Mayor opposes stadium location

[Marc]

I think you'll see Miller come around. If you read the articles the majority of negative comments emanate from Augimeri and Pantalone, who are both covering their political bases (unprofessionally and very off-putting, in my opinion.) The Mayor knows he'll have to play both sides so I don't think we've heard the last from Miller on this. We shall see...

[MikeD]

Best quote by any politician on this matter:

"For anyone who lives and works south of the 401, the traditional understanding of Downsview is that it's in the middle of nowhere.

"But it's in the middle of today's Toronto, and it's in the middle of tomorrow's Toronto."

Way to go Dryden - I guess all those pucks in the head haven't affected him as much as I thought!

[Marc]

Very true. That's another general challenge for the City as well - how to accomodate development within the City that i sbeing built with the greater good of the GTA as a priority, not necessarily with the greater good of the City at mind. (Not that I think a Downsview stadium is bad for the City, its just an example.)

[Marc]

I should add, not a new challenge by any means, but one that is becoming more and more prevalent.

[leekoo]

quote:Originally posted by DoyleG

Give Jennifer Quinn a map. Ken Dryden's riding is York Centre. York West is Judy "Anybody need a stripper?" Sgro.

downsview park grid

northwest corner @ keele/sheppard

southwest corner @ keele/wilson

southeast corner @ allen/wilson

northwest corner @ allen-dufferin/sheppard (at Y above city of toronto)

south of downsview (midtown tee oh)

the 401

travelling west, vancouver

going east, montreal

south of downsview

toronto city hall

rogers centre (skydome)

lake ontario

for map GOTO http://www.elections.ca/scripts/fedrep/searchengine/PDF/proposed_35103_2.pdf

[john tv]

I suppose that Downsview will probably be the only soccer stadium in the whole soccer world with it's own airfield, way to go Kevan.Flying in from Ottawa.How about that for transportation.[[/size=3]size=2][/size=2]

[Gordon]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

Let me get the pedantry out of the way first - there hasn't been Planning Law in Ontario for "centuries", at least not in its current legislative form. There is a statute that governs Planning Law in Ontario called the Planning Act and its not "centuries" old - goes back to 1925.

Let me get the pedantry out of the way first - urban planning is more than 4500 years old. Unless the Ontario legislation was created in a vacuum and represents a radical departure from all know planning legislation, it is eminently fair and accurate to refer to "centuries" of planning law as the Ontario legislation is almost certainly based on centuries of British law and convention tempered perhaps by centuries of american law.

quote:Decisions on planning have to be consistent with the Ontario Provincial Policy Statement, which is what I was referring to earlier, which you also refer to by indicating that it has to be based on "legitimate planning reasons". Noise is a good example but it has to be noise as it pertains to the Downsview community. There is nothing in the policy statement which says that it is the Province's policy to put stadiums at the Ex instead of Downsview.

In as much as municipalities are creatures of the province, the province defines the scope or extent of municipal legislative powers in any sphere. It is of course incumbent upon a municipality to ensure that their by-laws are consistent with the appropriate provincial legislation. Beyond that, I very much doubt that provincial planning policies get into any specifics as to what are allowable uses of a piece of land in the middle of any municipality. Planning, by its very nature, is about a community telling land owners and developers what they can build and where: "This area is residential, that area is industrial, and we'll accept some commercial in these locations". That is what land use bylaws do. Even within the general zoning, more rules apply. Within, for example, residential zoning, there will be a variety of permitted and discretionary uses for each category of residential use. e.g. land is zoned R-1 (residential) in which 80% of the development must be single family dwellings and up to 20% may be duplexes (permitted uses) with an allowance that a certain portion, say up to 5% may be rezoned as commercial (at the planning commissions discretion) to facilitate strip malls, corner stores, neighbourhood restaurants etc. However, the discretionary uses are not guaranteed, just a possibility. So even though the zoning is residential, multi unit dwellings are restricted. So, saying that they do not want a stadium in Downsview is a legit planning consideration and the only way Toronto could not legally adopt that position would be if a)the land is already property zoned for a stadium land use (which is quite possible) and a stadium was a permitted use (very unlikely, it is almost certainly a discretionary use) for the zoning. If it is a permitted use of the existing zoning, then you're correct and Toronto will not have legal footing to prevent the development.

quote:

If not, off to the OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) we go and they will over turn a decision made by that is not consistent with Provincial planning policies and which is instead made through bad faith. Of course whether or not they find it to be the case is another matter, but as Elias mentions, the OMB overturns City planning decisions all the time.

