City Council Highlights: Pandemic response, action on climate change, ActiveTO program, addressing housing affordability, fighting Quebec Bill 21

This week, Toronto City Council met for the last time in 2021.?

At this meeting, we made solid progress on a number of fronts, including our pandemic response, action on climate change, expanding the ActiveTO program, addressing housing affordability, fighting Quebec’s Bill 21 and more.

Council approved the extension of the City’s Mandatory Mask bylaw until April 2022.

We introduced the mandatory mask bylaw based on a recommendation from Toronto Public Health to help combat COVID-19. Now as we confront the Omicron variant, we know from public health officials that making sure we are wearing our masks when around others indoors is all that more important.

This is a temporary and necessary response to the pandemic to help save lives and protect people. I want to thank the vast majority of Toronto residents who wear their masks when out in public places to help protect themselves and each other.

Council adopted an ambitious strategy to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions in Toronto to net zero by 2040 – 10 years earlier than initially proposed.

Toronto is one of only three big cities in North America with this 2040 target.

The window for climate action is narrowing and we intend to move forward quickly to ensure we are working towards greener buildings, greener vehicles, a greener transit system, and a cleaner, greener city overall. Achieving net zero by 2040 will ensure we can continue to be a prosperous, liveable, and thriving city.

This week, one of my key items was cutting the red tape that demanded new developments have a minimum amount of parking spaces - these were spaces that people often didn’t want and also added to the cost of the unit.

City Council took real action for a healthier, more sustainable city by adopting these zoning bylaw amendments that will remove most requirements for new developments to provide a minimum number of parking spaces. This decision means that developers will no longer be required to build parking spaces that home buyers don’t want, making it easier for residents who aren’t concerned about parking to purchase a home.

At the same time, limits on the number of parking spaces that can be built will be added. The goal is to build healthy and sustainable communities, this change helps better manage car dependency and strikes a balance between too much and too little parking.

The adapted regulations propel Toronto forward with a real change that will help us meet our Net Zero goals. This amendment will encourage residents to use alternatives to the car such as walking, cycling and taking transit, which lessens traffic congestion for everyone.

City Council approved two reports that ensure safe, separated and connected cycling corridors on a permanent basis across Toronto, as part of ActiveTO. As part of these reports City Council also approved a plan for 100 kilometres of new cycling routes which will be planned and designed for installation over the next three years.

The ActiveTO bike lanes are an important part of Toronto’s rapidly growing cycling network and I am proud that staff are already working to build on these bikeways to add another 100 kilometres of bike infrastructure over the coming years.

City staff have closely monitored the impacts of the new ActiveTO bikeways on each of these corridors and the data shows that where routes have been installed, more people are using them to cycle. Across all seven bikeways, the number of people cycling on the routes has increased by an average of approximately 65 per cent. This increase suggests that the new bikeways encouraged more people to choose cycling more often. Staff also noted an increase in road safety with minimal travel time impacts for people driving along each of the bikeways.?

Making these routes permanent, and making plans to expand the network even further, is the right and responsible thing to do for the people who have come to rely on them as routes to connect them with more opportunities.

Council approved the implementation details of a vacant home tax which will help with the availability and affordability of housing stock in the market by creating a disincentive for homeowners to keep their properties vacant.

While the vast majority of Toronto property owners will not pay this tax because their properties are not vacant, the benefits will be felt across the city by increasing the availability and affordability of housing by creating more room in the housing market.

We are creating policies that help the people who work and live in Toronto. And we have worked to ensure any revenue generated from this change will help us create more affordable housing in our city for even more people.?