mikeyteeth said:
What would it take to convince PortsToronto to budge on this? It's wild that building man made islands in the middle of the harbour seems more likely that just shutting down a frivolous airport. You'd think with all the Liberal ridings in Toronto that the city would have some sway with the feds. Maybe if the wealthy donor class actually cared about the public realm instead of protecting the "character" of their neighbourhoods we'd have a nicer city.
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Arguably, it's on the City as much as anyone.

The lease on the airport lands and the tripartite agreement governing the airport to which the City is a party expires in 2033.

The City can simply say 'no' and that will effectively close the airport.

Obviously senior levels of government can choose to overrule the City, but that seems unlikely.

The airport has a variety of pending investments required, including changes to the runways which more or less require City consent. They also require significant public investment (runway safe end areas) and pre-clearance
customs facilities which involve total capital costs well in excess of 100M in today's money. Not to mention Ports Toronto's ongoing position that it requires a bridge for emergency response reasons, which would be an additional cost.

Given that pre-pandemic Porter was losing money; and that it is now committed to buying jets which will have to fly out of Pearson......

There would seem to be a window here....

I think, if the City were to clearly express its intent not to renew the lease, it's likely the airport would close earlier than 2033 by mutual agreement.

This is a letter sent by Parks not Planes to Council Ctte in association with an Economic Impact Study. Obviously they have a bias preference; but they make a factual case that gives lots of the details:

 
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There's gonna be a park on the site. The only question is how big it will be. It's all fine and good to talk about Central Park or the historic opportunity the City has or whatever but the reality is that this "land" is hugely expensive and the City has neither the legal nor financial resources to acquite it. The land for Central Park was set aside in the 1800s (maybe 1700s?) and the parks in places like London and Paris are generally longstanding Crown lands - all these comparisons just don't work.

Yeah, we need more parkland downtown but there isn't nothing. There's Coronation Park and the islands (to which access can be improved) and I think everyone is putting too much weight on the back of Raildeck Park, having bought into the snake oil the City was selling about the amazing public space they could build on land they never had a legal right to.

And part of that marketing scam, make no mistake, was selling this as Central Park for Toronto.
1645936000134.png

1645936064589.png


Cressy was right about one thing - there indeed was not 21 acres available. But way to lie to everyone for a few months anyway, dude. It worked!
 
Mercenary said:
If Chicago can build a beautiful Millennium Park on its railway tracks, Toronto should be able to do the same without a bunch of Condos destroying it.
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True! But the city of Toronto is always looking for bargains to save tax payers money. And I think this will probably be the way to get it done. A linear park that stretches from Fort York to East Harbour with buildings intergraded in it.
 
cd concept said:
True! But the city of Toronto is always looking for bargains to save tax payers money. And I think this will probably be the way to get it done. A linear park that stretches from Fort York to East Harbour with buildings intergraded in it.
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The developor is not building a park - They will be building the deck over the rail corridor to support their towers and turning a narrow slab over to the City so that it can build a park on the remaining strip at the taxpayers expense

#RailDeckPark
 
Mercenary said:
If Chicago can build a beautiful Millennium Park on its railway tracks, Toronto should be able to do the same without a bunch of Condos destroying it.
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Sigh. We've gone over all this before but this comparison is as meaningless as Central Park.

First, Toronto does not own the air rights so the condos aren't destroying a park, they're decking over a rail corridor where, in the collective imagination, there could be a park. As I've said before, while I don't know where you live or whether it's a house or an apartment, I think we can all agree that your residence has destroyed what could have been a beautiful park, speaking in the abstract.

Secondly, even if Toronto did own the land, Millennium Park was not funded solely by municipal taxpayers. It cost nearly $500M (US) in 2004, and went way over time and over budget. The initial $150M budget used a huge chunk of parking revenue bonds (which effectively do not exist here) and $30M in private money (which, in theory, could), and as the budget soared they implemented a TIF (theoretically possible, but untested here). In all, per this source, the final budget ended up being $270M from the City (again, from sources Toronto can't even access) and $220M from private donors.

Here's how the project went, from Wikipedia:
1646053990011.png

Then, once it was finally done, the park cost so much to operate that the City had to draw down reserves and take out a loan. As of 2014, at least, taxpayers were still paying those loans.

So don't just look at a postcard of MP - which, yes, is an amazing place! - and say, "If they can do it, gosh darn it, we can too!" Because it's not remotely that simple or comparable.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Sigh. We've gone over all this before but this comparison is as meaningless as Central Park.

First, Toronto does not own the air rights so the condos aren't destroying a park, they're decking over a rail corridor where, in the collective imagination, there could be a park. As I've said before, while I don't know where you live or whether it's a house or an apartment, I think we can all agree that your residence has destroyed what could have been a beautiful park, speaking in the abstract.

Secondly, even if Toronto did own the land, Millennium Park was not funded solely by municipal taxpayers. It cost nearly $500M (US) in 2004, and went way over time and over budget. The initial $150M budget used a huge chunk of parking revenue bonds (which effectively do not exist here) and $30M in private money (which, in theory, could), and as the budget soared they implemented a TIF (theoretically possible, but untested here). In all, per this source, the final budget ended up being $270M from the City (again, from sources Toronto can't even access) and $220M from private donors.

Here's how the project went, from Wikipedia:
View attachment 382360
Then, once it was finally done, the park cost so much to operate that the City had to draw down reserves and take out a loan. As of 2014, at least, taxpayers were still paying those loans.

So don't just look at a postcard of MP - which, yes, is an amazing place! - and say, "If they can do it, gosh darn it, we can too!" Because it's not remotely that simple or comparable.
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All true, and on-point.

Just to add; that 470M is in U.S. dollars from roughly the year 2000.

