Planning talk turns heated for Murray at Church-Wellesley meeting

By Michael Schwarz –

Meet Emma and Sophie, Toronto’s two most intrepid volunteers.

On May 7, at the 519 Church Street Community Centre, they were assigned to co-ordinate responses at the community action plan meeting organized by councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam and Toronto Centre MPP Glen Murray.

The two elected worthies described their consultation as beyond-ballot-box democracy. As Church-Wellesley is a dynamic neighborhood, attendees were advised to visualize their neighborhood in five or ten years’ time. They were then told to think beyond government. Prophetic words.

From the start, the anger and frustration of local residents were made very clear when the subject of planning came up.

One resident, quite obviously shell-shocked by the intensity of recent developments in the Church-Charles-Isabella area, let fly, “Developers are getting away with more and more ambitious plans. Councilors ignore residents’ opinions, grant permission to schemes which break city hall’s own guidelines, and are far too eager to accept planning gain advantages. The system is corrupt, ineffectual and remote. The planning process has no teeth. Apart from that, it’s bleeding marvelous!” This frustrated citizen was then asked when he was going to stand for public office!

When it came to specifics, residents stressed the delay in the planning scheme for Yonge St., where the planning framework promised for the beginning of 2012 had not materialized. There are no restrictions on height and no preservation of heritage: developers pay lip service to the area’s official plan.

Participants noted that the Ontario Municipal Board is not working and called for its abolition, for it to be removed from the planning process or for its role to be changed. The city’s planning department was not spared its share of embittered comments: “It has no teeth,” complained one participant. Another resident noted, “The last chief planner left because he was too frequently over-ruled–that is why there are vacancies for 60 fully-qualified city planners.” A third opined, “The problem lies not with the structure of local government, but with the councilors.”

The planning conversation got so heated that residents closed by demanding a city-wide development freeze on new and existing proposals—and even called for the independence from the province of Ontario for the entire city of Toronto.

For more information about the Church-Welleesley Neighbourhood Association, visit www.cwna.ca.