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Toronto picks former Hamilton official as new planning chief

Hamilton former planning manager will tackle a city in the midst of rule changes and upwards growth.
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This news merits its own thread here at UT.

I know many follow Jason on various social media.

A former head planner for Hamilton, he's well liked and respected and seems like a very good get for the City.

In addition to his planning bona fides..........he's former head of the Toronto Bay Initiative, worked with Bruce Trail and the Bay Area Restoration Council in Hamilton and many other great groups.

He also has experience with the province and with Metrolinx.
 
Interesting. He left Hamilton what felt like only 3 or 4 months ago for Stantec.

Stantec probably isn't too happy about this scale of hire hopping ship so quickly. Perhaps it was specifically for a short contract stint or something?

He did always seem like the best fit for the job. When he first quit Hamilton everyone speculated it was for this job, not Stantec.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Interesting. He left Hamilton what felt like only 3 or 4 months ago for Stantec.

Stantec probably isn't too happy about this scale of hire hopping ship so quickly. Perhaps it was specifically for a short contract stint or something?

He did always seem like the best fit for the job. When he first quit Hamilton everyone speculated it was for this job, not Stantec.
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He's been with Stantec since May, so depending on exact dates it will be six/seven months.

That is a fairly short stint.
 
I'm an acquaintance with someone who works in the Hamilton planning office.

He spoke very highly of Thorne, and said that he was a fresh face among the typical old boys network of senior city staff, and was approachable in the hallway and in the community. He was a big champion of the Hamilton LRT and transit-oriented development, and successfully boosted the budgets for the local heritage, tourism and economic development departments.

Thorne was also briefly the interim city manager of Hamilton, which should serve him well in navigating a much bigger bureaucracy.
 
christiesplits said:
I'm an acquaintance with someone who works in the Hamilton planning office.

He spoke very highly of Thorne, and said that he was a fresh face among the typical old boys network of senior city staff, and was approachable in the hallway and in the community. He was a big champion of the Hamilton LRT and transit-oriented development, and successfully boosted the budgets for the local heritage, tourism and economic development departments.

Thorne was also briefly the interim city manager of Hamilton, which should serve him well in navigating a much bigger bureaucracy.
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His former boss in Hamilton is the current City Manager in Toronto.

****

The interesting thing to watch here will be that Jason's mandate in Hamilton was much larger, he oversaw more than just Planning..........

Here, he actually has less than normal Planning as it stands..........because Development Review has just been hived off into its own unit.

One unit he will oversee is @ADRM 's favourite, Urban Design....

It will be interesting to see if there is further reorganization of responsibilities to give more room to move....... and/or if he is being set up as Paul Johnson's heir. Paul has only been w/the City 3 years, but most City managers have maybe a 5-7 year tenure.
 
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Interesting. I thought raising Kyle Knoeck into the acting role was likely to lead to him getting the full gig. Wonder how things will reorg with this news.
 
A Torontonian Now said:
There's a string of staff in acting roles, though that will need new homes. I doubt they all go back to where they were. The split in planning is fresh, and I think there are details still to be worked out.
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The City always has LOTS of staff in acting roles as people get temporary assignments or go on leave and their 'real' jobs are filled by actings. No doubt, since Greg Lintern left they have not been rushing to make permanent appointments so that his successor can have the ability to create his (or her) own dream team. I think the biggest change was separating 'development" from 'planning' and, as I see it, it's a good thing because with the huge rush of development applications and the strict deadlines the amount of staff time for planning has got very small in recent years. Staff in community planning used to do lots of wide-ranging studies a decade or more ago, not so much recently.
 
I'm going to zag here... and I hope I am wrong, but this seems like such a safe, predictable, status quo hire. Everyone says he is a great guy, approachable, consensus building, well liked etc., which, again just seems like a safe uncontroversial hire. Can he do the job? Almost certainly, but therein lies the issue - the job he should be doing is radically overhauling the OP and the planning department. In Hamilton he presided over the worst increase in housing prices in Hamilton's history. Now that isn't his fault per se, but it indicates to me he is not a unique outlier and very status quo, in line with almost every other municipal bureaucrat in the county. Also his social media activity, while charming, gives me the impression he will be focused on cute activist projects like community gardens and underpass playgrounds, toying with small projects on the margins and not interested in the much bigger issues we are facing. Again, I hope I am wrong!
 
Een said:
I'm going to zag here... and I hope I am wrong, but this seems like such a safe, predictable, status quo hire. Everyone says he is a great guy, approachable, consensus building, well liked etc., which, again just seems like a safe uncontroversial hire. Can he do the job? Almost certainly, but therein lies the issue - the job he should be doing is radically overhauling the OP and the planning department. In Hamilton he presided over the worst increase in housing prices in Hamilton's history. Now that isn't his fault per se, but it indicates to me he is not a unique outlier and very status quo, in line with almost every other municipal bureaucrat in the county. Also his social media activity, while charming, gives me the impression he will be focused on cute activist projects like community gardens and underpass playgrounds, toying with small projects on the margins and not interested in the much bigger issues we are facing. Again, I hope I am wrong!
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There is VERY little that planners can do about rising house prices - which has been a fact it almost all parts of the world since covid. Give the guy a chance!.
 
DSC said:
There is VERY little that planners can do about rising house prices - which has been a fact it almost all parts of the world since covid. Give the guy a chance!.
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I get what you are saying but chief planners also have the most direct control on reducing bottlenecks to supply and he obviously wasn't inclined or able to do that in Hamilton so I have no reason to believe he will be able to do it here (assuming he is even interested in that). What this means is that his past performance is not exceptional and I was hoping for an extraordinary candidate.
 
Een said:
I get what you are saying but chief planners also have the most direct control on reducing bottlenecks to supply and he obviously wasn't inclined or able to do that in Hamilton so I have no reason to believe he will be able to do it here (assuming he is even interested in that).
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This is an entirely unreasonable position that is not based in evidence.

Toronto has approved tens of thousands of units that aren't being built, because market conditions don't support it.

There has been more development in Hamilton, and at greater height than at any time in the last several generations, much as is the case with Toronto.

Market developers are not in the business of losing money, they will not build 'affordable' housing with out public subsidy to do so.

They will not intentionally glut the market so as to reduce prices and potential return on investment.

Altering the structure of pricing requires demand suppression (flat to declining population), and public-build housing, which will rent at or below cost; as well as measures to raise incomes, such as higher minimum wage, more generous parental leave (contracts labour supply as well), and higher social assistance rates.

Exactly zero of the above are under the purview of any City Planner in Ontario.

Een said:
What this means is that his past performance is not exceptional
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This means no such thing.

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1733771339431.png


That's Jason's tenure right there:

Source: https://investinhamilton.ca/tools-data/all-data/

Nearly doubling residential permits in only 5 years.

*****

Actual Housing Starts in the same time period up over 40%:

1733771478537.png
 
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