Affordability

Toronto is too expensive.

Young people who grew up here can’t afford to stay. Seniors are struggling with rising costs. Families are paying more for food, housing, transportation and just about everything else. Foodbank visits are at record levels. 
Record City taxes. Record provincial transfer payments to the City. Raiding City reserve funds.

Where is the money going?

Property tax increases without improvements in services must stop.
We need a line by line assessment of City budgets.

Property taxes affect all of us. Homeowners have less disposable income. Tenants face higher rents. Small businesses have to pass increased costs on to their customers.

Development charges must be reduced dramatically.
Those charges get added to the price of all new housing. City Hall is one of the greatest culprits in increasing housing costs because of these charges.

Free TTC for our youth 25 and under. Free Bike Share for youth 25 and under.

Our young people are particularly hard hit. Let’s give them a little help to stay in our neighbourhoods.

Congestion

Congestion is intolerable.

I support a ramp rebuild to downtown, but realistically, that’s ten years out.

Some changes we can do NOW.

• Time traffic lights so that driving the Lakeshore and other roads moves. It can’t be red light to red light. For example, Queen/Woodbine to Jarvis/Lakeshore Blvd at 50 kph takes 7:48 minutes. Hitting every red light, which is common, ADDS 14:30 minutes, not including delays caused by traffic, construction, etc.
• Restore express bus services to the core.
• Sequence construction activities, not just schedule or stack them. Construction must be sped up.

The current congestion is not only extremely costly to every resident, it is extremely harmful to our environment.

TTC

Safe, clean and reliable at ALL hours of the day, 7 days a week

• Increase special constable and police patrols.
• Increase safety and facilities audits 
• The TTC cannot be a substitute for housing, shelter or mental-health care.
• Free TTC for youth 25 years old and younger.

Our young people need some help too. Free TTC for everyone 25 and under.

Let’s create the best public transit system in the world!

Protect Our Ravines, Our Parks, Our Waterfront

Our waterfront, parks and ravines are part of what makes Beaches–East York special.

We need to protect them.

That means maintaining them, dealing with erosion and infrastructure problems, and making sure development beside sensitive natural areas is restricted.

Plan before we build. New development must be matched by the sewers, roads, transit, parks and community services needed to support it—not followed by flooded streets, flooded basements and costly fixes.

We need more housing. We also need to protect what makes our ward special.

We can do it.

Safe, Livable Neighbourhoods

People should feel safe and at home in their neighbourhoods.

And the basic City services we pay for should work.

Fix the potholes, clear the snow, maintain the sidewalks, parks and pools, pick up the garbage and keep our streets and public spaces safe. Very basic, but somehow not done.

When a resident has a problem, they should be able to get an answer and get it dealt with.

These are basic services. City Hall needs to deliver them properly and efficiently.

Help Our Small Businesses

I’ve owned and operated a small retail business on Queen Street East.

I know what it means to meet payrolls, pay rent, deal with suppliers and keep the doors open. I know what it means to deal with City Hall.

Small businesses are part of our neighbourhoods. They employ people, provide services and keep our main streets alive.

City Hall should not make it harder to run one.

Cut unnecessary red tape and costs. Make permits and approvals easier to deal with.

And when the City tears up a street to replace infrastructure, it has to think about the businesses trying to survive while the work is being done.

We’re seeing that right now on Danforth between Main and Victoria Park. And with major infrastructure work underway elsewhere in the ward, we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

More Affordable Housing

We need more affordable housing.

I have built houses and mid-rise buildings in Beaches–East York. I know what it costs to build and I know what happens to those costs as a project works its way through City Hall.

Development charges have increased dramatically. Red tape costs money. Delays cost money.

Those costs don’t disappear. They end up in the price of the home or the rent.

We need to reduce unnecessary costs and get housing approved and built faster.

Affordable housing still has to be properly built. We can build more housing without lowering the standards we expect.

We need more housing. Let’s build it.

The Right Housing for the Right Neighbourhood

Beaches–East York is a very diverse ward.

Development has to be looked at neighbourhood by neighbourhood and sometimes site by site.

An 11-storey building may make sense at a major intersection above a subway. An 11-storey building abutting an environmentally sensitive ravine makes no sense.

Zoning plans exist for a reason. We shouldn’t establish proper zoning and then deviate from it almost every time somebody asks.

Residents need to be involved in these decisions. And when major development is approved, the infrastructure has to come with it.

Sewers. Transit. Roads. Parks. Recreation. Community services.

Before the buildings are occupied. Not after.

I’ve personally dealt with the City’s infrastructure requirements as a builder. I’ve watched development charges collected while the infrastructure those charges are supposed to help pay for doesn’t get built.

We can’t keep adding thousands of new residents and then try to catch up afterward.

Plan it. Build the infrastructure. Then build the housing.

It CAN all be done.