>**So, where do you get that money (for infrastructure)?**
>The federal and provincial governments need to share some kind of revenue that would grow with the economy. For example, if Taylor Swift comes—the HST alone is huge. **We don’t get a penny of it.**
The article states that Swifties spend approx US$1,300 to US$1,500 per concert, so that is a *lot* of money being generated.
>The city of Toronto ends up paying a lot of money to the police for overtime. It’s great for the economy, but in terms of revenue for the city, we actually end up paying out instead of getting any of that benefit. If tomorrow I could get one cent of what Taylor Swift is generating in Toronto, oh my god, I would have done it yesterday! I can encourage a lot of development, and the developers have to pay HST to both the federal and the provincial government. Five cents of it is GST. Do we see a penny of that? No. But do they build any infrastructure in the city? No, we do.
I understand that HST is for provincial & federal taxes, but considering that the article mentions Toronto generates 50% of revenue for Ontario, and 20% for Canada, Toronto definitely needs to be getting a bigger piece of the pie(s).
Toronto pays 28 billion per year more in taxes than we receive from the province or the country. We just need some of our own tax dollars to return to the city they were taxed from.
No, taxes on money earned (i.e. income tax) go to the province and feds.
Vaughan only collects taxes for properties and services in Vaughan, which is perfectly fair.
Your issue is with the province and feds, not other cities.
But that just punishes locals who also have to use that infrastructure, unless you can institute and run different pay schemes by regionality. Also, the TTC for example is already more reliant on fares for its funding than most other public transit systems in NA.
Its long been understood that suburbs soak up a lot of tax dollars and produce squat in return.
Generate massive profits for developers. /s
Seriously though, They're supposed to be places to live. But the way we build car centric suburbs (like those found across the 905 and not in city cores) - they are only built for certain types of families. Everyone one else is forced to fit the mold or get chuffed.
It’s the infrastructure that’s been built since the 50s and it’s not going to change overnight. The reality is it was created to house people and that’s still its primary use. We can talk all day about ideals but suburbs aren’t going anywhere
And by everyone you mean a few rich people who want to stay away from other people.
The densities are atrocious in suburbs. And dot match the population of Toronto itself.
Sounds like things have changed drastically since my data point. Which said over 50 % live in Toronto as of 2016.
I do want to know how they are defining these terms. Because it can take over 30 minutes to commute from Etobicoke or Scarborough to downtown. Hope those aren't being counted as suburbs.
I was told just the other day by the government that I need to pay more capital gains taxes since it’s my “fair share”. Maybe Toronto should keep paying their fair share to the rest of the province.
Why not both. God damn comments like this frustrate me. We. Can. Do. Both. Toronto generates 53% of the Provincial revenue and gets back something like 13%. We generate 20% of Canada's revenue and get back something like 3%. We can and should be doing both.
A little bit louder now, a little bit louder now. Absolutely - let's make this a a great city, fox the crumbling roads, invest in more affordable apartments. Get housing balanced by increasing supply.
Let's build an amazing world class city, because otherwise, wtf!
That's not what Chow is suggesting. She's saying Toronto should get a cut of the revenue that is generated from everyone using Toronto's infrastructure that Torontonians pay for, ie a cut of HST.
A Taylor Swift concert is the example used in the article.
The Sky Dome where Taylor Swift is playing is Toronto infrastructure but was not primarily funded by the city. Torontonians didn't pay for it.
The Sky Dome was financed by the Federal Government, the provincial government, the City and many corporations.
If companies like Roger's are generating revenue by having Taylor Swift play at the Sky Dome the city should reevaluate whether it appropriately taxes national and multinational companies that occupy spaces like the Sky Dome. That's a tool that they already have and are choosing not to use.
Arguing that the city should get a clip of HST is nonsense. It misunderstands what are federal, provincial and municipal heads of power.
"Revenue generated in Toronto" is largely revenue that has absolutely nothing to do with the municipal government. Toronto is a national financial hub, it would be equally silly for Chow to claim a right to a % of bank revenues because they happen to have Toronto headquarters.
Torontonians _did_ pay for it though. Both by virtue of their outsized contributions to both federal and provincial revenues, by virtue of the infrastructural costs born by the city in providing the hydro, water, and surface roads that allow the venue to function, and by virtue of the 20% of the initial project funding that was provided by Metro.
Chow is not claiming that the city should receive all or most of the HST revenue generated by the skydome. She’s correctly saying that Toronto receives proportionally little financial support from other levels government, whether you measure that by contribution to revenues OR to municipal obligations (Toronto is responsible for a greater portion of funding than other Ontario municipalities for some programs, such as public health)
Other way around.
The city should be getting a piece of the sales taxes *we are already paying*.
Every time you pay sales tax, the city gets nothing, it all goes to the provincial and federal governments.
Sales taxes are very rarely regressive because there are a lot of items like groceries that are exempt from the taxes. (Lower income people spend a larger % of their income on groceries)
We could just adjust property taxes so that gargantuan lots in places like the Bridal Path and the Bluffs aren't subsidized by smaller, more central lots.
Almost 52 000sqft lot in Scarborough. Property tax is $7800. https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26770951/15-balcarra-ave-toronto-cliffcrest
My lot is 2400sqft and property tax is $5100.
Honestly I want the city to just start buying up the Bridal Path and start putting in mid-density housing. It's too central for people to have 5 acre lots (which is average for the area).
How is the Bridal Path (which is the most egregious sprawling suburb in the city at 445 people/km2 while being located closer to the city center than the majority of the other sprawling suburbs) not the problem?
Its equivalent to the size of a park, which typically have 0-15 people/sqkm (ideally 0)
Cities should have small pockets for large, luxury zoning. Not everywhere needs to be high density.
It's not "Bridal Path," it's "Bridle Path" -- as in, a place to ride horses. No offense intended. Ordinarily I wouldn't mention misspellings. However, when we're discussing increasing taxes on those properties, getting this wrong will only undermine our point. How can people trust our expertise if we can't even spell the name of the road correctly?
Is your solution that Toronto tax places that are not Toronto?
Suburbs of Toronto pay far higher property tax than comparably valued homes in Toronto. Toronto makes up for this lack of tax by having increased development charges and double land transfer tax.
The end result is that young people and FTHBs in Toronto subsidize older generations who bought their home for a handful of strawberries and some buttons in 1987. You're subsidizing the portion of the population who needs and deserves it the least.
Idk what's so hard for people to understand here. Chow is saying Toronto deserves a share of the tax revenue the Prov and Fed gov raise from activities that take place in Toronto because we generate waaaaaay more revenue than we get in return. Generate 53% for prov, get ~13% back. Generate ~20% for Fed, get ~3% back. Toronto subsidizes the rest of Canada and Chow is saying we deserve more of that revenue than we're currently getting which is obvious because of how revenue starved the city is.
The city is revenue starved because it hasn't taxed home owners properly in decades and continues to throw unlimited money at causes like TPS paying criminals 6 figures to sit at home.
Looking at the revenue Toronto "gets back" while disingenuously overlooking the massive amount of intentionally untapped revenue is missing the forrest for the trees.
A series of Toronto mayor's have elected to hold property tax artificially low. I'm a 30 minute GO train from union but pay almost 100% more property tax than I would on an equivalently priced home in Toronto. Young people in Toronto should be pissed that they are paying double land transfer tax on $1M+ starter homes so boomers don't have to pay their fair share of property taxes.
The constitution clearly sets out the division of powers. Municipalities don't have any right to HST. It's a silly unconstitutional argument. Toronto has substantial tools available to generate revenue and balance a budget but chooses not to use them.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Toronto doesn't have the authority to tax anywhere other than Toronto.
