Blustery winter weather cooled Toronto`s resale housing market in the first three months of the year, but pockets such as Old Mill and Trinity Bellwoods stayed sheltered in their own hothouse micro-climates.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of Toronto saw more tepid price increases or — in some cases — outright declines.
Across the Greater Toronto Area, the average price increased 4.5 per cent to $379,006 in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year, according to data from the Toronto Real Estate Board.
When Frances Fitzgerald and Sean Deasy searched for their first home in the up-and-coming Leslieville neighbourhood five years ago, they were not aware that properties were often priced below market value to attract a large group of potential buyers.
It was a lesson they learned the hard way when they were shut out of four multiple-offer situations.
"We`d get all excited about a house and make an offer, only to realize that it went for anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 above asking," Ms. Fitzgerald says. "With every bidding war that we lost, our house budget went up."
Gasoline prices in North America will soar over the next four years to $2.25 a litre, causing a massive jolt to the continent`s manufacturing base not seen since the oil shocks of the 1970s, a leading economist is warning.
Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist and strategist with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, forecasts in a new report titled The Age of Scarcity that Canadians and Americans should brace for $2.25-a-litre gasoline, or about $7 a gallon, by 2012. That`s nearly double the current nationwide average price for regular unleaded gas of $1.23. The price will top a record $1.40 this summer as it starts its climb, Mr. Rubin said.
Toronto has more bike lanes than Montreal and Vancouver, but is significantly behind them when the physical sizes of the three cities are taken into account, states a study to be released today at an international cycling conference.
The report, prepared by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, also says Toronto lags behind London and New York when it comes to per capita spending on bike lanes.
"It`s slow because it hasn`t been a priority at city council," TCAT spokesperson Fred Sztabinski said yesterday. "We`re not seeing a lot of leadership from the top."
Nobody has to remind David Caplan that the province is falling apart. As Ontario`s minister of public infrastructure renewal, he can cite chapter and verse on the decline of those things most of us take for granted – roads, bridges, sewers, transit, the whole invisible paraphernalia that makes modern life possible.
At some point in the last two or three decades, the infrastructure ceased to be sexy. Though for more than a century it was thought of as nation building, especially here in Canada, since the 1970s it has simply dropped off the agenda.
The Ottawa Hospital`s Civic campus may soon be transformed into a specialized facility that could treat patients from across Eastern Ontario over the better part of a century. And it all begins with moving to the suburbs.
Area health officials have made preliminary plans to relocate the Civic campus from its current cramped home on Carling Avenue to a corner of the Greenbelt at Hunt Club Road and Woodroffe Avenue.
When Jinan Zaki arrived in Hamilton with her husband early this month, they didn`t know where to shop or how to get a health card.
The Iraqi family from Jordan got a head start on those things and more at the St. Joseph`s Immigrant Women`s Centre on Fennell Avenue East at Upper Ottawa Street and other immigrant centres such as Settlement and Immigration Services Organization.
Waterford continues to undergo changes as it loses jobs while its commercial landscape gets modernized.
The latest store to come to town is something called The Country Depot, the seventh in a local chain that combines farm supply with household items such as pet food, rakes and shovels.
It is expected to open in early June in a 2,000-square-foot space behind the gas bar next to the town`s plaza.
The store, now undergoing renovations, will employ three people to start.
It marks another addition to the town`s list of new businesses. A Tim Hortons is planned to open as well.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing held a meeting last night in Barrie to discuss expanding the 1.8-million-acre Greenbelt, an environmentally protected area that stretches around Lake Ontario and creeps north toward Lake Simcoe.
The fertile, 15,000-acre Holland Marsh, part of which is located in Bradford-West Gwillimbury, falls within the Greenbelt, but Mayor Doug White said it`s premature to be talking about extending the Greenbelt, created in 2005.
Agents debate whether city got a fair deal on Goodrich
KITCHENER
A local real estate agent says the city paid too much for a large chunk of the former BF Goodrich site.
"They over-paid for that property, by $5 million to $7 million, in my opinion," said Grant Kuhn, who read recently posted information about the purchase on the city`s website.
But John Whitney, another real estate professional who has gone public with his views, defends Kitchener`s move to pay $20.6 million for 45 acres off Goodrich Drive.
Waterloo Region could be on the verge of the auto industry`s next wave, says the region`s top economic development official.
At an automotive innovation presentation at Bingemans yesterday, John Tennant, chief executive of Canada`s Technology Triangle, said that German company Thomas Magnete`s new automotive controls plant in Cambridge is a sign of good things to come. "It illustrates how companies with the right technology and the right relationships can be in growth mode."
Thomas Magnete plans to produce automotive controls for Chrysler`s new V6 transmission project. The new transmission is the automaker`s attempt to make its newer engines as much as 15 per cent more fuel-efficient.
UXBRIDGE -- Entrepreneurs wanting to set up shop in an Uxbridge heritage building can apply to do so in the near future. Ingrid Svelnis, chief administrative officer, said during a committee meeting April 21 a tendering process (request for proposal) relating to the Uxbridge train station at Spruce and Railway streets will open in as early as two weeks.
Tensions spilled over yesterday during the latest county council discussion about a contentious municipal drain project.
"Puslinch council is very upset with the way this was handled," Puslinch Township Mayor Brad Whitcombe said. "I hope we can continue to be a good contributing member of the (upper-tier) municipality.
"I hope it ends here and we can go on being friends."
A strike brought Canada`s largest transit system grinding to a halt Friday night as Toronto`s bus and subway workers walked off the job after rejecting a tentative contract agreement.
But Toronto Mayor David Miller quickly suggested the strike by 9,000 transit workers wouldn`t last long -vowing that the provincial government would introduce back-to-work legislation.
Next month, a heavyweight team of urban development gurus will tell the Toronto District School Board what can be done with 99 properties it owns, but does not use.
With former mayor David Crombie at the helm, the Toronto Lands Corporation has been asked by the cash-strapped board to make sure it is making the most of its inventory of buildings.
Some 2 million Ontario condo owners and apartment renters will soon be able to make the leap into green energy as Bullfrog Power expands its reach.
"We are now making Bullfrog Power available to all renters and condo owners across Ontario," says Bullfrog president Tom Heintzman. "More and more people are starting to measure their environmental impact, and electricity is an element of that."
It`s not uncommon for an elderly parent to transfer real estate or other assets into joint names with his or her adult children. When this happens, does the law presume that the transfer is a gift, or does the child merely hold the asset in trust for the parent? Those were the questions which arose in the case of Pecore v. Pecore, which was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada last year.
In 1993, Edwin Hughes was advised that his $1 million estate could save significant probate fees on his death if he transferred ownership into the joint names of himself and his daughter Paula Pecore.
The City of Toronto plans to pay its citizens to go green.
Starting next month, staff with the Live Green Toronto program – which will receive $20 million in city funding over five years – will begin meeting with residents to discuss carbon-saving projects it will help subsidize.
