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adma

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http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/02/18/4856053-sun.html

Mon, February 18, 2008

T.O. chief planner dies of cancer

Ted Tyndorf 'had integrity'

By BRETT CLARKSON, SUN MEDIA

Described by Mayor David Miller as the "perfect example of the professional public servant," Toronto chief planner Ted Tyndorf led the country's largest municipal planning staff with a passion for city-building that colleagues say never faltered.

Early Saturday, Tyndorf died, losing his battle with cancer. He was 54.

"He was a very honest man -- he had integrity," his wife Christine Tyndorf said yesterday. "What he thought should be done for the city, he always fought for.

"He had an understanding of what Toronto should be."

After graduating from Ryerson with a degree in urban planning in 1977, Tyndorf began his career at the old City of Etobicoke.

He moved to the private sector, then returned to Etobicoke before eventually settling at Toronto City Hall, where he was appointed chief planner in 2004. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong goal, his wife of 31 years said.

Miller yesterday issued a statement of condolence to Tyndorf's family, friends and colleagues.

"As Toronto's chief planner, he was committed to our city and his passion for its future never waned," Miller said.

Visitation for Tyndorf takes place at Turner and Porter Yorke (Bloor St. W. and Windermere Ave.) today and tomorrow from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. A funeral will be held at All Saints Church (Eglinton Ave. W. and Royal York Rd.) at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, with burial to take place at Park Lawn Cemetery.
 
He came and spoke in a class I took last term. He was incredibly passionate about planning. The planning community has lost a real champion.
 
No way! I didnt know he was battling cancer... He was a regular speaker at Ryerson and like gmania said, very passionate about his career.

Hes the second person I knew to die of cancer this week. I just lost a friend from it this evening.
 
From the Star:

Ted Tyndorf, 54: Toronto's chief planner
Planner restored importance of design to development process during brief tenure

Feb 21, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume
urban affairs columnist

Even before he succumbed to cancer on the weekend, Toronto's chief planner, Ted Tyndorf, never had an easy go of it.

Appointed to the position in 2004, it fell to him to implement the city's new Official Plan, a thankless task if ever there were one.

Despite the optimism of the moment, Tyndorf knew the job would not be easy.

"We're at a watershed moment," he told the Star after delivering his inaugural State of the City address in December 2004. "We have a new mayor and new council."

Tyndorf understood that it would take years to pull together the "different planning cultures in Toronto." But he insisted he was committed to that and, more important, the beautification of the city.

Perhaps not even Tyndorf, a career planner who could walk backward and blindfolded through the terrifying maze of municipal building regulations and bylaws, knew how difficult change would be.

Through no fault of his, it ended quite differently. The hardest culture of all to turn around is that of city hall; even with his enhanced powers, this remains beyond the ability of the mayor and council, let alone the chief planner.

Indeed, the planning department's duty is simply to advise council; more often than not, members opt to ignore its advice for that of the voters. And despite the importance of the chief planner's role, he reports not to the mayor but the deputy city manager.

Ironically, although Tyndorf's focus on process served him well, in the final analysis, development in Toronto remains highly political, which means rules and regulations exist to be broken. Final decisions regarding development rest with councillors, not planners.

Through it all, however, Tyndorf retained a sense of idealism and decency that often seemed at odds with the nastiness of daily decision-making.

His answer to the growing problem of NIMBYism, for example, was education. He firmly believed that once people had been informed about why a project was necessary, they would support it. Such faith in human nature is hard to come by, especially at city hall.

On the other hand, Tyndorf had no illusions about the quality of architecture in Toronto. He was willing to forgive the Not-In-My-Backyarders, at least partially, because of the mediocrity of the city's built environment.

"Given the dreadful architecture they've seen," he once said, referring to highrise buildings, "it's not surprising. To some, towers have become symbols of greed."

Unlike his predecessor, Paul Bedford, Tyndorf was not a big-picture planner. He recognized instinctively that the devil was in the details; get those right, he argued, and the vision will take care of itself.

Sadly, three years may be a long time in the life of a single human being, but it is a blip in the life of a city. When he died on Saturday, age 54 and much too young, Tyndorf left behind a community that remains uncertain about what kind of a future it wants.

Torontonians may rail against skyscraper condos, but they happily line up to live in them. In the meantime, efforts to bring public transit to the region must deal with property owners intent on stopping the buses because they're bad for land values.

In truth, Tyndorf, who graduated from Ryerson University and worked for decades in Etobicoke, simply wasn't around long enough to leave a major legacy. Still, he will be remembered as the chief planner who brought design review panels to Toronto and restored the primacy of design to the development process.

"We're getting there," Tyndorf said back at the beginning of his last post. "But we have a long way to go."

The brevity of his tenure notwithstanding, Tyndorf brought the city that much closer.

He leaves his wife, Christine, and children Matthew, Julie and Michael.


Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca

AoD
 
I think the City should recruit somebody who is not a "planner" as TT's replacement. OK, you need to know something about "planning" but the City Planning Department has been a political arena for some time now.
 
adma said:
Don't sneer. Actually, 60s/70s Kanata was its era's Don Mills as far as planned suburban satellite communities go...
Click to expand...

Didn't it defeat the whole purpose of the greenbelt by leapfrogging development on the other side? I've always wondered why Ottawa allowed such things to happen when one of the purposes of a greenbelt is to contain growth.
 
Ah, but it was the New Town/Garden City model of "leapfrog development", i.e. the greenbelt was meant to work in its favour, by making it less like Nepeanesque sprawl and more of a self-contained satellite a la Letchworth, Welwyn, Hemel Hempstead et al. *That's* why Ottawa allowed it to happen, on rather enlightened regional-planning grounds. (Remember: this was pre-70s, before the oil crises, before the planning paradigm shifted on behalf of core intensification, and before "leapfrog development" became a negative buzzword.)
 
Tuscani01 said:
Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Is there any truth to any of his stories?
Click to expand...

Like back in the 60/70s when his Stanford professor pulled out a gun and shot at a car because the car alarm went off? (did car alarms even exist then?)
 
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