As council braces for this week’s stormy debate over the Port Lands, the sleeper question hanging over Councillor Doug Ford’s gambit to accelerate investment by selling off real estate to commercial developers is whether the city has the formal authority to elbow aside Waterfront Toronto
The Toronto Port Lands Company tried to privately convince provincial officials to halt the Lower Donlands environmental assessment process as early as last February, but then quickly backtracked on its objections, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.
In a six-page memo dated Feb. 11, 2011, TPLC chief executive Michael Kraljevic itemizes a lengthy list of objections about Waterfront Toronto's plan to naturalize the mouth of the Don River, claiming the agency's strategy would squander valuable industrial land and docking facilities.
Councillor Doug Ford, who has pressed for sweeping changes to Port Lands development, has proposed that TPLC and Mr. Kraljevic take the lead in accelerating the redevelopment of the derelict industrial area. Mayor Rob Ford's executive committee backed the plan, which goes to council Wednesday.
Addressed to an environment ministry official, Mr. Kraljevic's memo goes on to claim that Waterfront Toronto failed to do its due diligence on the economic impact of its preferred naturalization and development scheme. He also states, without citing references, that Waterfront Toronto's approach will be "prohibitively expensive. There is no realistic prospect of this work being undertaken." The memo does not indicate who authorized the TPLC's review of the EA plan, although Mr. Kraljevic listed himself as a vice-president at BUILD Toronto, whose board includes Councillor Ford.
But in a terse note dated Feb. 22, 2011, and addressed to the same provincial official, Mr. Kraljevic admitted that Waterfront Toronto staff had subsequently addressed all his concerns. "We hereby withdraw our letter."
Despite that earlier concession, almost all of Mr. Kraljevic's criticisms resurfaced in the Aug. 22 staff report that recommends drastic changes to waterfront development and proposes TPLC as the lead agency guiding the process.
That report, which will likely be deferred when it comes up for debate at council Wednesday, failed to mention that Mr. Kraljevic had withdrawn all his objections based on feedback from Waterfront Toronto.
In an interview, Mr. Kraljevic said TPLC sent the memos because the agency felt that Waterfront Toronto was straying from an earlier plan for the Port Lands without fully assessing the cost and the impact on businesses operating in the area. "It's a concern for us in terms of how we deal with our tenants here," he said. TPLC's board subsequently authorized the agency to hire architects Eric Kuhne and Mark Sterling to conduct "a high level visioning exercise."
TPLC's gambit raises significant concerns about how an agency can unilaterally pursue a course of action that seems to be at odds with council policy, according to Cindy Wilkey, a lawyer who has actively participated in Waterfront Toronto's consultation process for several years. "They have been creating mischief right from the get-go," she said. "[Mr. Kraljevic]seems to be acting outside his role and his authority. And I think the City should be very concerned about that."
The EA, now awaiting provincial approval, has been in the works since 2003 and has cost Waterfront Toronto and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority $19-million to date. It proposes to create an estuary for the mouth of the Don that would double as a flood plain, which is required by provincial law before development can proceed in the Port Lands.
In 2006, the city, Waterfront Toronto and the Toronto Economic Development Corp. – the city-owned agency that became the Toronto Port Lands Company and is one of the largest land-owners in the Port Lands – signed a detailed 50-page memorandum of understanding laying out precisely how the city and the agency will interact with Waterfront Toronto. The MOU includes provisions granting Waterfront Toronto access to TPLC property, the ability to re-invest the proceeds of real estate sales in further revitalization efforts, as well as time-frames and a dispute resolution mechanism.
The Aug. 22 staff report proposes a wholesale renegotiation of the MOU, but Waterfront Toronto officials question whether the city has the authority to carry through on that recommendation. "Waterfront Toronto can't unilaterally abdicate its lead role in the Port Lands," said Marisa Piattelli, the agency's vice-president, government relations, citing the legislative and governance framework established by the three levels of government to carry out the $1.5-billion revitalization plan.
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Brooklyn Rebuilds
Toronto's Port Lands revitalization owes a debt to New York's efforts to rehabilitate a long neglected industrial area in Brooklyn on the banks of the East River. Political leaders in the Big Apple provided seed money and land, and then resisted the temptation to meddle in the process once it got started.
The 85-acre network of new parks and mixed-used developments around the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge has been in the works since 1998, when landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh & Associates, the same firm that created the current plan for Don mouth naturalization, created a revitalization master plan.
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. (BBPDC) was given $150-million in start-up funding to kick-start the revitalization process by cleaning up heavily polluted land along the banks of the East River and repairing rotting piers.
By 2005, the City of New York and various state agencies transferred control of waterfront land to the agency, which, as of 2011, has almost completed the job. The surrounding area has seen an influx of new condo loft developments as young families flock to the area because of the parkland.
"I don't know of a waterfront redevelopment done entirely by the private sector," said Jamie Springer, a partner at HR&A Advisors, an influential New York consulting firm that has advised many development agencies, including Waterfront Toronto, on how to unlock land value from derelict waterfront sites.
Prior to joining HR&A, Mr. Springer worked as BBPDC's project manager.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made billions selling financial information before jumping into politics, understood that public agencies shouldn't rush to sell waterfront land, Mr. Springer said.
"He recognized there is a very strong need for investment by the city and patient economic development if these projects were going to work and yield value for the City of New York. And they have."
Special to the Globe and Mail