Island airport jets deal: What the city has (and hasn’t) done

Brian Iler —
CommunityAIR today released its 52-page detailed analysis of the city’s progress to date on its review of Robert Deluce’s proposal to bring jets to Toronto’s Waterfront. Please see the document here.
That progress is to be reviewed at today’s Executive Committee meeting.
CommunityAIR’s analysis reveals a host of questions still unanswered. But worse, the City has asked the questions that Mr. Deluce wants it to ask, and to date has failed to frame its review in compliance with the City’s Official Plan.
That Plan commits the City to:
· “a spectacular waterfront that is healthy, diverse, public and beautiful” (page 1-2), and
· “protect, preserve, and add to whenever feasible” Toronto’s Green Space System, which includes the waterfront, (page 2-23)
While permitting the Island Airport’s current operation – provided that it operates in accordance with the lease between the City, the Port Authority and the Government of Canada (the Tripartite Agreement) – the City’s Official Plan requires the immediate conversion of the Airport lands to recreational and residential purposes when the Airport ceases operation.
Until then, the Plan requires that the Tripartite Agreement may only be revised (as Porter’s Robert Deluce proposes),
“provided the City is satisfied that the improvements to the airport facilities and operations can be made without adverse impact on the surrounding residential and recreational environment [our emphasis].”
None of the work done to date has begun to consider the adverse impact of Robert Deluce’s jets on the surrounding residential and recreational environment.
Other key findings:
· We’re pleased to see that City staff have accepted the community’s position that it is not the “cumulative” noise measurements, but compliance with each of the three limits set out in the Tripartite Agreement, that is required. It states, in its current report to Executive Committee:
Porter Airlines and Bombardier have been advised by City staff that if these three measurements are not provided to the City in advance of the anticipated completion of this review (anticipated to be the first week of November), City Council will have insufficient information to make an informed decision on whether the CS-100 aircraft can operate at BBTCA in compliance with the Tripartite Agreement.
To date, the City has not evaluated compliance of current TPA/Porter operations with those requirements.
· No viable solution to the current traffic and parking mess is proposed, let alone one where significant expansion is allowed to occur.
· The City staff is suggesting that longstanding issues between it and the TPA be addressed:
In addition to the review of this proposal, the City of Toronto and the Toronto Port Authority have ongoing, unresolved issues on several matters including the Cherry Street Bridge, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILTs), noise complaints related to airport operations and construction, and taxi staging and airport-related traffic congestion.
Efforts by Councillor McMahon last May to have the PILTs issue added were ruled out of order by Council Speaker Frances Nunziata.
To staff’s credit, these are now back on the table, as they should have been all along.