On the agenda for the next Executive Ctte meeting is a report updating on priorities 'Towards a Beautiful City'.
@IsaacKhouzam may wish to skim and share thoughts.
As to mine, I'll go through this for you UT, but spoiler alert.......... I'm somewhere between underwhelmed and peeved.
I'll start by bringing over the City's summary which is fine:
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Now, the Decision History section is useful because it gives you a peak at the various motions at Council over this term on the subject of beautification:
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So lets start with Excellence in Design and see how much progress has been made in the 1 year since a motion on this subject:
The request was to build design excellence into how projects of all types are advanced.
The intent was clearly to ensure that quality architecture, and visual appeal of buildings and fixtures was considered alongside function.
So what did the City do?
- It appointed one staffer within the Chief Planner's Office to manage this project
- It set up a six department steering committee (Planning, Transportation, Parks, Forestry, Eco. Dev and Culture, and Waste Management
- This committee in turn set up a working group! SMH
- Staff promise a report on the subject (not action) will come to committee after the next election and budget cycle in January 2027.
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With great respect to staff, this is not what the motion intended (and most know it), its a simple directive, and you enact a simple starting policy. When procuring any building, structure, or fixture which is public-facing, or in a public space or setting, the physical beauty and appearance will be a high value consideration. This shall be internal policy and will be reflected in any tenders or competitions.
You don't need to decide everything, you don't need to re-think principles, you need to do.
A handful of options could be brought forward including appointing a chief city architect, or landscape architect; but I would prefer that firms with excellent design reputations be hired to teach city design and project management staff what excellence looks like, what it costs, and how to prescribe for it.
Increasing the use of design competitions, increasing adherence to existing streetscape manuals (which are regularly disregarded), and a few other small policies could go a long way. This report is not that.
One other item, I've often spoken of the need for going to 100% design pre-tender, this is important for accurate budgeting, sticking to same, and tighter timelines with fewer surprises........ but there's another thing about it....you spec your finishes. (example, wall and floor tiles, bathroom faucets, interior and exterior lights, cladding etc. )
When you tender at 60% design a lot of that fall to the company you tender to as their discretion. This creates an incentive on the part of a bidder to cheap out on finished and keep the difference as added margin.
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Moving on the Maintenance, here's what the City says its done........there are some good things in this section:
On CREM - shouldn't be necessary, each site has a property manager responsible; should it not be implicitly understood that major civic properties/tourist sites should be maintained to the high highest standard? Three things to do:
1) Make sure everyone hired understands what excellence in property maintenance is; provide additional training as required.
2) Furnish adequate budgets for cleaning, state-of-good-repair, lawn and flower bed upkeep etc.
3) Give managers flexibility but also accountability. If the state of a space in your charge is the subject of a high volume of complaints or adverse media attention, you will be asked to find another job.
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On TS - all good here, as far it goes. But it misses some open discussion of what current standards are, and what options exist, at what cost to deliver better.
As example: Grass Cutting - current frequency, how much to add one more cutting per year?; What about alternate ground covers? Pilot a few. What about winter beauty - more use of evergreens, where appropriate, or winter interest species such as Red Osier Dogwood, or Beech, or Copper coloured ornamental grasses that stay up well into the snowy season. How many planting rotations for flower beds? Many currently get just one, but 3 is very plausible. (early spring, summer, fall/early winter).
Each with a cost attached.
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Parks:
- Cutting emissions from diesel equipment is swell but how is it related to beautification?
- The washrooms project is good, though I continue to have concerns about the details.
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- See mowing, winter beauty and flower bed rotations above.
- Published standards for litter pick up and what it would cost to do this more often.
- There is a need for accountability and ownership of parks. They need to return to have more supervisions, and delegating forepeople and horticulture staff to work under them, giving them full control of mowing, routing painting and pathway maintinence etc. Then hold them to account for maintaining spaces well.
( most of these functions are no longer directly controlled by parks supervisors and most parks don't have specific staff assigned to them) .
Speaking of which, shifting parks staff back into offices/yards in parks would do a world of good. Staff look after spaces better when its their daily work place.
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I'll skip over a bunch as this is a long post as it is............
Here is my real peeve. UT, we need to get after them on this:
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That's right UT, despite clear direction from Council to replace the ugly bins............staff are just shrugging their shoulders and saying 'no' we like it the way it is...........
Not acceptable, at all.
Please take the time to email Exec Ctte Members to let them know this is not ok.
The request needs to be for motion to this effect:
City staff Shall Report, no later than January 2027 to Executive Ctte on proposed alternative waste receptacles in parks, and/or existing receptacles enclosed within more aesthetically pleasing cases.
Such report shall provide a selection of options and their costs to members of Council for inclusion in the 2028 budget.
Executive Committee Members and contact info:
Listed email addresses together for ease of copying:
councillor_ainslie@toronto.ca
Councillor_Bravo@toronto.ca
councillor_carroll@toronto.ca
mayor_chow@toronto.ca
councillor_colle8@toronto.ca
councillor_fletcher@toronto.ca
Councillor_Malik@toronto.ca
councillor_matlow@toronto.ca
Councillor_Morley@toronto.ca
councillor_perks@toronto.ca
Councillor_Shan@toronto.ca
Alternatively, you can submit a communication to the Committee, including the item link that I have supplied above. This communication may be public:
Send any communication to:
exc@toronto.ca
Or get in touch with:
Cathrine Regan
Toronto City Hall
100 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 2N2
Telephone: 416 - 392-7033
Fax: 416 - 392-2980
