, in a densely-populated area, had no system in place to comply with regulatory requirements.

In the Downsview neighbourhood rocked by the fatal explosion, life has resumed its ordinary pace. Damaged homes have been rebuilt, shattered glass has been replaced, broken gravestones repaired. A nearby park has been named in honour of the fire chief.

News that Sunrise Propane has finally been convicted was met with satisfaction, but little surprise.

"Finding them guilty is great. It took people's lives and created so many headaches for residents. But what's going to happen now? Are these people going to be reimbursed?" asks Tony Di Santo, head of the Ancaster Ratepayers Association.

A sleepless Di Santo was watching TV on the sofa when he heard a huge boom and saw the giant fireball fill the northwest sky outside his back window. With his wife and 94-year-old mother, he joined his terrified neighbours in fleeing the neighbourhood. "I knew it was the propane right away," recalls the ratepayers association president, who has lived in the area since 1964. "It should never have been there with residential right across the street. We complained to our councillor in the area but nothing was done, unfortunately."

Resident Jeff Green, whose family's home suffered damage during the blast, wants nothing less than criminal charges as well as tougher inspections by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA), which never enforced its 2007 order to stop its unsafe truck-to-truck propane transfers.

"This was 100% preventable," contends Green, whose family is also part of a class action lawsuit against Sunrise and TSSA. "Is any good going to come of this? Will the province now reexamine the need for stricter enforcement?"

Sunrise lawyer Leo Adler called the verdicts "disappointing" and said no decision has been made yet about a possible appeal.

The case returns to court July 23 to set a sentencing date.
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Time for Pride (and others) to pay their own way

TORONTO - I’ll see you at Pride this weekend in the Gay Village, a quick stroll from my place.

The Sunday parade is a gas, awash in high camp and low stress. Church St. will smell of sweat, pot, beer — and money. Sponsors include Viagra, Trojan condoms, Loblaws, TD Bank, Loblaws, Pizza Pizza ...

You’re on the list, too, whether you like it or not.

All levels of government sink your hard-earned cash into Pride Week, including the province with $350,000 and the city with $140,000.

Funny, but a poster on torontosun.com named “wbmmam” this week asked me what I meant by calling myself a libertarian. Good timing, wbmmam. Pride is a perfect example.

Pride Week celebrates a liberty — to be who you are or what you want to be, as long as it harms no one else. That is a libertarian creed: Small governments that fix roads, but don’t preach. Small taxes, too.

Which means be yourself, but don’t expect everyone to pay for the experience.

Pride is a wonderful thing. So is the Tweed tribute to Elvis. So is Pirate Days in the 1,000 Islands.

But should you foot the bill — even if you’re not a gay pirate in blue suede shoes?

“No,” says Gregory Thomas, national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It’s not what government is meant to do.

“We have politicians walking down the street, throwing rose petals and money at these events, yet air ambulance is a shambles and you’ve got people freezing in the snow waiting for a bus.”

City Hall and Queen’s Park spent a combined $16.8 million on what you might call leisure groups in our fair city the past year.

Taste of Little Italy, for instance, got $25 grand and Mayor Rob Ford still gets a slushie in the face.

Opera more to your taste? The Canadian Opera Company gets $1.3 million a year in city tax funds. The fat lady sings on your dime.

The National Ballet and the Toronto Symphony get about $1.1 million each, the film festival $800,000, Luminato $200,000, Caribana $494,000. Even the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art gets $135,980, good news if you’re sick of looking at your Tupperware.

I don’t want to sound like a hillbilly, but how many of us are opera, ballet or ceramic aficionados.

Yet, we all pay.

If opera and ballet cannot make a go of it — with all that Gucci, Chanel and Prada parading around the Four Seasons Centre lobby — they’re not trying hard enough.

No wonder when it’s much easier to recruit a suit to go get a big bite of tax pie. The greasiest lobbyist gets the squeak — which is no way to play with our money.

They’ll tell you that, hey, it’s peanuts in the big picture. Maybe, but it’s symptomatic of how loose governments are with our money generally.

According to a city list with teensy type and big dollars, we local ratepayers fund a menagerie of 838 other groups.

