Developers should pay for amenities

Re Suburbs cry foul over perks and recreation, Oct. 8

The real issue with the Section 37 funds was lost in this discussion.

The real issue with these funds is that the City of Toronto establishes height and density zoning regulations. Then it allows developers to break them, if they pay for the privilege. Sounds to me like the city could be cast in the old joke “we’ve already established what kind of person you are; now all we’re haggling over is the price.”

I understand that in the heyday of the OMB the city was afraid to enforce its own height and density zoning regulations because the developer would simply run off to the OMB, which would approve whatever outrage the developer wanted to inflict on the neighbourhood. So Section 37 funds became a way of softening the blow. Now that the OMB has been largely neutered, this argument no longer pertains.

Two remedies therefore suggest themselves: 1) developers should be paying for amenities regardless of the height, density or location of the development; and 2) the city should simply enforce the height and density zoning regulations that it has established.

If it is believed that those zoning regulations inhibit the desired height and density, the city should engage in a public process to change them.

These modest actions would solve the “Section 37 problem” without exacerbating the urban/ suburban divide.

What are we waiting for? Prof. Neil Thomlinson, department of politics and public administration, Ryerson University As a real estate lawyer who has practised for many years, I can say that it’s always a surprise on closing when the Section 37 adjustment, which can be several thousand dollars, is added to the closing adjustments.

The reference allowing developers to do that is buried in the fine print in the agreements that buyers sign, often in a rush. The amount is never specified.

Developers have it both ways. They are allowed to add more units to sell while sloughing off the Section 37 contribution they have negotiated with the city onto the buyers.

The city reaps more land transfer tax from the sale of the extra units. The city politicians, bureaucrats and developers know exactly how this all plays out. The buyer doesn’t have a chance. Warren Rumack, Thornhill