Housing and transit should be linked
Re Tory promises olive branch to left-wingers after next election, Dec. 27 In his upbeat Star interview, Mayor John Tory speaks of transit and housing in the same breath, but linked only in regard to his having secured government funding for each. I would urge instead that we Torontonians, with the mayor in the lead, think of them as transit/housing — one file. Smart planning demands it.
That raises a compelling reason to revisit Mr. Tory’s advocacy of a one-stop Scarborough subway, because each stop on any rapidtransit line proves to be an irresistible magnet for housing developers. Just look at the forest of deluxe condo buildings that sprang up at each stop along the Sheppard line.
Now free of the tyranny of the Ontario Municipal Board, we can determine that what gets built from now on includes what the city needs, not just what the developers would prefer. (Although creative accommodation on development fees, tax holidays, P3s and interest-free loans could sweeten the builders’ piece of the pie.)
Planners could specify, through council, that special zoning surround all new transit stops, starting with the Line 1 northward extension and the Eglinton Crosstown but also (as most of us are praying) all the stops on a new Scarborough RT. Development at each stop could have a mandatory mixture of heights, apartment sizes, income levels, rentals and condos, residential and retail. There could be green space, community centres, sports facilities, schools, daycares and libraries.
Setting Toronto on such a path would be a wonderful legacy for the mayor (as opposed to the moniker “Tory’s Folly” that would be attached to the one-stop subway madness). But it requires all of us to look beyond election cycles.
Scarborough certainly “deserves” $3 billion in transit spending, maybe even the $5-billion everybody expects will be the final hit for the subway. For the amount Mr. Tory will saddle us with, we could get much better transit service, plus the prospect of quick and smart housing development. All of us, especially our fellow citizens in Scarborough, should demand no less. J.A. McFarlane, North York