{"id":55861,"date":"2016-09-07T09:30:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T13:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=55861"},"modified":"2016-09-07T16:48:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T20:48:15","slug":"lorinc-patrick-brown-government-will-target-greenbelt-metrolinx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/09\/07\/lorinc-patrick-brown-government-will-target-greenbelt-metrolinx\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Why a Patrick Brown government will target Greenbelt and Metrolinx"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"feature-lorinc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this stage of the game, it would be foolish to depict Raymond Cho\u2019s by-election victory for the Tories last week as a harbinger of anything in particular. Cho went into the race with enormous name recognition. As has happened in many such races, he was able to leverage the sort of mid-term obstreperousness that by-elections crystallize, even if they don\u2019t necessarily lead to general election victories.<\/p>\n

The weird little communications fiasco over the Tories\u2019 sex education policy could be seen as evidence that the Tory brain trust is muddled-headed or two-faced. Or it could be interpreted as a sign that Cho and Patrick Brown had enough sang froid<\/em> to survive an 11th<\/sup>-hour screw-up. Even Doug Ford\u2019s role (as campaign manager) is a bit ambiguous, and hardly a sure sign that the former councilor for Ward 2 is plotting some kind of electoral come-back.<\/p>\n

With all those caveats, however, the brainiacs in charge of the Liberals\u2019 13-year-long hegemony surely understand that Cho\u2019s win \u2014 the first Tory seat in the 416 in a long time \u2014 was a crisp shot across their bow. And the rest of us would be wise to begin contemplating what regime change may look like, from a policy perspective as well as a political one. (Correction: Former Toronto councillor Doug Holyday won a seat for the Tories in Etobicoke in 2013.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

My guess is that two of the Liberals\u2019 landmark policy accomplishments \u2013 Metrolinx and the Greenbelt\/Places to Grow land-use planning regimes for the GTHA \u2013 will both become the subject of extensive overhauls at the hands of a Tory government. Both date back to the Dalton McGuinty\u2019s first term in office. Both are well-intentioned but flawed in non-trivial ways. And neither has endured regime change, which, to my mind, is the acid test of sustainable public policy.<\/p>\n

Ten years since its creation, Metrolinx remains deeply connected to the Liberal regime, especially at the board level. While the agency has done much good and important work, its governance is hardly independent, and its plans are constantly subject to political interference from the cabinet. Important policy recommendations, e.g., on revenue tools, have been summarily quashed, and the relationship between Metrolinx and the TTC remains opaque and competitive.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t be surprised in the least to see a new Tory government push substantive changes, in terms of governance structure, resource allocation, and the choice of transit technologies, especially if it wants to regain the 905.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d say the Greenbelt\/Places to Grow acts provide the most obvious source of political manna\u00a0for the Tories. When the Liberals enacted these laws, they were widely praised internationally, and showed\u00a0how the combination of land use planning, infrastructure investment and environmental protection could contain sprawl and mitigate the destruction of valuable natural and agricultural ecosystems.<\/p>\n

While critics said the Greenbelt boundaries were too loose to substantively slow the outward march of low-density subdivisions, there\u2019s little doubt that the twinned laws \u2014 and the regulatory constraints they placed on municipal land use planning within the GTHA \u2014 have played an enormous role in the unprecedented high rise development boom that\u00a0dramatically re-shaped the core and some other higher density nodes around the GTA. But it’s clear these policies have also contributed to the skyrocketing residential real estate prices, rendering\u00a0the purchase of a single family house or town house all but impossible for many people who, in another era, would have been able to afford such an investment.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the proliferation of gigantic and grindingly\u00a0impersonal high-rises with tiny apartments clearly doesn\u2019t constitute an effective and sustainable alternative to the single-family home. Yes, these buildings in the short term are very efficient from a land use perspective. But everyone understands that many are little more than short-term investment vehicles targeting first-time buyers looking to generate equity and then get out.<\/p>\n

What the Liberals don\u2019t really seem to understand is how this monochromatic form of development, plus demographic shifts, could combine to create either a genuinely problematic exodus from the region or a ripe political opportunity for Patrick Brown.<\/p>\n

Within a few years, the millennial generation will begin producing children in large numbers, and that looming baby boom will necessarily leave its mark on the city-region, as was the case with the original baby boomers (the post-war suburban exodus) and Generation X (the post-1990s gentrifiers).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s absolutely no dispute that unchecked sprawl is the wrong way to build cities: this kind of development creates all sorts of negative side effects for the environment, public finances, regional productivity and personal well-being.<\/p>\n

That said, when land use policies and the brutal economics of the property market conspire to effectively force young families and those working in middle-income jobs to leave the region in search of affordable homes, that\u2019s also a grave problem with all sorts of corrosive\u00a0consequences.<\/p>\n

Ryerson\u2019s City Building Institute and the Ontario Home Builders’ Association this week released a report<\/a> looking at how to intensify along all the new suburban transit lines that Metrolinx is planning for the region. As the authors correctly note, there\u2019s been a conspicuous dearth of mid-range housing \u2013 mid-rise, stacked townhouses and townhouses \u2013 in the region\u2019s development offerings. (Many existing GO and subway stations also serve communities with not nearly enough density to justify higher-order transit, the report notes.) Such housing, particularly when situated near transit and services, represents a potential solution to the dilemma facing both families with children and older people interested in living near amenities.<\/p>\n

As Metrolinx\u2019s own planners have been advocating for several years, Ryerson’s report urges the province and local municipalities to develop more targeted and mindful strategies for promoting this form of development near GO stations and along suburban arterials targeted for LRTs or other rapid transit service.<\/p>\n

These are great ideas, but planners in Toronto (and, to a lesser extent, the region) have for years been promoting this form of development (i.e., streetcar suburbs, redux), with at best middling results.<\/p>\n

Which brings me back to the political opportunity: If I\u2019m thinking about how to beat the Liberals in the GTA, I might be inclined to promise land use planning changes — namely, the dismantling or watering down the Greenbelt Act — that will revive\u00a0the development of relatively inexpensive single family tract housing. Bad policy, but good politics.<\/p>\n

All those family-minded 30-somethings, and the tens of thousands of newcomers arriving to Toronto, represent the region\u2019s future, and they collectively face a horrendous and unrelenting housing affordability crisis that extends from one end of the GTHA to the other.<\/p>\n

Anyone who aspires to govern Ontario must\u00a0confront this issue. The Liberals, in my view, haven\u2019t really woken up to the political implications of an\u00a0out-of-control real estate market where re-sale prices are jumping by 16% annually. For their opponents, the opportunity is there for the taking. And I\u2019m guessing Brown & Co. are planning to do just that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this stage of the game, it would be foolish to depict Raymond Cho\u2019s by-election victory for the Tories last week as a harbinger of anything in particular. Cho went into the race with enormous name recognition. As has happened in many such races, he was able to leverage the sort of mid-term obstreperousness thatContinue reading “LORINC: Why a Patrick Brown government will target Greenbelt and Metrolinx”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":55865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parks","category-politics","category-transit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Why a Patrick Brown government will target Greenbelt and Metrolinx - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/09\/07\/lorinc-patrick-brown-government-will-target-greenbelt-metrolinx\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Why a Patrick Brown government will target Greenbelt and Metrolinx - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At this stage of the game, it would be foolish to depict Raymond Cho\u2019s by-election victory for the Tories last week as a harbinger of anything in particular. 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