Andrew3D
Active Member
The petition
We the undersigned call for an immediate investigation of the City of Toronto’s Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) for being in complete and utter contempt of their stated economic development mandates. This can be demonstrated by their injurious involvement in the following two recent developments in our City:
1) TEDCO’s failure to recognize the importance of Toronto’s employment lands and its failure to maintain Toronto’s critical stock of inexpensive converted studio space, which has resulted in a new studio development that is linked to the rezoning and removal of such studio space and the resultant location of a retail power center in the Eastern/Carlaw area. This development will seriously hamper Toronto’s ability to host a large number of film and television projects at one time, will decimate the unique character of Queen Street East whose collection of shops and small businesses will be significantly hurt by the proposed power center, and will set a damaging zoning precedent in one of Toronto’s last swaths of important employment lands.
2) TEDCO’s failure to prudently manage City assets and its failure to recognize the health and vitality of the Liberty Village area, which has resulted in the bizarre transplantation of a major office tenant in the area – Corus Entertainment – from its current Liberty Village location to a new Queen’s Quay East location. In addition to emptying out some 200,000 square feet of office space and adversely affecting several related small businesses in the Liberty Village area, this illogical move has also prematurely closed down some 140,000 square feet of film production space on Queen’s Quay, will require our cash-strapped City to borrow some $130 million dollars to build the new facility and to extend some $18 million dollars in tax breaks to Corus, and will circumvent almost seven years of public waterfront consultation by ignoring pleas for public space in that location.
These completely backward developments have the real potential to seriously injure Toronto’s citizens, its businesses, its landscape and its very culture. Only a thorough investigation of TEDCO will reveal how these developments came to occur and how they may possibly be reversed in order to avert the damage to our great City. We call for this investigation to occur immediately.
We the undersigned call for an immediate investigation of the City of Toronto’s Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) for being in complete and utter contempt of their stated economic development mandates. This can be demonstrated by their injurious involvement in the following two recent developments in our City:
1) TEDCO’s failure to recognize the importance of Toronto’s employment lands and its failure to maintain Toronto’s critical stock of inexpensive converted studio space, which has resulted in a new studio development that is linked to the rezoning and removal of such studio space and the resultant location of a retail power center in the Eastern/Carlaw area. This development will seriously hamper Toronto’s ability to host a large number of film and television projects at one time, will decimate the unique character of Queen Street East whose collection of shops and small businesses will be significantly hurt by the proposed power center, and will set a damaging zoning precedent in one of Toronto’s last swaths of important employment lands.
2) TEDCO’s failure to prudently manage City assets and its failure to recognize the health and vitality of the Liberty Village area, which has resulted in the bizarre transplantation of a major office tenant in the area – Corus Entertainment – from its current Liberty Village location to a new Queen’s Quay East location. In addition to emptying out some 200,000 square feet of office space and adversely affecting several related small businesses in the Liberty Village area, this illogical move has also prematurely closed down some 140,000 square feet of film production space on Queen’s Quay, will require our cash-strapped City to borrow some $130 million dollars to build the new facility and to extend some $18 million dollars in tax breaks to Corus, and will circumvent almost seven years of public waterfront consultation by ignoring pleas for public space in that location.
These completely backward developments have the real potential to seriously injure Toronto’s citizens, its businesses, its landscape and its very culture. Only a thorough investigation of TEDCO will reveal how these developments came to occur and how they may possibly be reversed in order to avert the damage to our great City. We call for this investigation to occur immediately.
