Talking City Building in Toronto

This morning, BILD members congregated at the Toronto Marriott for a presentation on city building in Toronto.

A panel of Councillors, consisting of Adam Vaughan of Ward 20, Kristyn Wong-Tam of Ward 27, Peter Milcyzn of Ward 5, and Ana Bailao of Ward 18, addressed the BILD members, sharing how they believe Toronto needs to grow from a development standpoint - based off their expertise in their particular districts. The entire process was moderated by Kyle Rae of PQR Solutions.

The morning kicked off with a well-balanced breakfast and casual socializing, and then it was on to business. The City of Toronto’s new Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, made the opening remarks. Of course, Keesmaat is very optimistic about Toronto’s future, and it definitely sounds like she has some major ideas in the works.

Keesmaat touched on the fact that the development industry in Toronto loses the capacity to innovate or create when the risk is too great, and that everyone needs to think about the role that they are playing in the building of our city.

What stuck out the most to us, was when Keesmaat said, “We need a model of collaboration, a culture of collaboration - not a culture of regulation.” The idea is Toronto can not grow one building at a time anymore. Everything needs to be connected; transit, retail, office, residential, parks, etc., and there needs to be a cohesive plan for where Toronto wants to be in the future. We’re excited to see where Jennifer Keesmaat takes us.

The first speaker was Ana Bailo, and she maintained a strong focus on the development of affordable housing in Toronto. According to Bailao, there are over “164,000 on waiting lists” for Toronto Community Housing (TCH). When Bailao pictures Toronto’s future, she sees a place where everyone can afford four walls and a roof.

Next up, we had Peter Milcyzn, and he touched briefly on Toronto’s transit issues, but he mostly continued Keesmaat’s speech about how Toronto needs a stronger plan that ties in every aspect of the city in order for it to grow properly.

Adam Vaughan took to the podium and touched on a number of issues, including gridlock, parks, and planning applications. Vaughan stated that people in Toronto don’t even complain about heights of condos anymore, they mostly care about the traffic the condos create, and that is something the City desperately needs to manage. Vaughan also presented the idea of taking the BIA system, which Toronto pioneered, and applying it to the city’s parks.

The last one to speak was Kristyn Wong-Tam, and she focused mostly on a coined term “urbanomics.” According to Wong-Tam, “urbanomics” is “The cause and effect of streetscapes, economic growth, and social benefits.” Basically, Wong-Tam believes that the way to ensure a successful future for Toronto is to focus on the beautification of the streetscapes. Wong-Tam believes that the BILD members play a significant role in the development of not only the city’s buildings, but also the public realm, and therefore play a significant role in the fruitfulness of Toronto’s future.

We would like to thank BILD for having us, and we thank all the Councillors for demonstrating how the land development and new home industry can make a true difference in Toronto’s future.

If you would like to contribute to the discussion on Toronto’s future, you can do so over Twitter, using #citybuilding.

Visit our Facebook album for more photos of BILD’s Talking City Building in Toronto event!