Where Is The Meat & Potatoes In Miller's Campaign

I live north of St. Clair and really don't care about the waterfront but this seems to be the main plank for Miller and as Hume points out it is just another smoke and mirror campaign.

Mayor’s big waterfront push mostly smoke, not much fire
Oct. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME

At this point in Toronto's history, the mayor may need the waterfront more than the waterfront needs him.

Earlier this week, David Miller announced that if re-elected he will ensure that all the parks of the waterfront revitalization program will be completed by 2010.

Why the rush?

Not that anyone's complaining, but there's more to the waterfront than parks, dragon boat courses, and bike trails.

Eventually, the 810 hectares that were the harbourlands will be a mixed-use community of 100,000 people. It will include recreational, retail and office space.

The one project of the bunch actually organized by the city, HtO, the urban beach at Maple Leaf Quay, is nearly two years behind schedule, delayed by seemingly endless regulatory hurdles. Still, when it opens next April or May, the $9.6 million facility will be spectacular.

However, the truth is that the bulk of the money for the parks — maybe three-quarters — is coming from the federal government. In other words, though the mayor's support is important, it's hardly crucial.

Miller's impatience to get things going is commendable, but one would have felt much more enthusiastic if he had also talked about his commitment to building a showcase community to lead Toronto into the 21st century.

How much more exciting it would have been if, along with his desire to finish public space, he had also mentioned the Gardiner Expressway.

Has he forgotten that back in 2001, when the three levels of government created the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp., dismantling the Gardiner was considered "fundamental" to waterfront regeneration?

The idea was that for revitalization to occur, the waterfront had to be reconnected to the city. That couldn't happen, the argument went, without removing the barrier that is the elevated highway.

Miller has refused to make this cause his own; dismantling the Gardiner, he explains, is not a priority, and besides, we can't afford it.

Wrong on both counts. If waterfront revitalization is important — in fact, it's critical — so is taking down the expressway.

And, yes, we can afford it. The answer is road tolls, which Miller has said are not the "Canadian way," and tax increment financing, which he admits could work.

However, both these steps would require a leader less concerned with being popular than doing the right thing.

Though green space is absolutely crucial, one of the most important projects on the waterfront right now is the West Don Lands, where construction was to have started this fall.

This could be a model community, the kind of place that Toronto needs to build to prove to itself and the world that there's more to us than bad condos.

West Don Lands is vital to the future of the waterfront and the city. So are the first projects that get constructed on the site; get them wrong and the future of the waterfront will be compromised. As it stands, construction is due to start next fall; the first phase will include 600 residential units, 120 of them affordable.

That's why Miller should be talking about his plans to ensure the West Don Lands has a district heating system in place, that it has an underground garbage collection and recycling system, how it will be energy self-sufficient, transit oriented and car-free, how the buildings will incorporate solar collectors, photovoltaics and other green building techniques.

He should be telling us that it will be an environmental exemplar as well as architectural standout.

The green spaces, including Lake Ontario Park, which extends along the outer harbour from Cherry Beach to Ashbridge's Bay, and Don River Park, where the river curves west near King. St., are already well underway.

The engineering for the latter began this year and the design work, by Michael van Valkenberg of New York, has been presented publicly on several occasions.

Meanwhile, landscape architect James Corner is now working on his design for Lake Ontario Park, which has the potential to become one of the most spectacular urban spaces in Canada, let alone Toronto.

Ironically, the dragon boat course, which Miller mentioned in his platform launch, has been dismissed as inadequate, and the soccer stadium at Exhibition Place has all the makings of a white elephant. As for the film studio of which Miller is so proud, it has no place on the waterfront.

When Miller got himself appointed to the waterfront revitalization board last year, his logic was that the mayor's presence was necessary to keep the process moving along.

Though he got off to a slow start, he has expressed his enthusiasm at every opportunity. Nothing in his campaign statement is at odds with the timing of the TWRC business plan; given that it's likely to be around much longer than any mayor, that's just as well.