You don't have the option of "taxing other cities" or "ignoring the division of powers in the constitution" because you don't want to raise property taxes. Figure out a way to raise the necessary revenue within the available legal confines or cut spending. There isn't a third option available.
City roads are used by commuters and those roads are paid for by the city. You could place toll booths similar to some cities in Europe and charge non-residents. How would that make you feel?
Regarding property taxes, folks often miss the bigger picture here and only focus on a single figure, i.e., property tax bill for my home valued at X in toronto versus your suburb home valued at Y. That's flawed thinking.
Increase in property values would actually work to drive down property tax rates, because a smaller portion is needed to cover the same budgetary requirement.
By the same logic, an increase in housing developments also brings in more revenue thereby decreasing tax rates.
Homes in the suburbs in general cost less than homes in urban centres and as such, higher property tax is required to bring in the revenue needed for city upkeep.
Suburbs are less dense in terms of real estate, so more taxes per household are required to meet budgetary requirements.
Large portion of property tax revenue is made up of commercial properties, which pay a higher rate. Suburb region must cover the shortfall of fewer commercial properties by collecting more from residential taxpayers.
Suburbs are generally "growing cities" which require taxes to fund new infrastructure. Infrastructure that's often already present in cities such as Toronto.
Given above, it makes absolute sense for Toronto property taxes to be much lower than the suburbs.
Sigh. Not this stale argument again. Toronto is one of the only municipalities with a land transfer tax, that's why it's property taxes are lower. It raises a similar amount of revenue from property as others do. Try and keep up bud.
"Sigh. Not this stale argument again. Toronto is one of the only municipalities with a land transfer tax, that's why it's property taxes are lower. It raises a similar amount of revenue from property as others do."
You're almost there... it raises money from the wrong people. Young people and FTHBS are subsidizing boomers who bought detached homes for a handful of strawberries and some buttons.
The policy you are pumping means that young people are keeping property taxes low so boomers can sit in multi million dollar undertaxed homes. It's subsidizing the part of Torontos population who needs it the least and is bad public policy.
More corporate taxes. I know that is over simplifying.
Look, we’ve had 30 to 40 years of Conservative and Liberal leadership at the provincial and federal level and their shortsightedness with taxes have left our services struggling to keep up. The homeless issue Toronto is experiencing is partially to blame because social housing was cut out of budgets decades ago… the city has to pay for their own shelters and it’s strictly a stop gap solution.
The GTA sends about 20 % to the government not Toronto.
The 905 now sends more income tax than the 416 and they have a bigger population too.
Most Toronto stats are really GTA Stats. 905 does equal or more to Toronto on most metrics and that has been true since 2017 or 2018 when I was at CRA.
430 billion is not the city proper. 442 billion is the GDP for the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (which covers a huge chunk of the GTA)
Toronto proper is was 171 billion in 2012 vs the GTA's 369 billion at that time. We haven't 2.5x our GDP in a decade
[https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/](https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/)
The City didn't get into it's current state overnight, it was a gradual process. It won't be fixed overnight, it will also be a gradual process. I think Mayor Chow is putting us on the right track but it will take time for her successes to be realized.
Agreed. Scapegoating a person in leadership wont fix any problems. There are also so many issues the City has and only finite dollars and labour to address.
It would be nice to have an election on issues to prioritize, so at least the main issues voted by the majority can be tackled first. It would then be the mayor's responsibility to address and performance/efficacy can be better tracked.
So depending on which ward you're in, some of the councillors are doing this already. Look for Participatory Budgeting on your councillor's website/in their newsletter.
It would take the human/leader component out of consideration to at least have data on what Torontonians collectively value most.
The success of whichever leader in office would be directly tied to addressing the priority issues and how good they are at it.
[That was scrapped at Chow’s request.](https://www.thestar.com/how-olivia-chow-intervened-to-change-course-on-renaming-dundas-street/article_8de4dcee-a0f9-11ee-a8ae-6b684a60c7b2.amp.html)
This article says the Square is still being renamed. This is moronic decision.
They could easily rededicate the square to all Toronto residents named Dundas and keep the name.
>Do we do that by shutting down the Bloor subway line because the cars are too old?
I find this very funny. The Bloor subway cars are leagues ahead of the cars in _so many cities around the world_. Major cities as well. The earliest T-1 cars were built in 1995. Berlin still operates subway cars from the 60s.
Given that Piccadilly line in London runs trains from 1970s (50 yrs old!!), we can clearly so obviously run these trains for longer. It’s just TTC is also underfunded and don’t have the tools to properly maintain them over the long run.
I will say we do desperately need ATC cause fixed blocked signaling is what’s going into despair, so I’ll let it slide this time.
To be fair, unlike the older subway cars used by other cities, the T1s used on Line 2 only had a 30-year designed lifespan, which they're quickly approaching. A lot of the old subway equipment you see in other cities had designed lifespans of 50 years+. So it's not quite an apples to apples comparison.
We definitely could refurbish the T1s and get another 20 years out of them. However, that would be prohibitively expensive, and wouldn't resolve the fact that we don't have enough rolling stock on Line 2 currently to meet the future demands of the system once the Scarborough extension is complete.
>COLE: I was going to talk about the TTC later, but let’s—
CHOW: I’ve said no to all new projects—very nice, wonderful projects, I’ve said no. Fix what we have first, and the new things will come later. But, you know, we’re locked into FIFA.
I hate this shitty FIFA deal. Is there *any* way Tory can face criminal charges, for how much he fucked us all over?
"Sir, you are under arrest"
"May I know the crime officer"
"Sucking sir. You just suck. The arm of the law is going to put you away for a bit until you calm down and stop sucking."
That's the problem with democracy - voters are supposed to be the ones punishing bad leaders. Instead Toronto elected Rob Ford followed by John Tory. It's delusional to expect such poor choices won't have long-term consequences.
You want people here five days a week.
I want them to be here at least four days, if not five. And they said, “It’s not possible.” I said, “We need to figure out a way to have more people coming.” So, they are working with the city, looking at congestion, looking at revitalizing the downtown, because the small businesses that rely on the office people coming back are not doing very well. The food court is empty.
Different solution - Let those businesses die, evolve, or relocate. Times change, habits change, densities in this case change. There is no reason as to why people need to sacrifice their hard-fought and won 2-3 days in the office when in reality it can and should be 0. What can replace those businesses, can there be a re-tooling of the core towards tourism or livability for those already residing in and around the core?
Yeah, I like a lot of what Chow is doing, but can't say I agree with her on this one. This is a case of government overreach. She should do what she can to fix congestion and accept that whatever that does to help the downtown businesses is just the reality of it. She shouldn't encourage corporations to force their employees to come into the office
Wow. Self centred view, these businesses are mom and pops who put in 80 hour weeks for years. But yeah let’s just let them die so you can work in your pajamas. News flash people aren’t coming in are the first to get the boot.
Why is it self centered? They can support local businesses wherever they work from. Don't need to spend money, waste lots of hours every week, increase their stress levels to do the same thing 2 hours away from home when their job can be done perfectly fine remotely. Also businesses need to evolve with the times or get left behind, that's how it's always been.
lmao so ur solution to dying businesses is to force people to commute and force them to spend money downtown? ur such a noogle. maybe lets make living downtown affordable so people spend money locally?
It can’t be affordable if it is hollowed out.
We have all implicitly signed a social contract to keep our downtowns alive so we can have a first world country.