All provinces have provincial appeal boards. If Toronto's land use by-laws are in accordance with provincial legislation (which I am certain they are) and the City of Toronto follows their by-law - keeping in mind that a "discretionary use" is at the discretion of the City Planning Commission - then there is no bad faith nor violation of provincial law, and thus no grounds for an appeal to be won.

quote:

Germane, but I doubt persuasive.

There actually is not a lot of federal or provincial legislation governing federal municipal relations. Most is implicit from the original BNA act which prevents divides poweres between theFeds and the provinces and prevents the two levels of governements from taxing each other, the Payment-in-lieu of Taxes Act, and Federal infrastructure agreements with provinces and municipalities. Unless there is secific legislation exempting the entities of leased federal land (which is what we are talking about, not federal entities directly), and I very much doubt that there is, then I believe that it would be more than persuasive. It would probably be the basis of a ruling. So I think we'll have to disagree on the relative merit of the argument.

quote:Probably not, but with Vaughan waiting with open arms apparently, would there be any need to? But will the City of Toronto really want to lose this facility altogether because its not at their preferred location? I guess that's the question.

We are in 100% agreement here, and I actually think we are debating the semantics of essentially the more or less the same position. Although neither of us have ever shown much interest in semantics in the past.

While Toronto has an effective hammer specific to the use of Downsview, and the Feds and Province have a legal hammer to force the issue if they really want to excercise it, the reality is that the decision will almost certainly come down to whether the City of Toronto wants the stadium or not because Toronto can not force the stadium to the Ex and the feds have other options. Custom is that the Federal Government conducts its affairs in a manner consistent with provincial and local laws. Payments in lieu of taxes is the classic municipal example and it costs the federal governement hundreds of millions (probably over a billion) of dollars that technically, they would not have to pay under the constitution. So a $60 million stadium is a drop in the bucket.

My guess is, ultimately, if the stadium proceeds, it will be put in Downsview although the impression I get of the Toronto council from the TO area posters is that they are the type that might just cut off their nose to spite their face.

[sstackho]

David Miller has nice hair.

[dbailey62]

quote:Originally posted by sstackho

David Miller has nice hair.

The Toronto Star has come out in favour of the Mayor's position.

db

[Elias]

quote:Originally posted by dbailey62

The Toronto Star has come out in favour of the Mayor's position.

Um...ahem...*cough*...hmm...a...never mind....this is a family show.

[DJT]

quote:Originally posted by dbailey62

The Toronto Star has come out in favour of the Mayor's position.

That editorial has already been posted in the other thread.

This thread should never have been created in the first place, because we don't need two (at the time there were three) of them on this topic going at the same time. However, I let it go because there had already been a bunch of responses. This thread had been dying off, but two days later got bumped to the top again. Since there has been only one substantial post since then and no reply, I'm going to consider this discussion ended and will lock this thread.

Apart from wanting to be super-organized , the main reason for limiting threads on this topic is that I know many people do not care for this topic. While that applies to any topic, the difference here is that this one is tangential to the main purpose of this section of the forum; in other words, many people come here for news and discussion on the CMNT, not on Toronto politics, etc. On the other hand, since such threads do get lots of participation, there are lots of people who do care for this topic, so we let it stay in this section. The compromise is to limit this topic to one thread at a time. Please don't start a new thread on the Toronto stadium if there is already one on the front page of this section of the forum.