When Jennifer Keesmaat was Toronto’s planning boss under Mayor John Tory, she praised his willingness to “tolerate a chief planner who didn’t fit in a box.”
Tory has been less patient with Keesmaat during the recent Toronto mayors race as the two acknowledged frontrunners have sparred on affordable housing, transit, building approvals, planning coherence and most other topics.
Keesmaat was Toronto’s chief planner from 2012 to 2017 and on her resignation last year became CEO of Creative Housing Society. Tory, former CEO of Rogers Media and former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, was elected to his first term as mayor in 2014.
The other 33 challengers on the ballot have registered in the low single digits in polling, with only transit activist Sarah Climenhaga and human rights lawyer Saron Gebresellassi earning multiple invitations to campaign debates.
The City of Toronto will be holding the election with a new 25-ward council system on Oct. 22.
Keesmaat laid out an “action plan” for her first 100 days in office on Oct. 13, citing fast-tracking the relief line subway, tearing down the east Gardiner Expressway, launching construction of 100,000 rental homes and helping young people earn housing equity through a rent-to-own program among her priorities. She has promised to “unlock” city lands and make affordable housing the core mandate of CreateTO.
My platform is all about getting building done. It is about unlocking city-owned land
— Jennifer Keesmaat
Toronto Mayoral Candidate
Tory has his own affordable housing plan, pledging to get at least 40,000 new affordable units built over the next 12 years. He has noted the city has freed 18 parcels of land for affordable housing in his term.
The two leading candidates pointed fingers at one another during the late-campaign Toronto Board of Trade debate on who was most responsible for delays in getting new housing built.
“The roadblocks were in your department. You called yourself the chief planner, that’s what you were,” Tory said.
“The buck stops with you, Mr. Tory,” Keesmaat responded.
Tory said the city under his leadership has initiated a process to speed up development approvals.
“After a lot of foot dragging, the planning department began an end-to-end review of its own processes,” he explained. “We don’t have to diminish our standards or sacrifice anything, but it is not acceptable that we take in many cases twice as long as other cities to approve projects.”
Keesmaat said in an interview, “My platform is all about getting building done. It is about unlocking city-owned land. What’s been happening under Mr. Tory, we have been trickling out city-owned land here and there, but my plan is about shifting into high gear and delivering a significant amount of new housing in the city.
“All it takes is political leadership to deliver a very different kind of development environment in this city.”
Climenhaga addressed the approvals issue during the Board of Trade debate, arguing staff can’t be blamed for red tape.
“We could create an immense amount of housing if we just had minor changes to our zoning and had buy-in from our council and that can be done by the mayor. The zoning changes can happen without sky-rise towers.”
On transit, Tory has pointed to costed and approved plans such as the $1.46 billion Smart Track plan to work with Metrolinx for six new Toronto stations to be integrated into the regional GO system. During the Board of Trade debate, Tory said he has obtained commitments from all levels of government for $9 billion for a broad transit plan that would include the downtown relief line.
What Keesmaat is proposing, to change a line here and shuffle some money there and move that project here, is going to cost us years of additional delays.
— John Tory
Toronto Mayor
“We have a plan,” he said, “drawn up by city staff with her (Keesmaat’s) help and then city council.
“Now we are into the hard part which is actually doing it. And every one of the projects covered by that plan is presently underway. The relief line, there is more work done, more money invested than under any previous mayor in the history of the city.”
Besides an expedited relief line, Keesmaat’s transit plan includes integration of transit into the GO RER system, “not a SmartTrack smokescreen,” she has said. Her plan for the eastern Gardiner Expressway would cost half of Tory’s $1-billion plan, said her website.
“By choosing a beautiful boulevard over an elevated expressway, in addition to saving half a billion dollars, we are making a choice that provides better outcomes for the city in terms of waterfront revitalization, real estate and economic development potential, air quality, noise and sustainability,” the statement said.
Tory has said, “What Keesmaat is proposing, to change a line here and shuffle some money there and move that project here, is going to cost us years of additional delays. We can’t afford that.”
Keesmaat said Tory’s transit plan lacks coherence, with projects disconnected.
“My transit plan is advancing a whole bunch of projects at once,” she said.
“And what we are going to need, this is really critical for the construction industry, it is really critical for skilled labour, there is a ton of work that needs to get done and we need to be building up our capacity so we can deliver.”
Gebresellassi has said Toronto needs new thinking across the board to address the city’s core needs.
“The right to housing is our future, the right to transit is our future, the right to employment is our future, and two rich politicians will not deliver,” she commented.
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