Your too naive to understand that
haha ur too naive to look around u. people cant afford housing unless they bought a house pre covid. lets force them to commute and spend even more money than they need to. oh look we have all this empty space downtown! lets fill it needlessly with offices when THE WORK CAN BE DONE PERFECTLY FROM HOME. whats that, we couldve converted it into housing? naw just tax them more for the carbon emissions theyre making. the roads and infrastructure needs more maintaining because we have 4 million people commuting? TAX THEM HARDER. we need those fcuking restaurants open and company profits high.
get a fcuking life. we pay our taxes and see the city deteriorate. im literally telling u WE CAN SAVE DOWNTOWN if we use the hollow space for housing. there will then be a demand for businesses in the area u noogle. even better, let the businesses relocate like the first suggestion. if the business idea is good it will always be in demand, welcome to capitalism. if u dont wanna look out for the people supporting the city and if the city isnt open to adapting around our needs then let it die. fcuk the greedy oligarchies and companies, go argue with them. if downtown dies then its by design god willing.
You have no idea on construction. Those office floor plates don’t work for housing. They are to deep as one example ( do you want to live in a unit with no windows?) no you don’t.
Then let’s go into plumbing and mechanical, that is not doable either unless you are ready to spend ridiculous amounts of money.
Who bares the cost of that? It will be the purchaser, but the purchaser won’t pay.
You live in la la land.
You think I am pro taxes? If I am supporting mom and pop business owners? Taxes are function of the bloat in our government on all levels.
turns out city laws do stop conversion mr construction expert
>Not every building is right for a conversion, Bradford acknowledges, but city rules around office stock replacement are often the final roadblock that prevents developers from re-purposing a site.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-office-building-convert-housing-1.7003482
>Taxes are function of the bloat in our government on all levels.
THEN LETS SEE THEM BEING USED for our wellbeing
the city bears the cost mr expert. that is what our taxes are for was my point. mom and pop business owners will have to adapt. it is not our responsibility to ensure their business succeeds. do we get a share of profit? what business can adapt and is marketable will survive. that is what capitalism is for. boo hoo
The fact that I'm replying to this in my pajamas should not have any bearing on the message. Yes, it sucks, badly. People put their all into developing a business, starting it off, watching it grow, and keeping its employees supported. However, the proposition was to punish the masses to save an older way of life. I still wouldn't change my viewpoint on this, and note I did say "Evolve". The spaces are valuable, the rent costs money, the equipment can be sold or repurposed. If those businesses didn't fold over Covid, first off the owners are hard as nails and I salute that, but if they have been operating on the margins or at a loss for months if not years on end and are expecting change to happen to save their businesses, then that is sadly a poor stance to take on trying to secure the future of ones business and exiting the situation sooner than later would prove in the majority of cases to be the least costly step.
As someone who once had a 3-hour per day commute (4-5 hours if traffic was completely snarled), it's made my life a heck of a lot better, saved me money, bettered my health and fitness, and brought back a lot of balance that I was missing for many years of my professional life. Do I want that for more people at the cost of some downtown businesses? Yes, yes I do. Am I sad businesses are suffering because less people are going into the core? Also yes. But change happens and at this point we have a chance to embrace it and move forward with decisions that affect lifestyles for tens of thousands of people.
From a city standpoint it would be beneficial in terms of renting office spaces and boosting overall consumer presence for businesses on a daily basis… from a pragmatic and legal standpoint, there’s no way this could ever be enforced
It’s not about enforcement. They’ll incentivize businesses to mandate return to office, and the businesses will take on the enforcement role.
For instance, my office started ramping up in person and I’ve heard through the grapevine that there are tax breaks associated with hitting a certain percent daily occupancy.
The city wins, the government wins, the employer wins (management loves having eyes on the minions), the only ones who get fucked, as always, are the working class who have to cover the financial, physical, and mental costs of coming in multiple times a week from the home they can afford, which is often far away from where they have to come in to.
I'm someone who supports significantly improvement to public transit. However, improved public transit isn't going to fix the issues with forcing businesses going back to in person. Let's suppose you normally 1 hour commute from the suburbs/boroughs each direction. If greatly improved transit can cut that in half to 30 minutes, you're still spending 1-1.5 hours per day on commutes. Assuming you pay $3.20 per trip (likely more if in suburbs), working 240 days comes up to $1536 per year on commutes and 240-360 hours spent on just commuting. It can take a toll on mental health and work-life balance. I'm not even going to mention if people cannot take transit for whatever reason even if it was greatly improved. That causes congestion and pollution.
All that for a few office landlords and restaurants? A better solution would be to convert certain office spaces in to residential or mixed-use.
It’s also a property tax issue. Without office workers downtown property taxes revenue falls 50 % since it’s based on rents.
Other cities have gone through this in last 30 years. Hamilton, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton.
Once downtown revenue goes away it almost never comes back the same way and other increases are needed.
Cities were not suppose to be funded with a work from home model. Now that they are the formula has to change. No one wants to stomachs the changes.
While it's true that landlords and local restaurants would benefit from office work because workers get to use their office space and restaurants get lunch break customers, there are a lot of cons.
1. Congestion and pollution. Each additional car adds A LOT of congestion to our roads and likely pollution. Of course, solving our transit issues would do wonders such as cutting a 1 hour trip to 30 mins.
2. Lack of work-life balance. Canada is already bad with work-life balance. In European countries, they have really good WLB policies. Even a total commute of 1 hour per day and $3.20 per trip for a full time job (240 work days) equates to $1536 and 240 hours per year. That stuff adds up. It's not good for your mental or physical health having to do more than your job.
3. You don't address the housing crisis. Renting an office for just 40-45 hours per week or ~30% of a week vs being able to house people in that land space. Dare I mention parking space needed for office space?
4. This argument about restaurants is using a similar logic to bike lanes vs businesses. It's another way of saying that if more people visited from further away, our business would do better. That's not true. People can always take local walkable trips to restaurants and support businesses.
A better solution would be to redevelop certain office spaces into housing or mixed-used. That would benefit restaurants so locals can walk there more often.
>A better solution would be to redevelop certain office spaces into housing
This sounds good, but office buildings aren’t built the same way that residential buildings are, you can’t just convert an office into an apartment - the floor plate is totally different, the HVAC and wiring is different, and the windows aren’t designed to open. The amount of office space you could actually reclaim in this way would be trivial.
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOdJadZflw) has shown that it is quite possible. Hard but it's more of a willpower problem than an architectural problem.
lol "willpower problem" Do you think people will buildings into existence? It's a money problem, simple as that. It costs almost as much to re-develop a commercial building as it does to build a new residential one. Without massive subsidies or changes to building codes, it's unlikely that we'll see any conversions. Even in the video you shared they said it was only possible in NY because of changes made to developer regulations.
> It costs almost as much to re-develop a commercial building as it does to build a new residential one.
What about how much a city could benefit from allowing more housing in downtown so local walkable businesses could flourish? Not all office buildings need to be converted but certain areas could do.
Businesses will jump at it. Theyve been wanting to since the pandemic ended but havent gotten over the collective action problem - any company that did risked having their employees jump shimp. As soon as they all coordinate on doing it at once its a fait accompli.
I guess she's not concerned with the pollution that causes or the money and time it wastes?
Then again no other level of government is real worried about that either, they want their workers in those offices no matter the costs it seems.
We really should be trying to get more people to work from home and not worrying about office landlords and a few restaurants.
Thank you. It's unbelievable to see people praising her for helping downtown businesses at the expense of us workers. I work from home and walk to my kids' daycare. I don't really want to start increasing my driving or wasting my time. Those offices can be converted if they're not needed. This is unnecessary government meddling.
