Chrysanthemums -- pink, yellow and white, in green garden pots -- decorated city councillors` desks in the council chamber yesterday, courtesy of the parks department. City greenhouses bulge right now with 1.3-million annuals and perennials that staff are busy planting this month in old and new flower beds across the city.
The cheerful spring flowers hit the right note yesterday, as council unanimously (42-0, three councillors were absent) passed a historic plan to help attract business investment to Toronto.
Saturdays at the Emerald Pastry and Food Shop on Wellington St. are usually bustling with pastry sales and walk-in customers.
But the six-block construction the city is undertaking on that street over the next three months has meant those normally busy days are now dead, said bakery owner Feroza Shamim.
While she understands that when the road is fixed and new light posts are added it will be better for businesses along the street, "right now we are suffering." Shamim wants the city to compensate small business affected by the construction by lowering their taxes during the building period.
For years, Lebreton Flats lay barren of development while three levels of government wrestled with what to do with the prized piece of land.
Since the 1980s, countless studies, continuous public consultations and powerplays among the three levels of government delayed various plans.
Though coveted for its location, the site is laden with contamination that is still costing millions to remove.
Now, decades after the talks first got underway, development has begun. Phase One of the Flats development -- a 124-unit Claridge tower -- is to be finished this fall, with 90% of the units already sold.
Councillors have rejected an attempt to co-ordinate the city`s input on the proposed Niagara-to-GTA Corridor, a 130-kilometre superhighway.
City staff were recommending Hamilton spend $40,000 to create a local stakeholder committee to share information. The members would include the staff, politicians and community members already appointed to the province`s advisory groups.
Preliminary studies of Hamilton`s proposed Airport Employment Growth District say nearly 40 per cent of the study area could be developed for industrial and business park uses, starting as early as 2013.
The industrial development could cover 1,218 hectares of the 3,156-hectare study area, starting with land near the interchange of highways 6 and 403 in Ancaster.
The land would more than meet forecast demand for 907 hectares to accommodate 59,000 new jobs by 2031.
Developers hope to turn one of the city`s largest historic buildings -- the former Lang tannery -- into a thriving people place, with restaurants, digital and multimedia offices and studios, and research space for the life sciences.
Toronto-based Candan Inc. briefed city councillors yesterday on the $30-million project to transform the 100-year-old tannery into a high-profile bastion of the knowledge economy.
The building, bounded by Victoria, Charles, Francis and Joseph streets will be called The Tannery.
The city`s industrial land bank is running on empty again, after two sales were approved by council last night and another sale likely next month.
In total, 4.1 hectares (10.3 acres) of land was sold for two unnamed operations: 3.1 hectares ( 7.9 acres) on Thompson Drive for a 45,000 square foot factory and one hectare (2.4 acres) on Boxwood Drive for an equipment rental and repair facility. Little other information was released about the new companies, at the request of the purchasers.
local Arkell Road housing development in the works
GUELPH
More than half a dozen houses for sale on the north side of Arkell Road are related to a proposed residential development nearby.
"It`s purely a coincidence," city development planner Scott Hannah said yesterday.
The Burke family owns the 44-acre parcel to the rear of the houses, east of the Salvation Army Citadel on Gordon Street. They hope to sell the land to a developer.
AJAX -- The Town is growing, changing, becoming more diversified.
To ensure the needs of newer residents are met, along with the needs of those already here, the Ajax Recreation Services has changed its name and increased its scope.
Recreation and Culture also highlights the activities of the department, director Howie Dayton said. Culture is somewhat new to the department, so staff "need to map it out," he said.
An unexpected $3.7-million surplus has landed in city council`s collective lap, but don`t expect it to result in a tax cut.
Board of control will discuss today how to spend the found money, the result of several projects that were nixed or came in under budget, but one controller calls a reduction of next year`s tax and water rate hike unlikely. "There`s two (wise) choices when we have extra money -- fix infrastructure, pay down your debt," Bud Polhill said yesterday.
More workers in the London area are trading in their work boots to stock shelves and stand behind the counter.
London and its surrounding region appear to have an economy in transition, because for the first time more people are working in retail than in the high-paying manufacturing sector, according to Statistics Canada. In 2007 there were 41,000 working in the retail sector, 6,000 more than in manufacturing which totalled 35,000 workers.
The planner who wrote the city`s heritage guidelines for Port Dalhousie said any construction over three storeys could have a potentially negative effect on the area.
Former consultant David Cuming also told the Ontario Municipal Board hearing that the proposed Port Place development won`t take into account the "Three Ds": displacement, disruption and design.
"I don`t believe it is a comfortable fit or compatible," he said.
Restaurant, condos could finance Toronto Museum at foot of Bathurst, city says
A hotel, condominium and/or an exclusive restaurant could rise on the Canada Malting site just east of the foot of Bathurst Street, as a way to finance a "Toronto Museum" on the waterfront pier.
A new report containing the "mixed use redevelopment proposal" for the two-hectare site goes to the city`s executive committee next Thursday for debate.
Since Ottawa expropriated Canada Malting Co. in 1987, no one has come up with the money or the momentum to reuse the empty industrial complex, now city-owned, the report says. The city hired consultant Historica Research Ltd., who concluded that, "if demolition of the buildings west of the silos will lead to conservation of the landmark elevator complex, partial preservation is better than none."
Imagine you`re among the nearly 450,000 drivers idling on Highway 401 through the Toronto area on a typical weekday, bumper-to-bumper traffic burning a $1.27-a-litre hole in your pocket and the ozone.
Now, fast forward just over a decade, when gridlock and gas prices are expected to make 2008 look like the good old days, and you glance from your car to see a high-speed, electric train stop in the middle of the 401. Hundreds of waiting passengers file aboard, open their papers and laptops and speed off.
OTTAWA–The high price of energy is undercutting the advantages of globalization by raising transportation costs so much that they could force businesses to look closer to home, says a CIBC World Markets report.
"Globalization is reversible," Jeff Rubin, the bank`s chief economist, wrote in the study released yesterday.
"In a world of triple-digit oil prices, distance costs money. And while trade liberalization and technology may have flattened the world, rising transportation prices will once again make it rounder."
The University of Ottawa is spending an extra $37 million over the next year to hire new professors and sweeten scholarships for masters and PhD students in anticipation of growth in its graduate programs.
The extra spending, based on estimated revenues of $725 million, will also be used to renovate the main library, hire additional support staff, boost the number of courses offered in French, and give aging classrooms a facelift.
A new Barrhaven subdivision, which would see urban-like residential densities in suburbia, was endorsed by city council`s planning committee yesterday. The Mattamy Homes project uses several techniques to raise the number of residential units from 24 per hectare, which is typical in suburban areas, to 40 per hectare, which is roughly comparable to an urban area like Old Ottawa South.
Pick any hot summer day, and you`ll find Sparks St. packed with public servants soaking up the warm rays, enjoying their lunch hour or coffee break.
Head back that same evening and the place is almost barren.
Has Ottawa`s only pedestrian mall been an abysmal failure?
No, says Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes, but it`s a cautious response. Truth is there are a number of factors that have hurt the mall. It seems almost everyone involved would be willing to consider opening up Sparks St. to traffic if they could be convinced it would attract shoppers.