Product: TGAM PubDate: 09-18-2018 Zone: GTA Edition: 1 Page: News_2477984 User: SLaloudakis Time: 09-17-2018 21:39 Color: CMYK

TUESDAY,SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL G A7

Report calls for city to ease business regulations

Toronto trade board ery tax dollar paid by residential said the city is still on track to taxpayers, business pays $2.70. meet the policy’s target ratio in says next mayor and The policy did not decrease tax 2023. council must work rates for business, it just raised If re-elected, she said, Mr. Tory to reduce red tape them more slowly each year than would push for a “one-window residential rates. online service” for business li- However, in 2017’s budget cences, service requests and tax- JEFF GRAY squeeze, the city reneged on this es. REPORTER plan. The Board of Trade says fu- “The mayor is committed to ture budgets must not recommit making Toronto a business- to the same gradual change, but friendly city,” Ms. Kamalavasan Toronto needs to slash red tape aim to reduce the burden busi- said in an e-mail. “Our reputation and slow property-tax hikes for nesses pay even further by 2022, and standing around the globe business in order to keep its econ- to 2.4 to 1. Even then, businesses have never been stronger. Busi- omy moving as it faces challenges will be paying a larger share of To- nesses are flocking here to invest beyond its control that range ronto property taxes than they do and hire our talent. Just last week from uncertainty over trade with in many other cities, the board we saw Microsoft, Uber and Intel the U.S. to higher energy costs, a says. expand their footprint in Toron- new report says. “Considering the competitive- to.” The Toronto Region Board of ness headwinds Toronto now , the city’s Trade, in the latest of a series of faces, it’s time to get this policy former chief planner who is chal- short policy papers intended to back on track,” the report reads. lenging Mr. Tory for the mayor’s spark debate during the city’s mu- A new report says Toronto needs to work to eliminate overlapping or The report also recommends job, said her plans to help busi- nicipal election, says the next ‘cosmetic’ rules placed on businesses. MARK BLINCH/THE CANADIAN PRESS protecting land in Toronto that is ness include creating 100,000 mayor and council need to redou- zoned for employment, and re- units of affordable housing in or- ble efforts to reduce unnecessary The city should also eliminate rebalancing the share of taxes sisting the urge to allow parcels of der to help attract skilled workers regulations on business. overlapping, unenforceable or paid by business in relation to res- land to be rezoned for condomi- to the city. She also pledged to The board says staff in the may- “cosmetic” rules, the report says. idential taxpayers. Compared niums. According to the report, streamline the bylaw and licens- or’s office and an individual city “Toronto consistently ranks as with surrounding municipalities, Toronto could run out of industri- ing systems – and said Mr. Tory councillor should be appointed to one of the world’s most attractive more of Toronto’s tax burden is al land by 2031. had not done enough. head up efforts to reduce red tape cities for business investment borne by businesses than by the Keerthana Kamalavasan, a “John Tory has hurt Toronto’s and streamline government by al- with its high standard of living city’s residents. spokeswoman for John Tory’s competitiveness with dithering lowing businesses to apply for and educated work force,” Jan De Council committed to a long- campaign, said the city had made and delay,” Ms. Keesmaat said in more permits and licences online. Silva, the president and chief ex- term plan to slow down property- strides under the mayor’s leader- an e-mailed statement. “In 2014, For example, the report says, ecutive of the Board of Trade, said tax hikes for business back in ship on creating a good climate he made an election promise to businesses seeking licences can in a statement. “Werisk losing our 2005 when David Miller was may- for business. While city council get rid of the red tape businesses only apply for them in person at advantage if Toronto’s next coun- or. The goal was to gradually bring did alter its long-standing policy experience … and to publish an the former city hall in East York, cil does not implement a plan to the proportion of the property- on the business-tax ratios in 2017 annual scorecard on progress. outside of Toronto’s downtown, maintain it.” tax burden in the city down to a in order to recoup revenue lost Four years later we are still wait- in a “frustrating, half-day proc- The report also calls on the ratio of 2.5 to 1 by 2020. It is cur- when the province froze rates for ing for action on that commit- ess.” next council to dedicate itself to rently 2.7 to 1, meaning that for ev- the multiresidential sector, she ment.”