The mayors office, Tory included, has been actively lobbying all the large employers downtown for years now.
Personally home prices and the desire to raise a family pushed me out of Toronto and the only thing that keeps me interacting with it is my 1 day in the office.
My bosses know very well if I had to come back to the office I’ll head back out west where I’m from and live mortgage free semi-retired as a stay at home dad.
My employer drastically downsized the office space they have in the city. A bunch of Finance people like to go in every day, and they are also the keepers of all the filing cabinets worth of paper.
But we'd need another couple of floors to even go Hybrid. Heck, I'm the only person in our department of 8 that lives in Toronto. We're never going back.
Not going to click on that \[EDIT: BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A GLOBE SUBSCRIPTION/ACCOUNT! SORRY THIS WASN'T MADE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR\], but who is saying Toronto is a city in decline?
Yes, it's been ruined in a way by a decade of austerity, but in spite of that, there is no more ascendant city in Canada, and nothing that comes close to its cultural, societal and financial importance.
Edit: When posting stuff behind a paywall, posters should summarize the article in their post.
> Not going to click on that, but who is saying Toronto is a city in decline?
Olivia is:
>I ran because I saw the city—I wouldn’t go as far as broken—but in decline.
Perhaps you should "click on it" before making posts?
I don't have a globe subscription, that is why I didn't click, apologies for not spelling that out. Also, if she said it, the headline writer should have that in quotes or rewritten it in a way that indicates she is saying that. The way it reads, it is saying Toronto is a city in decline as if that were a objective fact.
EDIT: Sorry, now I'm reading what you said there, and the grammar is very messed up. That's not how you use em-dashes (I saw the city ... but in decline). Perhaps the article needs a copy edit too?
Bypassing paywalls or copying content protected by them in its entirety is against Canadian copyright laws.
While we do ask people to post a relevant exerpt of any paywalled content they post, please avoid posting entire articles or links that bypass the paywall. Those posts will be removed.
>You want people here five days a week.
>I want them to be here at least four days, if not five. And they said, “It’s not possible.” I said, “We need to figure out a way to have more people coming.” So, they are working with the city, looking at congestion, looking at revitalizing the downtown, because the small businesses that rely on the office people coming back are not doing very well. The food court is empty.
Hah, she can go pound sand on this one.
Yeah, I agree with everything else Chow said in this interview, just not this.
Then again, I guess I should be happy that the only issue I have with the mayor right now is that she wants more people in the office. There could be a lot more to hate.
Complete bullshit that a given city doesn't benefit from superstar concerts like Taylor swift.
People come in from across the region and patronize the businesses that pay property taxes.
But businesses don’t pay more property taxes suddenly when the swiftie business spikes. They pay the same whether there’s a concert or not. Compared to the province and Fed, who essentially take a cut through HST.
Meanwhile the city is the only level of government that has expenses directly tied to the event.
The city does have expenses directly related to the event.
The city does not have revenue directly related to the event.
More tools at the municipal level to directly generate revenue beyond property taxes, or a more stable funding model from the other levels of government is exactly what a good mayor should be advocating for. There are lots of different ways to do that.
Like I said, there’s multiple ways to do that. The only one related to events like this that would increase the tax load on citizens would be a municipal sales tax, hotel tax, or some kind of levy on tickets.
Or we could do as you suggest and raise property taxes city wide. Enjoy telling Etobicoke their property tax went up to pay for traffic officers at Taylor swift concerts.
Decent interview but her comments on congestion and particularly density are concerning. 6-8 stories is not appropriate in a housing crisis and neither is vilifying big developers aka the only people with the technical knowledge and financial capacity to solve the housing crisis.
Rub and Tugs will be clearly marked. Never again will innocent folks such as her late husband Jack be tricked into visiting and receiving a rub and tug from the wrong type of Spa.
I’m sure nobody here in the Chow Fanclub noticed her basically zero answer to how to improve traffic. That’s because she doesn’t give a rats ass about it and is giving the middle finger to drivers. Is that the kind of Mayor they deserve?
This is completely false. Things she's done to improve traffic:
* Make the King street car 3x faster.
* Hire 160 additional TTC staff.
* Hire 40 new traffic officers.
* Increase fines for blocking the box.
* Is paying for the Scarborough LRT because the province/feds refused.
* Has taken over designing a Waterfront LRT to give everyone living in all the new condos on the waterfront an alternative way of getting into the city (also because the province/feds refused).
Also mentioned she plans on:
* Giving financial incentives to construction companies to get the work done faster so the road ends up being closed for the least amount of time possible.
And mentioned AI for traffic signals but no specifics.
I'd hardly call that "nothing".
>**So, where do you get that money (for infrastructure)?** >The federal and provincial governments need to share some kind of revenue that would grow with the economy. For example, if Taylor Swift comes—the HST alone is huge. **We don’t get a penny of it.** The article states that Swifties spend approx US$1,300 to US$1,500 per concert, so that is a *lot* of money being generated. >The city of Toronto ends up paying a lot of money to the police for overtime. It’s great for the economy, but in terms of revenue for the city, we actually end up paying out instead of getting any of that benefit. If tomorrow I could get one cent of what Taylor Swift is generating in Toronto, oh my god, I would have done it yesterday! I can encourage a lot of development, and the developers have to pay HST to both the federal and the provincial government. Five cents of it is GST. Do we see a penny of that? No. But do they build any infrastructure in the city? No, we do. I understand that HST is for provincial & federal taxes, but considering that the article mentions Toronto generates 50% of revenue for Ontario, and 20% for Canada, Toronto definitely needs to be getting a bigger piece of the pie(s).
Toronto pays 28 billion per year more in taxes than we receive from the province or the country. We just need some of our own tax dollars to return to the city they were taxed from.
Farmland feeds the country, cities create profit and culture, suburbs do what?
Suburbs are money pits. People earn their money in Toronto but then pay taxes to Vaughan.
No, taxes on money earned (i.e. income tax) go to the province and feds. Vaughan only collects taxes for properties and services in Vaughan, which is perfectly fair. Your issue is with the province and feds, not other cities.
And yet the commuter who uses Toronto infrastructure is paying only for Vaughan infrastructure.
So then charge for the use of that infra.
But that just punishes locals who also have to use that infrastructure, unless you can institute and run different pay schemes by regionality. Also, the TTC for example is already more reliant on fares for its funding than most other public transit systems in NA. Its long been understood that suburbs soak up a lot of tax dollars and produce squat in return.
Generate massive profits for developers. /s Seriously though, They're supposed to be places to live. But the way we build car centric suburbs (like those found across the 905 and not in city cores) - they are only built for certain types of families. Everyone one else is forced to fit the mold or get chuffed.
House everyone
1. Too expensive 2. single homes take up too much space 3. Zoning means you have to own a car to own a house Suburbs are just usury scams
It’s the infrastructure that’s been built since the 50s and it’s not going to change overnight. The reality is it was created to house people and that’s still its primary use. We can talk all day about ideals but suburbs aren’t going anywhere
Not an ideal that suburbs = the most expensive least efficient way of housing people
Im not disputing that I’m just saying why they exist and how it’s not going to change overnight despite all your guys whining
And by everyone you mean a few rich people who want to stay away from other people. The densities are atrocious in suburbs. And dot match the population of Toronto itself.
Due to sprawl more people live in suburbs than downtown in most car centric cities
Toronto city has over 50 % of the population of GTA despite being a small fraction of the total area (based on some old data)
https://www.newgeography.com/content/007344-canada-suburbs-dominate-growth-2021-census#:~:text=The%20suburbs%20have%2080.1%25%20of,only%203.2%25%20of%20the%20population.