Just some of the “B”s: Bikes Without Borders ($16,800), Black Daddies Club ($50,000), Buddies in Bad Times Theatre ($119,200) and the Bulgarian Arts Collective ($4,000).

Worthy groups, I’m sure.

But should we all pay for them?

Should that money not go to governments’ prime directives, such as protect us, get us around and cleanse our water.

“Not to demean one person’s culture over another,” says Thomas, “but when you have government saying they need more tax revenue to provide basic transportation facilities, because everyone needs to get to work, then you see millions and millions given to specific recreational activities ... it just doesn’t make sense.”

No it doesn’t, not with a $250-billion provincial debt, $10.6 billion a year to service it, and transit woes galore.

If our dependent fests, troupes and artistes are worth their salt, they’ll find a way to pay their own freight.

For instance, my friend Jana just called from Oasis, the neighbourhood sex club. It will open a charity kissing booth on its Carlton St. lawn on Saturday.

Five bucks a smootch with a volunteer of either gender.

I hope Pride honchos steal the idea.

Pucker up. We’ll pay for that parade in no time.
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Queen's Park won't say how much Ontario Place makeover will cost

The provincial government is refusing to say how much it will cost to create a park and waterfront trail as the first phase of the Ontario Place revitalization.

The plan, unveiled on Wednesday by Tourism Minister Michael Chan, is to convert just over seven acres of Ontario Place land into shoreline green space that will give people free access to a section of waterfront that has been closed to the public for 40 years.

The province shuttered a portion of Ontario Place in February 2012 due to dwindling attendance, the latter prompting the 41-year-old attraction to be deemed a financial drain on the cash-strapped Liberal government.

An advisory committee was subsequently set up and it made 18 recommendations on what to do with Ontario Place, one of which was the development of public green space.

But to the surprise of reporters, Chan, who heralded Wednesday’s announcement as a significant first step in Ontario Place’s revamp, would not disclose the Liberals’ budget or the projected cost of the project. He said such a disclosure would jeopardize the bidding process the province will enter into with developers.

“I am not going to disclose that,” said Chan. “The reason for that is it will be a bid (process). The bidder will tell us. I want to protect the integrity of the process and also get the best value. If I disclose the cost, then bidding will be according to that, and I want to get the best value for the park.”

The project will include the conversion of a parking lot located in an administrative part of Ontario Place that is currently off limits to the public.

Chan also balked at commenting on the next steps in Ontario Place’s revitalization, only to say he expects the urban park and waterfront trail to be completed in time for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am games, and the rest of Ontario Place to be revitalized by 2017.

When asked about a recommendations that calls for a portion of Ontario Place to be converted to a residential area, Chan said it’s possible, as long as it doesn’t create a concrete jungle of homes.
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TTC CEO wants to spend $300M on 60 more new streetcars

TORONTO - Toronto City Hall is on track for another streetcar fight.

TTC CEO Andy Byford revealed Monday he will ask to buy 60 new streetcars as part of his 2014 capital budget — that’s on top of the 204 streetcars, worth $1.2 billion, that have yet to hit the city’s streets.

Byford said the roughly $300-million streetcar purchase is needed to keep up with the TTC’s ridership growth.

“Things have moved on, the ridership is rising exponentially,” Byford said.

“We already predict that we will definitely ... before the end of this order need more streetcars.”

The new streetcars ordered in 2009 are set to start operating on Toronto streets next year starting with routes on Spadina Ave. and Bathurst St.

Byford’s request comes as the TTC spends around $800 million on modifications needed to let the new streetcars run on city streets and to build the Leslie Barns storage yard.

He acknowledged a request to buy even more streetcars will be a tough sell.

“We’re talking big bucks,” Byford said. “I may or may not be successful in that.” It isn’t clear how Mayor Rob Ford with his pro-subway, anti-streetcar stance will respond to the idea. On his radio show Sunday, Ford repeated his opposition to streetcars.

“I want to phase out streetcars, they’re antiquated, they’re dangerous,” Ford said Sunday.

TTC chair Karen Stintz said she hasn’t decided yet on whether she supports buying 60 new streetcars.