So first lets convert it to CAD at roughly 600M, then adjust for inflation............and you get something in/around 930MCAD.

Lets also note that virtually every significant feature of the park has the name of a donor/sponsor individual or company on it; and that the then Mayor of Chicago (Daly) was
capable of applying a level of.......persuasion that Mayor Tory would not, if he could; but he also lacks the measure of legal and political authority Daly had.

***

Another comparative note, have a look at this picture, which shows the Millennium Park site prior to construction. You can see the trains, and parking lots:

1646055519911.png

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Park#/media/File:Grant_Park_from_Sears_Tower_in_1981.jpg

Have a good look at how many active tracks there were even then. Much of Millennium Park is not over active rail tracks, it's over a parking garage.

***

A last, 2-part observation.

Chicago is in precarious financial shape, with a stagnant to falling population, and its south and west sides are among the most violent and impoverished places in the developed world.
Perhaps there were better ways to spend the money there?
Perhaps we can get more mileage out of that kind of money here?

Also, before we decry Toronto as hopelessly cheap and incapable of building an ambitious park............has anyone heard anything about building a new River Mouth for the Don River, with a park larger
than Millennium Park, with one of the world's premier landscape architecture firms leading the design? Costing a few hundred million to make happen? Just wondering....
 
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Northern Light said:
All true, and on-point.

Just to add; that 470M is in U.S. dollars from roughly the year 2000.

So first lets convert it to CAD at roughly 600M, then adjust for inflation............and you get something in/around 930MCAD.
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$930M just for the park, exclusive of land costs! Call it a billion and then let's add a few hundred million for Toronto to first acquire the land!

As you basically end off saying, this is not a lost opportunity. The focus all along should have been working with the developer to create a landmark destination that could still be something akin to MP, but without the costs falling on taxpayers. I don't know the developers or how sincere/progressive they may be but there is no reason to think something great can't be done here - certainly the City should use every tool they have to require as much. Their mistake was trying to present an alternative/competing concept they had no hope of realizing. Now that that ship has sailed, let's push the City and developer to maximize the opportunity before them.
 
Phil P said:
The developor is not building a park - They will be building the deck over the rail corridor to support their towers and turning a narrow slab over to the City so that it can build a park on the remaining strip at the taxpayers expense

#RailDeckPark
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Didn't I just say if they could save tax payers money they would! They're just paying for the icing on top of the cake. Not the cake that the icing is being supported on lol! And the developers want reimbursements from that .
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Sigh. We've gone over all this before but this comparison is as meaningless as Central Park.

First, Toronto does not own the air rights so the condos aren't destroying a park, they're decking over a rail corridor where, in the collective imagination, there could be a park. As I've said before, while I don't know where you live or whether it's a house or an apartment, I think we can all agree that your residence has destroyed what could have been a beautiful park, speaking in the abstract.

Secondly, even if Toronto did own the land, Millennium Park was not funded solely by municipal taxpayers. It cost nearly $500M (US) in 2004, and went way over time and over budget. The initial $150M budget used a huge chunk of parking revenue bonds (which effectively do not exist here) and $30M in private money (which, in theory, could), and as the budget soared they implemented a TIF (theoretically possible, but untested here). In all, per this source, the final budget ended up being $270M from the City (again, from sources Toronto can't even access) and $220M from private donors.

Here's how the project went, from Wikipedia:
View attachment 382360
Then, once it was finally done, the park cost so much to operate that the City had to draw down reserves and take out a loan. As of 2014, at least, taxpayers were still paying those loans.

So don't just look at a postcard of MP - which, yes, is an amazing place! - and say, "If they can do it, gosh darn it, we can too!" Because it's not remotely that simple or comparable.
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If Toronto wants to be a world class city, it needs to built world class architecture.

Nothing of the current Rail Deck Park with the Condo + Park sparks any kind of world class conversation. It's mediocre at best.

Instead of excuses, Toronto needs to find a will to get stuff done and not be reliant on crime statistics to make itself feel better compared to other cities.
 
Again, while I'm not a big fan of comparing cities in the envy, there is a lot of similarities between Toronto and Chicago. And the differences are more subtle, such as their harbor front faces East, while our harbour front faces South; they have bigger towers, we have moar towers; etc. So if we're gonna compare, least let's start with them. <3
 
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Our urban configuration and the general Great Lakes thing makes Chicago a good comparitor in many ways.

But governance and finances are not at all one of those ways, unfortunately. Our mayor is far, far weaker and Council's ability to generate funds almost non-existent, by comparison. I'm pretty sure the Governor of Illinois can't just decide to halve City council, in the middle of an election or at any other time. We could also go off on a tangent about transit agencies but the simple fact is this: our government cannot do what Chicago's can do. And that makes it dangerous to talk about how they built this or that and so Toronto can too.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Our urban configuration and the general Great Lakes thing makes Chicago a good comparitor in many ways.

But governance and finances are not at all one of those ways, unfortunately. Our mayor is far, far weaker and Council's ability to generate funds almost non-existent, by comparison. I'm pretty sure the Governor of Illinois can't just decide to halve City council, in the middle of an election or at any other time. We could also go off on a tangent about transit agencies but the simple fact is this: our government cannot do what Chicago's can do. And that makes it dangerous to talk about how they built this or that and so Toronto can too.
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But would you want a strong mayor system under Rob Ford? I think that would of been a recipe for disaster, IMO.

And yes it is true, our municipalities are articles of our provinces, which likely isn't true of cities under the US Constitution. So it's not our city's fault that we are structure around the beck and call of Queen's Park. That said though, our municipality is less prone to corruption...to which I can't say for Chicago, lol...

...and I could go on. But we have to take both the good and bad here and work with the tools we've got. And again, try to stop envying how other cities that can do it "better", as this really gets us no where.
 
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