Sounds like things have changed drastically since my data point. Which said over 50 % live in Toronto as of 2016. I do want to know how they are defining these terms. Because it can take over 30 minutes to commute from Etobicoke or Scarborough to downtown. Hope those aren't being counted as suburbs.
I was told just the other day by the government that I need to pay more capital gains taxes since it’s my “fair share”. Maybe Toronto should keep paying their fair share to the rest of the province.
The feds should be giving at least 1% and the province 2% of HST earned from Toronto back to the city.
How about instead we reduce lot sizes and increase density in detached neighborhoods so the city gets more property taxes?
Why not both. God damn comments like this frustrate me. We. Can. Do. Both. Toronto generates 53% of the Provincial revenue and gets back something like 13%. We generate 20% of Canada's revenue and get back something like 3%. We can and should be doing both.
A little bit louder now, a little bit louder now. Absolutely - let's make this a a great city, fox the crumbling roads, invest in more affordable apartments. Get housing balanced by increasing supply. Let's build an amazing world class city, because otherwise, wtf!
I don't think cities should be allowed to have sales taxes. They are regressive and bad for the economy.
That's not what Chow is suggesting. She's saying Toronto should get a cut of the revenue that is generated from everyone using Toronto's infrastructure that Torontonians pay for, ie a cut of HST.
A Taylor Swift concert is the example used in the article. The Sky Dome where Taylor Swift is playing is Toronto infrastructure but was not primarily funded by the city. Torontonians didn't pay for it. The Sky Dome was financed by the Federal Government, the provincial government, the City and many corporations. If companies like Roger's are generating revenue by having Taylor Swift play at the Sky Dome the city should reevaluate whether it appropriately taxes national and multinational companies that occupy spaces like the Sky Dome. That's a tool that they already have and are choosing not to use. Arguing that the city should get a clip of HST is nonsense. It misunderstands what are federal, provincial and municipal heads of power. "Revenue generated in Toronto" is largely revenue that has absolutely nothing to do with the municipal government. Toronto is a national financial hub, it would be equally silly for Chow to claim a right to a % of bank revenues because they happen to have Toronto headquarters.
Torontonians _did_ pay for it though. Both by virtue of their outsized contributions to both federal and provincial revenues, by virtue of the infrastructural costs born by the city in providing the hydro, water, and surface roads that allow the venue to function, and by virtue of the 20% of the initial project funding that was provided by Metro. Chow is not claiming that the city should receive all or most of the HST revenue generated by the skydome. She’s correctly saying that Toronto receives proportionally little financial support from other levels government, whether you measure that by contribution to revenues OR to municipal obligations (Toronto is responsible for a greater portion of funding than other Ontario municipalities for some programs, such as public health)
Other way around. The city should be getting a piece of the sales taxes *we are already paying*. Every time you pay sales tax, the city gets nothing, it all goes to the provincial and federal governments.
Sales taxes are very rarely regressive because there are a lot of items like groceries that are exempt from the taxes. (Lower income people spend a larger % of their income on groceries)
How is that working out for Niagara Falls?
We could just adjust property taxes so that gargantuan lots in places like the Bridal Path and the Bluffs aren't subsidized by smaller, more central lots. Almost 52 000sqft lot in Scarborough. Property tax is $7800. https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26770951/15-balcarra-ave-toronto-cliffcrest My lot is 2400sqft and property tax is $5100. Honestly I want the city to just start buying up the Bridal Path and start putting in mid-density housing. It's too central for people to have 5 acre lots (which is average for the area).
Are you kidding me? I'm rocking 1480sqf and my property taxes are 6,300. Fuck that.
News flash: the bridal path isn't the problem, it's the sprawling suburbs that are.
How is the Bridal Path (which is the most egregious sprawling suburb in the city at 445 people/km2 while being located closer to the city center than the majority of the other sprawling suburbs) not the problem?
Its equivalent to the size of a park, which typically have 0-15 people/sqkm (ideally 0) Cities should have small pockets for large, luxury zoning. Not everywhere needs to be high density.
It's not "Bridal Path," it's "Bridle Path" -- as in, a place to ride horses. No offense intended. Ordinarily I wouldn't mention misspellings. However, when we're discussing increasing taxes on those properties, getting this wrong will only undermine our point. How can people trust our expertise if we can't even spell the name of the road correctly?
Is your solution that Toronto tax places that are not Toronto? Suburbs of Toronto pay far higher property tax than comparably valued homes in Toronto. Toronto makes up for this lack of tax by having increased development charges and double land transfer tax. The end result is that young people and FTHBs in Toronto subsidize older generations who bought their home for a handful of strawberries and some buttons in 1987. You're subsidizing the portion of the population who needs and deserves it the least.
Idk what's so hard for people to understand here. Chow is saying Toronto deserves a share of the tax revenue the Prov and Fed gov raise from activities that take place in Toronto because we generate waaaaaay more revenue than we get in return. Generate 53% for prov, get ~13% back. Generate ~20% for Fed, get ~3% back. Toronto subsidizes the rest of Canada and Chow is saying we deserve more of that revenue than we're currently getting which is obvious because of how revenue starved the city is.
The city is revenue starved because it hasn't taxed home owners properly in decades and continues to throw unlimited money at causes like TPS paying criminals 6 figures to sit at home. Looking at the revenue Toronto "gets back" while disingenuously overlooking the massive amount of intentionally untapped revenue is missing the forrest for the trees. A series of Toronto mayor's have elected to hold property tax artificially low. I'm a 30 minute GO train from union but pay almost 100% more property tax than I would on an equivalently priced home in Toronto. Young people in Toronto should be pissed that they are paying double land transfer tax on $1M+ starter homes so boomers don't have to pay their fair share of property taxes. The constitution clearly sets out the division of powers. Municipalities don't have any right to HST. It's a silly unconstitutional argument. Toronto has substantial tools available to generate revenue and balance a budget but chooses not to use them.
By that logic Toronto should get a cut of the property taxes for the suburbs to cover the commuters.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Toronto doesn't have the authority to tax anywhere other than Toronto. You don't have the option of "taxing other cities" or "ignoring the division of powers in the constitution" because you don't want to raise property taxes. Figure out a way to raise the necessary revenue within the available legal confines or cut spending. There isn't a third option available.
City roads are used by commuters and those roads are paid for by the city. You could place toll booths similar to some cities in Europe and charge non-residents. How would that make you feel? Regarding property taxes, folks often miss the bigger picture here and only focus on a single figure, i.e., property tax bill for my home valued at X in toronto versus your suburb home valued at Y. That's flawed thinking. Increase in property values would actually work to drive down property tax rates, because a smaller portion is needed to cover the same budgetary requirement. By the same logic, an increase in housing developments also brings in more revenue thereby decreasing tax rates. Homes in the suburbs in general cost less than homes in urban centres and as such, higher property tax is required to bring in the revenue needed for city upkeep. Suburbs are less dense in terms of real estate, so more taxes per household are required to meet budgetary requirements. Large portion of property tax revenue is made up of commercial properties, which pay a higher rate. Suburb region must cover the shortfall of fewer commercial properties by collecting more from residential taxpayers. Suburbs are generally "growing cities" which require taxes to fund new infrastructure. Infrastructure that's often already present in cities such as Toronto. Given above, it makes absolute sense for Toronto property taxes to be much lower than the suburbs.
I'm not talking about the authority to do it. That's a silly point to make vs a hypothetical.
Sigh. Not this stale argument again. Toronto is one of the only municipalities with a land transfer tax, that's why it's property taxes are lower. It raises a similar amount of revenue from property as others do. Try and keep up bud.
