Rail Deck Park (?, ?, ?)

[steveintoronto]

Well, yeah, but that's what happens when stuff goes to the OMB/LPAT.

So the private proponents suddenly go all quiet?

It's my contention that the OMB /LPAT doesn't have the authority to rule on this legal matter, but I digress. I've already posted extensively on it in this and the ORCA string.

My point is that ORCA appears to be dead in the water on its claim to the air rights above the USRC. If you can substantiate otherwise, please do.

As to what the City intends to do with it is another matter, but clearly from my research, the City has never lost its title. Only the Parliament of Canada can take it away, or a ruling by the SCC on that jurisdiction could.

The Province is only the middleman on the Acts of Parliament that granted the City the Esplanade Corridor a century ago. Whether that's been made clear to ORCA by the Fed's legal representation or by the City's, I don't know. And it seems no-one does, just that ORCA appears to have desisted.

they came to an agreement called the Esplanade or Tripartite Agreement

Grand Trunk Railway Co. v. City of Toronto - SCC Cases (Lexum)

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/9855/index.do

Pg 662:

[...]
The Dominion statute could not give capacity to the City of Toronto. This was done by the Ontario statute. The Dominion statute was necessary to make the scheme agreed topermanent and final until otherwise provided for by Parliament.

Section 1 enacts that

all works done or to be done in order to give effect to the agreement hereinafter mentioned, as well as those affected by it, are hereby declared to be works for the general advantage of Canada.

They cannot, therefore, be considered as private works of railway companies. They are to all intents and purposes federal works remaining under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Dominion Parliament, under section 92, par. 10, of the British North America Act.
[...]

- :
Supreme Court of Canada

Grand Trunk Railway Co. v. City of Toronto, (1910) 42 S.C.R. 613

Date: 1910-02-15

The Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company Appellants;

and

The City of Toronto Respondent.

(Toronto Viaduct Case.)

1909: November 29, 30; 1910: February 15.

 

[ryguy7787]

I was thinking about this earlier from a couple weeks ago reading about Rogers and the Skydome and how potentially something larger is in the works for tr renovations to take place.

What if they get into real estate in Toronto as well by getting the land between Blue Jays Way and John Street whereby they give the city a large chunk of change to get the park going west of the potential residential site?

I wouldn't be opposed to that idea as long as the architecture really stands out for the better in our skyline.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

So the private proponents suddenly go all quiet?

It's my contention that the OMB /LPAT doesn't have the authority to rule on this legal matter, but I digress. I've already posted extensively on it in this and the ORCA string.

My point is that ORCA appears to be dead in the water on its claim to the air rights above the USRC. If you can substantiate otherwise, please do.

As to what the City intends to do with it is another matter, but clearly from my research, the City has never lost its title. Only the Parliament of Canada can take it away, or a ruling by the SCC on that jurisdiction could.

Yeah, you've posted all this before. Maybe you're right about the jurisdiction - I wouldn't know - but in the meantime, both applications are before LPAT and the lack of activity doesn't prove or disprove anything about the air rights, nor that either application is thriving or "dead in the water." I'm not sure what you think ORCA should be doing in the meantime (or how you know they're not doing anything in the meantime).

If I did have substantiation, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you but all I'm saying is the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[steveintoronto]

^ Here's what I posted initially:

Out of interest, I thought I'd check ORCA's website http://www.orcatoronto.com/renderings/news/ to see whether they've 'thrown in the trowel' on the project. Lots are articles pasted and linked there, so many that I thought I'd best slim them down by using my browser's 'page search' for "2018".

One result:
Copyright © 2018 CRAFT Development Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

You'll note they haven't at that page, or anywhere on their website, indicated it going before a tribunal. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the apparent absence of their doing so is striking.

Meantime, albeit just a cursory search, all I can find on the application is this:
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2018/cc/comm/communicationfile-82936.pdf

In lieu of the powers of the Parliament, I find the following fantastical:

Document continues for two more pages...

I'll dig further later.

 

[Allandale25]

Order from the Case Management Conference.

Tweets @PlannerSean here with comments: https://twitter.com/PlannerSean/status/1057785793295478785?s=19

 

[ADRM]

Stantec selected to lead next stage of Toronto’s iconic Rail Deck Park

Stantec has been selected to provide the Technical Consulting and Costing Services to CreateTO for the next stage of planning for Toronto’s iconic Rail Deck Park, an urban oasis in the heart of the city. Stantec’s work will form the basis for the design of the park by integrating transit corridors and transit station construction, while connecting adjacent neighborhoods. The $1.7 billion project is the first of its kind in Canada and represents an exciting and creative solution to the challenges of city-building in the twenty-first century....

https://www.stantec.com/en/about-us...ead-tornoto-rail-deck-park?utm_source=twitter

 

[raptor]

It's funny how they will be working on 'costing', but already know it will be $1.7B.

 

[ADRM]

It's funny how they will be working on 'costing', but already know it will be $1.7B.

...and cute that they continue work on it despite no real plan for finance construction of it (or most other items in the City's $30B capital plan).

 

[raptor]

...and cute that they continue work on it despite no real plan for finance construction of it (or most other items in the City's $30B capital plan).

cute? that's borderline corruption

 

[pstogios]

cute? that's borderline corruption

I’d like to know the value of the Stanec contract, who in the city approved it and what their connections to the company are. For the city to award this contract for a pie-in-the-sky project (granted, it would be transformative if it ever materialized) that has no funding plan attached to it, is indeed pissing away tax payer dollars.

 

[ChesterCopperpot]

It's funny how they will be working on 'costing', but already know it will be $1.7B.

They are just saying what the preliminary reports says that was presented to council - $1.665 billion

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/u...2017-11-24.RDP_.EngineeringCosting.Study_.pdf

 

[steveintoronto]

And what about the pending ORCA case? Just checking now, ORCA's website still up, but nothing new in over a year.

Can't find anything with a cursory Google search. Have the rats left?

 

[Amare]

cute? that's borderline corruption

That's the John Tory way to run the city, add hundreds of projects to the city's list of unfunded but approved capital expenditures forecast and hope one day that money falls from the sky to pay for it all. Nothing corrupt about it, it's just poor financial planning/knowledge.

 

[Jacob Lisgar]

Wasting millions studying a project that is financially impossible while just releasing a budget that has decades and billions of dollars worth of unfunded projects.
Nobody bought a condo downtown with the expectation that the government would build them a 2 billion dollar park. Anyone have any info on the budget for this one? I dont remember seeing any rfp's out for this.

 

[crs1026]

Nobody bought a condo downtown with the expectation that the government would build them a 2 billion dollar park. Anyone have any info on the budget for this one? I dont remember seeing any rfp's out for this.

The original report to Council in Dec 2017 resulted in Council approving

Funding for engineering and technical studies to support design, as well as engagement, legal and real estate consultant costs is partially contained within the Corporate Initiatives Capital project CCI102 Rail Deck Park, approved by Council in October 2016 with total project costs of $2.423 million and cash flows of $78,000 in 2016 and $2.345 million in 2017. Additional approval will be requested as part of the Corporate Initiatives 2018 Capital Budget and Plan submission seeking an additional $6.4 million in total project costs for Rail Deck EA support with cash flows of $2.2 million in 2018, $2.6 million in 2019, and $400 thousand in each of 2020 to 2023.

- Paul