“We have increased ridership so we know we need to accommodate for that,” Stintz said. “Again it is a question of trade-offs and where is the best investment for the money that we are spending.”
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Toronto heading skyward in unprecedented condo boom

Toronto is a city of tall storeys.

We’re building more high-rise condominiums for more people for more money than any other metropolis in the western hemisphere.

Today’s count stands at a record 237-condo developments, most taller than 10 floors, heading skywards in an unprecedented GTA-wide boom.

That’s twice the number in New York City and helps put Toronto 10th on the global list of high-rise cities.

According to real estate research group Emporis, Toronto’s construction industry has never seen anything like it.

In October 2012, there were 15 highrise building sites more in Toronto than November 2011.

In New York City in the same period, construction of highrises decreased by just under a fifth, from 86 in September 2011 to 72 in October 2012.

Nowhere is this activity more evident than in the tight streets around the Rogers Centre that already are — or will become — one long condo canyon.

Building sites stand next to demolition sites. Holes in the ground one week become foundations the next. Each requires transit, water, hydro and sewage solutions to be worked into city services that are in many cases already stretched to the limit.

All in the shadows cast by completed towers housing thousands of people who have already swapped the traditional home in the suburbs for a lofty (pardon the pun) new space in the city.

These same people have to get to work.

According to the TTC, the King, Queen and Spadina street cars travel the busiest surface routes the TTC operates; they deliver upwards of 50,000 riders a day on all three routes.

That’s more passengers than the whole GO Transit system and will continue growing to meet the demand created by the highrise boom.

Below the surface, there is a single subway line running beneath the Yonge St. spine to handle ever-increasing amounts of commuters with no relief line in sight.

You have to ask if this frenetic building activity is creating a perfect storm of social dislocation for future generations of Torontonians to deal with.

Will the highrise problems we see today in places like Rexdale and Scarborough, Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park be the future once the newness has worn off downtown developments like CityPlace?

Critics say residential tower blocks with transient populations do not help to create communities. If the buildings do not work well, they rapidly turn into ghettoes.

It’s easy to confuse higher densities with greater liveliness as some City Hall proponents do in their ad hoc efforts to approve ever more condominiums in their wards.

Lloyd Alter teaches sustainable design at Ryerson University School of Interior Design and is appalled at seeing so many high-rise condominiums in the one tight, downtown space.

“Rising towers with tiny balconies and floor-to-ceiling glass hardly represents ideal living for mixed communities,” Alter told the Toronto Sun. “What we are seeing is too many people forced into a small piece of geography in buildings that are less than efficient managers of energy.

“Lazy builders and architects are getting away with it. City Hall should be doing more to ensure the quality of the built environment rather than leaving it to future generations to grapple with its poor planning legacy.

“The glass towers just aren’t efficient. They have to be heated in winter and run air conditioning in the summer with no flow-through fresh air. They are also not being built to last.”

It all gets down to questions of quality.

Few of Toronto’s condominiums show consideration of scale or proportion or try to make a meaningful relationship with their surroundings. Nor is there anything special about their detail.

Is there consistency or integrity in their overall concept? Do they create handsome new public spaces at their base?

Does their internal planning produce the best possible living or working spaces while at the same time being built to last?

In too many cases, the answer to all of the above would be a “no” rather than an emphatic “yes.”

One critic even doubts whether the design qualities we’re seeing will let the designs last for longer than the original occupant’s stay.

Ted Kesik, a University of Toronto professor of building science, predicts an average shelf life for today’s glass towers of a mere 15 to 20 years, provoking a massive future problem of how to retrofit them.

The final question hangs on market sustainability.

An overbuilt and overpriced condominium market of less than stellar quality is posing a risk to all Canadian households, banks and the economy in general, the Bank of Canada warned earlier this month.

It cites Toronto as a bubble waiting to burst.

“If the upcoming supply of units is not absorbed by demand as they are completed over the next 12 to 30 months, the supply-demand discrepancy would become more apparent, increasing the risk of an abrupt correction in prices and residential construction activity,” it says.

“Any correction in condominium prices could spread to other segments of the housing market as buyers and sellers adjust their expectations.”

Which is banker speak for too much supply will kill the market for everyone.

You and I call that a crash.

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