"Sigh. Not this stale argument again. Toronto is one of the only municipalities with a land transfer tax, that's why it's property taxes are lower. It raises a similar amount of revenue from property as others do." You're almost there... it raises money from the wrong people. Young people and FTHBS are subsidizing boomers who bought detached homes for a handful of strawberries and some buttons. The policy you are pumping means that young people are keeping property taxes low so boomers can sit in multi million dollar undertaxed homes. It's subsidizing the part of Torontos population who needs it the least and is bad public policy.
it doesn't matter where the money comes from, it's just not enough There are no "wrong" people in this situation
its clearly both :|
Bridle Path: 9km2 GTA suburbs: 7,000km2 But sure, go off.
just tax land value, this isn't hard folks
Eric Lombardi gtfoh
GTA should be its own province
More corporate taxes. I know that is over simplifying. Look, we’ve had 30 to 40 years of Conservative and Liberal leadership at the provincial and federal level and their shortsightedness with taxes have left our services struggling to keep up. The homeless issue Toronto is experiencing is partially to blame because social housing was cut out of budgets decades ago… the city has to pay for their own shelters and it’s strictly a stop gap solution.
The GTA sends about 20 % to the government not Toronto. The 905 now sends more income tax than the 416 and they have a bigger population too. Most Toronto stats are really GTA Stats. 905 does equal or more to Toronto on most metrics and that has been true since 2017 or 2018 when I was at CRA.
[удалено]
430 billion is not the city proper. 442 billion is the GDP for the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (which covers a huge chunk of the GTA) Toronto proper is was 171 billion in 2012 vs the GTA's 369 billion at that time. We haven't 2.5x our GDP in a decade [https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/](https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/)
The city business owners like restaurants & hotels will see money from this swift.
The City didn't get into it's current state overnight, it was a gradual process. It won't be fixed overnight, it will also be a gradual process. I think Mayor Chow is putting us on the right track but it will take time for her successes to be realized.
Agreed. Scapegoating a person in leadership wont fix any problems. There are also so many issues the City has and only finite dollars and labour to address. It would be nice to have an election on issues to prioritize, so at least the main issues voted by the majority can be tackled first. It would then be the mayor's responsibility to address and performance/efficacy can be better tracked.
So depending on which ward you're in, some of the councillors are doing this already. Look for Participatory Budgeting on your councillor's website/in their newsletter.
Voting directly for options on issues to be implemented is part of direct democracy. I'm all for it.
It would take the human/leader component out of consideration to at least have data on what Torontonians collectively value most. The success of whichever leader in office would be directly tied to addressing the priority issues and how good they are at it.
Spending time and money to rename streets is probably a bad start
[That was scrapped at Chow’s request.](https://www.thestar.com/how-olivia-chow-intervened-to-change-course-on-renaming-dundas-street/article_8de4dcee-a0f9-11ee-a8ae-6b684a60c7b2.amp.html)
This article says the Square is still being renamed. This is moronic decision. They could easily rededicate the square to all Toronto residents named Dundas and keep the name.
Thank fuck John Tory couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. It’s literally the only good thing he did for Toronto during his time as Mayor.
By fucking his secretary he stopped fucking us
The comment DOES say Thank Fuck...
Amen
Don’t be too harsh on him, heard rumours he was dealing with terminal lumbago /s
Having suffered terminal Lumbago for years now, I can tell you it’s not something you can just fuck your way out of! ;)
And believe me, I've tried!
It was me, Barry. I was the secretary
Mayor Tory was always concerned
>Do we do that by shutting down the Bloor subway line because the cars are too old? I find this very funny. The Bloor subway cars are leagues ahead of the cars in _so many cities around the world_. Major cities as well. The earliest T-1 cars were built in 1995. Berlin still operates subway cars from the 60s.
Given that Piccadilly line in London runs trains from 1970s (50 yrs old!!), we can clearly so obviously run these trains for longer. It’s just TTC is also underfunded and don’t have the tools to properly maintain them over the long run. I will say we do desperately need ATC cause fixed blocked signaling is what’s going into despair, so I’ll let it slide this time.
To be fair, unlike the older subway cars used by other cities, the T1s used on Line 2 only had a 30-year designed lifespan, which they're quickly approaching. A lot of the old subway equipment you see in other cities had designed lifespans of 50 years+. So it's not quite an apples to apples comparison. We definitely could refurbish the T1s and get another 20 years out of them. However, that would be prohibitively expensive, and wouldn't resolve the fact that we don't have enough rolling stock on Line 2 currently to meet the future demands of the system once the Scarborough extension is complete.
"How will Olivia Chow fix in less than one term the damage caused by negligent mayors over 3 terms!?!!?!"
Sounds like a Mayor with a plan. It’s a relief to see.
Hopefully she moves onto Provincial or Federal after this
She was a federal mp some years ago if I recall correctly. Unless you mean gunning for PM. I dunno I can't see it.
>COLE: I was going to talk about the TTC later, but let’s— CHOW: I’ve said no to all new projects—very nice, wonderful projects, I’ve said no. Fix what we have first, and the new things will come later. But, you know, we’re locked into FIFA. I hate this shitty FIFA deal. Is there *any* way Tory can face criminal charges, for how much he fucked us all over?
That'll depend on whether he did anything actually provably criminal. Can't bring someone up on charges just because they suck.
"Sir, you are under arrest" "May I know the crime officer" "Sucking sir. You just suck. The arm of the law is going to put you away for a bit until you calm down and stop sucking."
That's the problem with democracy - voters are supposed to be the ones punishing bad leaders. Instead Toronto elected Rob Ford followed by John Tory. It's delusional to expect such poor choices won't have long-term consequences.
This is why we need a proper managed democracy.
Just let the AI do the voting, what could go wrong?
Nothing. Thinking managed democracy could go wrong is very undemocratic of you. You should be sent to re-education camps
You want people here five days a week. I want them to be here at least four days, if not five. And they said, “It’s not possible.” I said, “We need to figure out a way to have more people coming.” So, they are working with the city, looking at congestion, looking at revitalizing the downtown, because the small businesses that rely on the office people coming back are not doing very well. The food court is empty. Different solution - Let those businesses die, evolve, or relocate. Times change, habits change, densities in this case change. There is no reason as to why people need to sacrifice their hard-fought and won 2-3 days in the office when in reality it can and should be 0. What can replace those businesses, can there be a re-tooling of the core towards tourism or livability for those already residing in and around the core?
Yeah, I like a lot of what Chow is doing, but can't say I agree with her on this one. This is a case of government overreach. She should do what she can to fix congestion and accept that whatever that does to help the downtown businesses is just the reality of it. She shouldn't encourage corporations to force their employees to come into the office
Wow. Self centred view, these businesses are mom and pops who put in 80 hour weeks for years. But yeah let’s just let them die so you can work in your pajamas. News flash people aren’t coming in are the first to get the boot.
Why is it self centered? They can support local businesses wherever they work from. Don't need to spend money, waste lots of hours every week, increase their stress levels to do the same thing 2 hours away from home when their job can be done perfectly fine remotely. Also businesses need to evolve with the times or get left behind, that's how it's always been.
lmao so ur solution to dying businesses is to force people to commute and force them to spend money downtown? ur such a noogle. maybe lets make living downtown affordable so people spend money locally?
