Toronto is changing

We're becoming a bigger, more vibrant and exciting city. Our economy is growing again, jobs are coming back and so is our confidence.

We have a new vision and plan for transforming our waterfront from Port Union Village in the east to Long Branch in the west into one of the most exciting waterfronts in the world. We're renewing the Yonge-Dundas area into a people place. Dynamic, new mixed-use neighbourhoods are rising out of the rubble of the old Greenwood Racetrack and Etobicoke motel strip. The railway lands are undergoing major renewal.

Over the past 50 years, Toronto has been a real success story in North America. But are we ready to take the next step forward and blossom as one of the great cities of the world? Do we have the energy and the will, the vision and the plan to capture the spirit of the 21st century?

Change is not by definition good or bad. It can move in either direction. As one participant in a workshop on our City's future put it bluntly, "Toronto is on the cusp of dramatic change: we're on the verge of getting things right or allowing things to go really wrong."

Unprecedented growth in the GTA is clogging our roads.

Great cities demand the active involvement of people. Cities are about people their choices, hopes and dreams. Toronto is and always has been a "people city". It was a cornerstone of our past and it must be a hallmark of our future.

But embracing the future also means doing some things differently.

Toronto always has been a people city.

Nowhere is this approach more needed than in shaping a new Official Plan for the City of Toronto. Right now, the existing Official Plans of the seven municipalities amalgamated to form the new City add up to about 2,000 pages. They are voluminous, complex and written in a language that only a lawyer could love — or understand. They focus on regulating land use by creating designations that merely describe current activity. They are stuck on describing "what is", and fail to ask "what do we want and how can we get there?".

The Official Plan of the seven former
municipalities represent over 2,000 pages
of policy and include 112 different land
use designations.

Our new Official Plan — the first for the unified City of Toronto — will be unlike any we have seen before. Based on extensive public input and debate, it will be an expression of Toronto's collective wishes and dreams for the future of a great city. The Official Plan will be both a strategic vision for the next 30 years and an operational plan for how to get there. It will be illustrated with maps and pictures and written in language that people can understand.

An Official Plan for the City of Toronto must be set in the context of what is happening across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The GTA is one large social and economic region. The fate of the City and the fate of the region are interdependent. The advantages that benefit one, benefit the other. The problems that beset one, beset the other. Toronto's Plan must guide smart growth over the next 30 years. And it must be a cornerstone of a smart growth strategy for the entire GTA - attracting more people and jobs to the City.

Strategic public investment in the North York Centre sets the stage for growth

Toronto's Official Plan will present a unified vision for the City. But unified doesn't mean uniform. Cities are organic structures - they are born, grow, and evolve in different ways in different parts. The Plan will be a unified vision viewed through three lenses:

Some Parts of the City Will Change Dramatically

• Areas where the City would like to help initiate major reinvestment and development will be designated Reinvestment Areas. Where needed, these areas will be given a new array of creative tools to kick-start and facilitate change, including: tax increment financing, priority processing, and the focusing of civic and other governmental infrastructure funds. These areas will include:
  • Downtown
  • The Central Waterfront
  • North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke Centres
  • Large Brownfields (vacant areas that were once industrial sites) and,
  • Greenfields (vacant areas that have never been developed).

Other Parts of the City Will Change Very Little

• In relatively stable districts where major physical change is not desired, the Official Plan policies and zoning by-laws will ensure that in these Established Areas, civic actions and applications for development:
  • respect the general physical character of the community;
  • improve community amenities;
  • promote environmental sustainability; and,
  • boost economic activity.

Major physical change will be directed away from stable residential neighbourhoods.

Still Other Parts of the City Will See Gradual Change Over Time

• In areas where the goal is gradually enhancing growth, such as The Avenues on our main streets, local visions for change and design-based zoning will be developed.

"The Avenues" - Gradual growth and reinvestment guided by local visions.

Great City, Great Living

The link in all of this activity will be a commitment to creating the best possible quality of life for people who live, work, invest and visit this City. That is priority number one. Our goal is nothing less than great city, great living.

Quality of life is both the key to our enjoyment of city life and our top competitive advantage. A better quality of life leads to improved economic competitiveness. Improved economic competitiveness leads to rising prosperity. Rising prosperity leads to more investment in the three pillars of urban living - community infrastructure, environmental health, and economic foundations. More investment in the three pillars leads back again to a better quality of life. In short, quality of life is the linchpin to a "virtuous cycle" of growth and renewal. The first half of this report shows how our quality of life can be improved through key investments in the pillars of our economy, liveable communities and the environment.

A great city needs a great vision. But a great vision can't, by itself, create great cities. Visions are only as good as the day-to-day actions that energize and reflect them. A strategic vision must be more than just a compendium of good intentions. It must also put forward a game plan for mobilizing a city's key partners - its government, its private sector, its stakeholder groups and its people - in a cooperative effort to transform laws and policies into everyday actions.

The final sections of this report outline five proposed campaigns that will unite vision, policy and action under an umbrella called Great City, Great Living. A campaign is a set of actions and initiatives where responsibility is shared by many City departments and agencies, by other levels of government, by the private sector, and by the people of Toronto, to achieve the common goals and genuine quality of life rewards that we all want for this City. Together, these campaigns will boost the vitality, liveability, sophistication and sense of excitement that is characteristic of urban living.

Quality living is what will make Toronto a great city. Our City has a 46 kilometre lakeshore, a unique network of ravines and the Scarborough Bluffs. These are powerful geographic features. To a large extent our product is our City - our people, green spaces, great neighbourhoods, and the many feasts that delight the eye and the mind. The beauty we see is enhanced by the beauty we create. Toronto will be as good as we choose to make it.

A Campaign to create not only a City that works, but a City that astonishes.

The Campaign for Beautiful Places aims to improve the overall look and feel of the City through better urban design, art in public places, design excellence, the greening of avenues and new public spaces, new partnerships and community stewardship for parks, and conservation of historic sites and architectural treasures.

The Campaign for Next Generation Transportation tackles the problems of congestion, environmental sustainability and meeting a broad range of mobility needs by encouraging compact growth, expanding public transit, and better managing our road system.

Sunnyside: creating inviting spaces in our parks and streets.

The Campaign to Make Housing Happen aims to develop policies and tools that will increase the supply of new and affordable rental housing, making the City more attractive to home buyers, and providing a diversity of housing options for those most in need of shelter.

The Campaign to Green Toronto will paint the city a deeper shade of green by acquiring natural areas and connecting them, creating new marsh habitats, and an aggressive planting campaign.

Planting seeds for a greener Toronto.

The Campaign for A Dynamic Downtown seeks to improve the competitiveness and quality of life of the Downtown area by investing in public transportation, building more housing, investing in arts and culture, improving the look and feel of the Downtown and creating a positive environment for development.

While the broad brushstrokes of the five campaigns are painted in this report, the focus and fine details will be added by Toronto's citizens, City Councillors and City staff. Indeed the release of this report signals the start of a new round of consultations on our City's future. We look forward to the advice and guidance of the people of Toronto through meetings and discussions in the fall of 2000.

The City of Toronto is clearly a city at the crossroads. We have choices to make and directions to choose. The future can't be predicted - but it can be shaped. By shaping a strategic vision, and the policies and actions to take us there, we can transform Toronto into one of the great cities of the world. This would be the greatest gift we could give ourselves, and the most precious legacy we could pass on to future generations.

Some of the Consultant's reports and research briefs are available on this site in PDF format in the Publications section. For a list of all documents, please view the PDF file entitled "Appendices".