OT: today is the day

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

On 10/27/2010 12:10 AM, Herb Richter wrote:
> Over the past two or three years I have been involved with a (urban)
> revitalization study (Finch Warden area) with city planners,
> politicians, community members and a developer who sought to build 8
> condo towers of up to 38 stories high with 1400 households in the
> parking lot of Bridlewood Mall.
> One of the major areas we considered was transit and traffic. It became
> very clear to me that planners are just plain doing it wrong - that
> increasing capacity is NOT the answer! ...decreasing volume would be
> much more effective. Much like the thinking 20 and 30 years ago with
> respect to garbage where it was just assumed that you could always
> increase capacity by building another landfill. Transportation planners
> seem to have only one plan: to just add another lane for cars or buses
> or bikes. At some point you can't - just like we now can't add garbage
> dumps and now have to "reduce, reuse and recycle".
>
> In transportation terms this could be to reduce the number AND LENGTH of
> commutes. I constantly argued that any re-development that would convert
> commercial property to "mixed-use" be required TO BE mixed use and that
> for every new household built, there be at least one new permanent job
> created on the site. This would reduce or shorten many commutes. Of
> course developers fight this kind of thinking because residential condos
> are much more lucrative than employment space.

That is a perfectly rational economic choice for developers and I don't 
think they're evil for making it. If you had the choice of building 
office space in Toronto or Markham, all things being equal, you'd 
probably pick Markham because you're more likely get a better return on 
your investment there. The total rent for office space in Markham is 
often the same as the taxes alone in Toronto for comparable space. That 
being the case, the city is actually in competition with landlords for 
the scarce dollars of tenants. If the city taxes more, that leaves less 
room for landlords to charge rent. If the city taxes less, that leaves 
more room for rent. It's not hard to guess which is the better situation 
for landlords.

> And here is why I voted for Ford:

Oh! So you're the one! :)

> during the summer, with much urgency,
> the developer and the (city) planning department pushed through the
> study and a somewhat downsized (re-zoning) application with what appears
> to have been a lot of sleazy back room deals and mis-information. They
> pulled out all the stops to get these though in the last session of that
> council. It was clear to me that they did not want to face a new council
> and a new mayor like Ford.
> On another note; one question I often put to the intensification
> obsessed planners was "when is a city full?" ...when we are all standing
> shoulder to shoulder like in a Star Trek episode? ...I never got an
> answer! ...I think Ford did at one point wounder why we have to keep
> increasing the population in the city at increasing rates.

... for which he was labelled "anti-immigrant" by the Toronto Star.

> I hope Ford will keep his promise to ask the common sense questions and
> to demand answers that make sense.
> Like maybe, "can't the city save a lot of money by running Linux on more
> of its computers?"

Or, "How many commuters can we get off the roads if we had real 
broadband Internet service as opposed to the illusion of broadband 
service that we currently have?" I've been trying to get fibre optic to 
the node on the municipal agenda. I think it's a travesty that Toronto 
Hydro is digging up streets, driveways, and gardens all over the city to 
bury electrical services without putting a strand of fibre in the 
conduits while they're doing this. Fibre to the node would be an enabler 
for more telecommuting and for creating opportunities that we can't even 
imagine right now.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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