Dear Minister, RE: Support…

Dear Minister, RE: Support for TOCore, the City's new Downtown Secondary Plan Since moving to the City of Toronto 38 years ago, my family and I have lived in three neighbourhoods. The first of these was next door to an ambitious contractor/developer who ran his noisy shop out of his illegally rebuilt 2-floor garage. We suffered the slings and arrows of construction noise & massive debris for years. Our next location was in a ‘vintage’ condo building that changed hands twice in the four years we were there. A developer bought up the building and it’s about halfway to its 40-storey height now. Currently, we live in the very heart of Toronto and, despite many months of negotiation to reduce the height, a 30-storey condo building is in the midst of noisy, dirty construction, across the street from our four-storey building, and will soon dwarf it. This haphazard approach to housing, pervasive throughout the downtown core, makes no common sense, destroys neighbourhoods and has no positive impact on providing desperately needed affordable housing for the thousands trying to survive in this increasingly unfriendly city. Unless you’re independently rich, you have no control over where you live. The city is in the hands of the developers. It’s time to take back our city. Community planning, housing, services and facilities, public space, land use, parks, the lake, transportation, built form, culture and more – these are things that need to be prioritized. I support the vision of TO Core. The Plan’s essential components are listed below:  Expansion of the Financial District and establishment of a Health Sciences District where non-residential uses will be prioritized;  Refinement of the current single Mixed Use Areas designation into 4 Mixed Use Areas designations to provide clear guidance on the appropriate scale of development based on existing and planned context;  Requirement for the submission of a Complete Community Assessment to ensure all developments contribute to the creation of liveable and complete communities;  Requirement for all developments to address the priorities contained within the Downtown Community Services and Facilities Strategy;  Protecting Downtown parks and open spaces from shadow;  Increased building setbacks to expand the public realm in areas of growth;  Prioritization of a “Land First” approach to maximize opportunities for new parkland through the development process, along with incentives for developers to work together to consolidate the provision of parkland;  Direction to use a new framework to improve the quality, quantity and connectivity of parks and the public realm in Downtown;  Prioritization of walking, cycling and transit use on Downtown’s streets;  Requirements for 2- and 3-bedroom units in most developments, along with protection of dwelling rooms;  Retention of cultural spaces and support for live music and filming;  Encouragement of low-carbon and resilient infrastructure and buildings; and  Partnerships with Indigenous communities, stakeholder groups and community groups as part of implementation. I am a member of Cawthra Mansion Co-operative, a member of the Grange Community Association and an active citizen of this city I learned to love and appreciate when we first moved here from Québec in 1982. I am concerned at how partisan politics have continued to destroy aspects of what used to be a pretty democratic municipality that worked. I fully support the TOCore 25-year Plan for the development of Toronto’s downtown core and hope that the Ministry will endorse its implementation.