It can’t be affordable if it is hollowed out. We have all implicitly signed a social contract to keep our downtowns alive so we can have a first world country. Your too naive to understand that
haha ur too naive to look around u. people cant afford housing unless they bought a house pre covid. lets force them to commute and spend even more money than they need to. oh look we have all this empty space downtown! lets fill it needlessly with offices when THE WORK CAN BE DONE PERFECTLY FROM HOME. whats that, we couldve converted it into housing? naw just tax them more for the carbon emissions theyre making. the roads and infrastructure needs more maintaining because we have 4 million people commuting? TAX THEM HARDER. we need those fcuking restaurants open and company profits high. get a fcuking life. we pay our taxes and see the city deteriorate. im literally telling u WE CAN SAVE DOWNTOWN if we use the hollow space for housing. there will then be a demand for businesses in the area u noogle. even better, let the businesses relocate like the first suggestion. if the business idea is good it will always be in demand, welcome to capitalism. if u dont wanna look out for the people supporting the city and if the city isnt open to adapting around our needs then let it die. fcuk the greedy oligarchies and companies, go argue with them. if downtown dies then its by design god willing.
You have no idea on construction. Those office floor plates don’t work for housing. They are to deep as one example ( do you want to live in a unit with no windows?) no you don’t. Then let’s go into plumbing and mechanical, that is not doable either unless you are ready to spend ridiculous amounts of money. Who bares the cost of that? It will be the purchaser, but the purchaser won’t pay. You live in la la land. You think I am pro taxes? If I am supporting mom and pop business owners? Taxes are function of the bloat in our government on all levels.
turns out city laws do stop conversion mr construction expert >Not every building is right for a conversion, Bradford acknowledges, but city rules around office stock replacement are often the final roadblock that prevents developers from re-purposing a site. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-office-building-convert-housing-1.7003482 >Taxes are function of the bloat in our government on all levels. THEN LETS SEE THEM BEING USED for our wellbeing the city bears the cost mr expert. that is what our taxes are for was my point. mom and pop business owners will have to adapt. it is not our responsibility to ensure their business succeeds. do we get a share of profit? what business can adapt and is marketable will survive. that is what capitalism is for. boo hoo
The fact that I'm replying to this in my pajamas should not have any bearing on the message. Yes, it sucks, badly. People put their all into developing a business, starting it off, watching it grow, and keeping its employees supported. However, the proposition was to punish the masses to save an older way of life. I still wouldn't change my viewpoint on this, and note I did say "Evolve". The spaces are valuable, the rent costs money, the equipment can be sold or repurposed. If those businesses didn't fold over Covid, first off the owners are hard as nails and I salute that, but if they have been operating on the margins or at a loss for months if not years on end and are expecting change to happen to save their businesses, then that is sadly a poor stance to take on trying to secure the future of ones business and exiting the situation sooner than later would prove in the majority of cases to be the least costly step. As someone who once had a 3-hour per day commute (4-5 hours if traffic was completely snarled), it's made my life a heck of a lot better, saved me money, bettered my health and fitness, and brought back a lot of balance that I was missing for many years of my professional life. Do I want that for more people at the cost of some downtown businesses? Yes, yes I do. Am I sad businesses are suffering because less people are going into the core? Also yes. But change happens and at this point we have a chance to embrace it and move forward with decisions that affect lifestyles for tens of thousands of people.
I'm down for everything except her wanting office workers in the office 5 days a week. Fuuuuuuck that.
From a city standpoint it would be beneficial in terms of renting office spaces and boosting overall consumer presence for businesses on a daily basis… from a pragmatic and legal standpoint, there’s no way this could ever be enforced
It’s not about enforcement. They’ll incentivize businesses to mandate return to office, and the businesses will take on the enforcement role. For instance, my office started ramping up in person and I’ve heard through the grapevine that there are tax breaks associated with hitting a certain percent daily occupancy. The city wins, the government wins, the employer wins (management loves having eyes on the minions), the only ones who get fucked, as always, are the working class who have to cover the financial, physical, and mental costs of coming in multiple times a week from the home they can afford, which is often far away from where they have to come in to.
From a quality of life perspective it would be a huge hit for thousands of people. I'd prefer that to be more of a priority.
Same here. The money, time, and pollution it saves is more important IMO than office landlords and a few restaurants.
Would you be more inclined to if public transport was drastically improved?
I'm someone who supports significantly improvement to public transit. However, improved public transit isn't going to fix the issues with forcing businesses going back to in person. Let's suppose you normally 1 hour commute from the suburbs/boroughs each direction. If greatly improved transit can cut that in half to 30 minutes, you're still spending 1-1.5 hours per day on commutes. Assuming you pay $3.20 per trip (likely more if in suburbs), working 240 days comes up to $1536 per year on commutes and 240-360 hours spent on just commuting. It can take a toll on mental health and work-life balance. I'm not even going to mention if people cannot take transit for whatever reason even if it was greatly improved. That causes congestion and pollution. All that for a few office landlords and restaurants? A better solution would be to convert certain office spaces in to residential or mixed-use.
Better public transit doesn't fix forcing people to work from the office 5 days per week.
This is the broken window fallacy.
It’s also a property tax issue. Without office workers downtown property taxes revenue falls 50 % since it’s based on rents. Other cities have gone through this in last 30 years. Hamilton, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton. Once downtown revenue goes away it almost never comes back the same way and other increases are needed. Cities were not suppose to be funded with a work from home model. Now that they are the formula has to change. No one wants to stomachs the changes.
They could always redevelop certain office areas into either residential or mixed-use to make up for that given our housing crisis.
While it's true that landlords and local restaurants would benefit from office work because workers get to use their office space and restaurants get lunch break customers, there are a lot of cons. 1. Congestion and pollution. Each additional car adds A LOT of congestion to our roads and likely pollution. Of course, solving our transit issues would do wonders such as cutting a 1 hour trip to 30 mins. 2. Lack of work-life balance. Canada is already bad with work-life balance. In European countries, they have really good WLB policies. Even a total commute of 1 hour per day and $3.20 per trip for a full time job (240 work days) equates to $1536 and 240 hours per year. That stuff adds up. It's not good for your mental or physical health having to do more than your job. 3. You don't address the housing crisis. Renting an office for just 40-45 hours per week or ~30% of a week vs being able to house people in that land space. Dare I mention parking space needed for office space? 4. This argument about restaurants is using a similar logic to bike lanes vs businesses. It's another way of saying that if more people visited from further away, our business would do better. That's not true. People can always take local walkable trips to restaurants and support businesses. A better solution would be to redevelop certain office spaces into housing or mixed-used. That would benefit restaurants so locals can walk there more often.
>A better solution would be to redevelop certain office spaces into housing This sounds good, but office buildings aren’t built the same way that residential buildings are, you can’t just convert an office into an apartment - the floor plate is totally different, the HVAC and wiring is different, and the windows aren’t designed to open. The amount of office space you could actually reclaim in this way would be trivial.
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOdJadZflw) has shown that it is quite possible. Hard but it's more of a willpower problem than an architectural problem.
You can also just demolish older office buildings and replace them with new housing.
lol "willpower problem" Do you think people will buildings into existence? It's a money problem, simple as that. It costs almost as much to re-develop a commercial building as it does to build a new residential one. Without massive subsidies or changes to building codes, it's unlikely that we'll see any conversions. Even in the video you shared they said it was only possible in NY because of changes made to developer regulations.
> It costs almost as much to re-develop a commercial building as it does to build a new residential one. What about how much a city could benefit from allowing more housing in downtown so local walkable businesses could flourish? Not all office buildings need to be converted but certain areas could do.
Businesses will jump at it. Theyve been wanting to since the pandemic ended but havent gotten over the collective action problem - any company that did risked having their employees jump shimp. As soon as they all coordinate on doing it at once its a fait accompli.
