Livin’ la vida local

As city folk, it’s easy to forget we were ever connected to the earth. Fortunately, we have it better in Toronto than in some concrete jungles — here, at least, we have trees. What we don’t tend to have are fruits and vegetables that came from closer than Argentina.

The proliferation of crappy, hormone-filled food is, I think, on the wane, as people at last begin to realize that spending 100 calories to bring one calorie all the way from California makes little sense, that letting Monsanto run the market is bad for everyone, and how silly it is that while we put a premium on safety when we buy a house or a car, we don’t seem to mind eating food full of unknown chemicals, phosphates, nitrates, and other “ates” that can’t be good for you. At least in the last couple of decades, some grocery stores have sprung up downtown. It’s not that long ago that they were strictly the purview of the outskirts. Or at the very least, the Beach.

But it’s exceedingly difficult to get fresh, local produce when you live among the canyons of Bay Street or the twinkling glass of the Entertainment District.

What a treat, then, to see the CityPlace Farmers’ Market spring up in the midst of its namesake condotown’s Canoe Landing Park. Scheduled to appear every Tuesday through Oct. 15, the market is “certified local” by MyMarket, whose mandate is to ensure local farmers selling only what they produce can get their goods onto local tables. Imagine strawberries that actually have flavour! MyMarket is bringing the concept to Liberty Village, Danforth and Woodbine, and the Annex this summer too.

Eating fruits and vegetables in season from local farmers — whose soil has not been depleted of every known nutrient — is a great thing to do for your body, but it’s also a great thing to do for family farmers, the environment (the average food on your plate travels 2,500 km to get there), and your local community. It’s easy to imagine the friendly state of mind brought out by the juicy scents and colours of a farmers’ market, prompting some neighbourly chit chat in a way rushing from office tower to condo tower just won’t.

We talk about infrastructure a lot, but we generally mean diesel-belching buses, parking lots, sufficient electricity and widened streets. Let’s broaden the definition to include initiatives that help humanize city life. This is another great example of how Torontonians are bringing life back to street level, even as the city grows vertically.

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The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) released findings from a new study that says government fees and charges average more than 20% of the cost of a new home. The association estimates that in 2012 alone, new home buyers and the industry contributed more than $1 billion to growth-related infrastructure like sewers, roads and transit just through development charges paid to municipalities.

The study, commissioned by BILD to Altus Group, an independent advisory in the real estate sector, looked at six GTA municipalities: Oakville, Brampton, Markham, Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Ajax and Toronto.

Development charges have increased between 143% and 357% since 2004 in the municipalities studied in the report. Total government fees and charges average $118,400 on a new single-detached home, and $64,400 on a high-rise home. The high end of the detached spectrum was in Markham, with an average of nearly $150,000 in fees, fully a quarter of the price of a new home; for high-rises, Oakville “won” with an average of $80,472 in fees. Toronto, surprisingly, was lowest for high-rise homes, with $67,252, or 16% of the cost of a new condo. Let’s add a bunch of mortgage interest to that, and then let’s take a moment and ponder the numbers here.

Yikes.

Of course, if you’re paying, say, $400,000 for a new build, a resale in the same neighbourhood is going to be comparable, so it’s not like you can save money that way. I realize we need infrastructure, but why are we dinging new home buyers so hard? How do other cities manage to fund infrastructure while not collecting exorbitant fees?

The Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young say in Infrastructure 2013: Global Priorities, Global Insight, that while many municipalities do turn to traditional tax hikes to fund infrastructure, there are some cities getting innovative — and most of the world’s population live in cities, so the infrastructure problem is not going away. Some are looking to foreign investment to fund ambitious multi-mode transportation links that promise to pay dividends in improved economies down the road (no pun intended). I’m not crazy about the idea of foreign investors owning the TTC, but how about we sell it Torontonians? Isn’t that a stock you could not only invest in, but actually care about? Some turn to stimulus packages to fuel growth, relying on sales taxes and corporate enterprise to pay the piper. Some, like Australia, get help from their federal governments, who recognize that the health of the country’s economy depends on its cities. Some look to public/private partnerships. Some simply use new commercial projects as catalysts for economic growth.

I don’t have the answers, but I do have a question. Isn’t there some way we can pay for infrastructure without punishing people for wanting to buy homes here? I’m pretty sure the answer is yes.