SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
October 27, 2022 09:00AM
  • Oct/27/22 3:00:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 23 

Thank you for that question. Yes, my first planning application when I became city councillor in 2010 was a proposal for a six-storey condominium on Queen Street, where a famous burger joint you may know—you may have eaten at Lick’s hamburger joint, a landmark place. It was proposed there. There were many people opposed to that building which I strongly stood up for. We need gentle density, we need homes for people and we need our residents, especially seniors who were over-housed in their big beach homes, to be able to change their living accommodation and age in place in the community they volunteered in and raised their kids in. So I have much experience with NIMBYs and YIMBYs.

But with laneway suites in particular, we brought everyone into the—we did very creative, outward-thinking community engagement all across the city. We did walks and talks and town halls and all kinds of things—

But we also need to deal with vacant properties, which is an issue. I don’t know; it doesn’t seem this government is proactively working on that. We have many empty homes in Toronto that we need to—

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