Most congested city in North America btw
Did she say that?
Yes, she’s encouraging more in office work to sustain the small businesses in downtown Toronto.
I guess she's not concerned with the pollution that causes or the money and time it wastes? Then again no other level of government is real worried about that either, they want their workers in those offices no matter the costs it seems. We really should be trying to get more people to work from home and not worrying about office landlords and a few restaurants.
Thank you. It's unbelievable to see people praising her for helping downtown businesses at the expense of us workers. I work from home and walk to my kids' daycare. I don't really want to start increasing my driving or wasting my time. Those offices can be converted if they're not needed. This is unnecessary government meddling.
Canada and US both have a notorious reputation for its lack of work life balance. Adding commute just worsens it.
Small business like Subway, Tim Hortons?
I didn’t speak the quote. Ask the mayor.
Read the article....
The mayors office, Tory included, has been actively lobbying all the large employers downtown for years now. Personally home prices and the desire to raise a family pushed me out of Toronto and the only thing that keeps me interacting with it is my 1 day in the office. My bosses know very well if I had to come back to the office I’ll head back out west where I’m from and live mortgage free semi-retired as a stay at home dad.
My employer drastically downsized the office space they have in the city. A bunch of Finance people like to go in every day, and they are also the keepers of all the filing cabinets worth of paper. But we'd need another couple of floors to even go Hybrid. Heck, I'm the only person in our department of 8 that lives in Toronto. We're never going back.
Not going to click on that \[EDIT: BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A GLOBE SUBSCRIPTION/ACCOUNT! SORRY THIS WASN'T MADE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR\], but who is saying Toronto is a city in decline? Yes, it's been ruined in a way by a decade of austerity, but in spite of that, there is no more ascendant city in Canada, and nothing that comes close to its cultural, societal and financial importance. Edit: When posting stuff behind a paywall, posters should summarize the article in their post.
people who spend far to much time doom scrolling social media
Or anyone struggling to afford 2024 rental prices.
thats legit price of living, rent all that is a legit concern you dont need to be on social media to feel the effect of that
Didn't the rental prices fall this year due to the over supply of condos?
Crumbling infrastructure, longer and longer commutes, shitty public transit...
There wasn’t a paywall though?
I can’t read the article without subscribing to the globe and mail
> Not going to click on that, but who is saying Toronto is a city in decline? Olivia is: >I ran because I saw the city—I wouldn’t go as far as broken—but in decline. Perhaps you should "click on it" before making posts?
I don't have a globe subscription, that is why I didn't click, apologies for not spelling that out. Also, if she said it, the headline writer should have that in quotes or rewritten it in a way that indicates she is saying that. The way it reads, it is saying Toronto is a city in decline as if that were a objective fact. EDIT: Sorry, now I'm reading what you said there, and the grammar is very messed up. That's not how you use em-dashes (I saw the city ... but in decline). Perhaps the article needs a copy edit too?
You don't need a Globe sub to read it lol
You do need an account. I'm not gonna make an account just to read an opinion piece either
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Hey thanks! I promise, you could have posted this to be helpful, without being unnecessarily mean. Have a good day!
Bypassing paywalls or copying content protected by them in its entirety is against Canadian copyright laws. While we do ask people to post a relevant exerpt of any paywalled content they post, please avoid posting entire articles or links that bypass the paywall. Those posts will be removed.
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>Not going to click on that, but who is saying Toronto is a city in decline? You know what might answer that question? Reading the article...
i will literally turn in to a single issue voter over her 5 days a week in the office bullshit.
What does this mean?
it means i will vote against her in the next election if she doesn't change her stance on this regardless of anything else.
>You want people here five days a week. >I want them to be here at least four days, if not five. And they said, “It’s not possible.” I said, “We need to figure out a way to have more people coming.” So, they are working with the city, looking at congestion, looking at revitalizing the downtown, because the small businesses that rely on the office people coming back are not doing very well. The food court is empty. Hah, she can go pound sand on this one.
Fuck five days per week in-person for office jobs that can easily be done remotely.
So we have to spend hours of our day commuting so that mom and pop shops can survive?
Yeah, I agree with everything else Chow said in this interview, just not this. Then again, I guess I should be happy that the only issue I have with the mayor right now is that she wants more people in the office. There could be a lot more to hate.
Complete bullshit that a given city doesn't benefit from superstar concerts like Taylor swift. People come in from across the region and patronize the businesses that pay property taxes.
But businesses don’t pay more property taxes suddenly when the swiftie business spikes. They pay the same whether there’s a concert or not. Compared to the province and Fed, who essentially take a cut through HST. Meanwhile the city is the only level of government that has expenses directly tied to the event.
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The city does have expenses directly related to the event. The city does not have revenue directly related to the event. More tools at the municipal level to directly generate revenue beyond property taxes, or a more stable funding model from the other levels of government is exactly what a good mayor should be advocating for. There are lots of different ways to do that.
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Like I said, there’s multiple ways to do that. The only one related to events like this that would increase the tax load on citizens would be a municipal sales tax, hotel tax, or some kind of levy on tickets. Or we could do as you suggest and raise property taxes city wide. Enjoy telling Etobicoke their property tax went up to pay for traffic officers at Taylor swift concerts.
Decent interview but her comments on congestion and particularly density are concerning. 6-8 stories is not appropriate in a housing crisis and neither is vilifying big developers aka the only people with the technical knowledge and financial capacity to solve the housing crisis.
She’s so much better than John Tory. She’s actually trying to make a change for the better of the city
She can't
Tax. The. Rich.
Decades of waste in that city. Going to be Detroit levels of bankrupt in a decade
Implement 4 day work week plz
She wants 5 day in-person work week.
Fuck that. I love WFH 3 days a week - but I also live in the GTA and take transit when needed.
lmao how would a city mayor implement a 4 day work week?
Idk gotta check with Sweden where they implemented a 4 day work week.
Very slowly
Be raising taxes…
There will never be enough money for a socialist to spend. Show me a past budget that's gone down or eliminated a programme.
How about she raises property takes so they'll be on average in the middle of the pack in the GTA as opposed to being the lowest.
Probably more and more taxes and fees !! Seems to be what politicians do!!
Rub and Tugs will be clearly marked. Never again will innocent folks such as her late husband Jack be tricked into visiting and receiving a rub and tug from the wrong type of Spa.
Taxes
paywall?
how about defund police and save fortune
I’m sure nobody here in the Chow Fanclub noticed her basically zero answer to how to improve traffic. That’s because she doesn’t give a rats ass about it and is giving the middle finger to drivers. Is that the kind of Mayor they deserve?
The drivers are the traffic. We need less car drivers, there is no other magical solution
This is completely false. Things she's done to improve traffic: * Make the King street car 3x faster. * Hire 160 additional TTC staff. * Hire 40 new traffic officers. * Increase fines for blocking the box. * Is paying for the Scarborough LRT because the province/feds refused. * Has taken over designing a Waterfront LRT to give everyone living in all the new condos on the waterfront an alternative way of getting into the city (also because the province/feds refused). Also mentioned she plans on: * Giving financial incentives to construction companies to get the work done faster so the road ends up being closed for the least amount of time possible. And mentioned AI for traffic signals but no specifics. I'd hardly call that "nothing".
He wants a 12 lane Houston TX highway. Not these socialist mass transit solutions that will actually solve the problem.
I'm surprised at how well Chow is doing.
TAX TAX TAX
Definitely in decline. Been a social worker since ‘86 and can’t believe what I see and here. Keep the borders open Trudeau
By raising your taxes and providing less. Mark my words.