MY Waterfront Plan Is Making More Sense.....

1) Sell the waterfront property to the private sector and let them develop the land.

2) Build a bridge to the Toronto Island.

3) Turn the island into a National Park with facilities that will allow the downtrodden and weary to have access to the pleasures of Lake Ontario. Possibly move tourist attractions like Riverdale Zoo, Black Creek Pioneer Village, Fort York, etc. to the island freeing up urban sites for more housing.

Plans are grand, but costs are staggering and much work is to be done before shovels can dig in

September 07, 2008

Kenneth Kidd
Feature Writer

As John Campbell sits in his corner office overlooking Queens Quay, the numbers that spring to his lips are all impressively large, from the more than 800 hectares being redeveloped along Toronto's central waterfront to the thousands of jobs created, the condos yet to be built.

But none is more jaw-dropping than the one he throws out next – $30 billion, as in the likely cost of doing all this.

That's more than twice the $12 billion price tag that Robert Fung's task force came up with eight years ago, a mix of public and private sector spending. (Within two years, the estimate jumped to $17 billion.)

As John Campbell sits in his corner office overlooking Queens Quay, the numbers that spring to his lips are all impressively large, from the more than 800 hectares being redeveloped along Toronto's central waterfront to the thousands of jobs created, the condos yet to be built.

But none is more jaw-dropping than the one he throws out next – $30 billion, as in the likely cost of doing all this.

That's more than twice the $12 billion price tag that Robert Fung's task force came up with eight years ago, a mix of public and private sector spending. (Within two years, the estimate jumped to $17 billion.)

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