Reimagining the condo and suburban main streets

ALEX The problem with this model is BOZIKOVIC that it doesn’t work. Suburban ar- terial roads such as St. Clair are OPINION miserable places to walk. This one has five lanes of noisy, dan- gerous traffic moving at faster n new housing developments, than 60 kilometres an hour. And “you often go lowrise, or you this area, like most of postwar To- Igo vertical,” says architect Lor- ronto, doesn’t have enough peo- can O’Herlihy. “Is there a middle ple to support good retail. Fixing ground? And is there a social ben- that – making a genuinely walk- efit in doing that?” able neighbourhood – would re- For the Los Angeles-based ar- quire massive, comprehensive re- chitect, the answer to those ques- development that’s not coming tions is a definite yes. In an effort anytime soon. Why wait for an to rethink some of Toronto’s cur- idealized future, when you can rent planning, I asked him and generate community in the pre- his firm LOHA to reimagine a site sent with good architecture? on St. Clair Avenue in southwest Which leads to the second ma- Scarborough. jor point: the mix of uses within The result is a beautiful mid- the building. In new develop- scaled building that’s unortho- ments, typically a stack of apart- dox and brilliant. This is a ments sit atop retail. LOHA’s de- thoughtful architecture to bring sign calls for the entire complex density to car-oriented suburbs. to be units which could be used as LOHA’s design challenges the cur- homes, workplaces or both. “We rent orthodoxy in two ways: its have to understand that the way urban design and its mix of units. people work is changing,” Mr. It wouldn’t be welcomed by plan- O’Herlihy says, “in ways that we ners or politicians – but it should can’t predict.” This is against the be. grain of contemporary planning. First, the urban design. The In practice, everyone agrees that site, now two lots, is typical for mixed uses are good, but few postwar Toronto. It’s zoned for planners would propose a totally low-density commercial use: ba- open mix of uses within a build- sically, strip malls. (This is part of ing like this. (Sidewalk Toronto, Toronto’s outdated zoning bylaw, Google’s sister company, is at- which has never been coherently tempting to do so.) rewritten since the city was amal- The basic architectural compo- gamated in 1998.) For now, it nent of the LOHA design is a houses a McDonald’s restaurant cube; each unit would have a 12- and a one-storey retail building foot ceiling. Suites with this scale with a Money Mart and Subway lend themselves to live/work us- sandwich shop. es. And LOHA is calling for the Mr. O’Herlihy’s firm has con- structural system of these build- fronted sites like this in Los An- Architecture firm LOHA was asked to reimagine a structure on St. Clair Avenue in Scarborough. NORM LI/LOHA ings to be concrete post-and- geles, and built some complex beam, rather than the more com- and beautiful buildings in re- celebrates all scales,” Mr. O’Herli- retail, but ground-level retail also planner would appreciate, but mon system of concrete slab con- sponse. He describes his firm’s hy says. opens to the courtyard – and the LOHA’s chosen form is unortho- struction. That would allow units, approach this way: “Can we buck There are two front wings, building rises into an arch linking dox. On sites like this, planners over time, to be connected hori- the odds and create fluid interac- which step up like ziggurats in op- the streetscape and courtyard. would call for a new condo pro- zontally or vertically, bought and tion between public and private posite directions. “Each level has In its form, LOHA’s building ject to face the road and create a sold, linked and separated. “You spaces? Can you borrow space aroof deck or a courtyard space,” has good manners, but does its “street wall.” They’d ask for a can mix anything you want in this from a private development and Mr. O’Herlihy says. “It brings the own thing. “Rather than respond string of stores along the side- building,” Mr. O’Herlihy says. bring it to the public? Could the life of the street up into the build- to some idea of context,” Mr. walk, so that people will stroll in Tall and short, but not a slab; edges be blurred?” ing.” At one end of the site is a O’Herlihy says, “we create our to shop, maybe sit for lunch. The organized around a courtyard, In Scarborough, the LOHA pro- tower; this includes carve-outs own context. idea is to replicate the street life of but not unfriendly to the street; posal is for a combination of mid- for terraces which would feature “If you build a building that is older, walkable neighbourhoods. designed to link indoors and out- rise and highrise, joined by a pla- greenery or trees. clearly for people – with roof And at the back, the building doors; completely mixed use and za, and animated by a terraced The courtyard is partly shaded decks, activated edges, and life in- should get as low as possible to completely physically flexible. building form and lots of green- and defined by the surrounding side and outside – it says this isn’t blend in with the houses – in this “We need to imagine the city of ery. buildings. The wings along St. only about the car.” case stacked townhouses – near- the future,” Mr. O’Herlihy argues, “It’s a piece of architecture that Clair would include street-facing That’s an ideal that any city by. “and make room for it.” RAISEITUP ABARNRAISERFOR CLEARWATER FARM Help rebuildthe barnat ClearWater Farm,LakeSimcoe, wherekidsdiscover nature andhealthy food. Joinus forcountry-soulmusic andfarm-freshfood stations withtopchefs…and help kids grow!

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