Mayor-elect John Tory met with his transition team at Metro Hall today to discuss a number of issues surrounding housing in the city, including a massive repair backlog at Toronto Community Housing buildings.
While speaking to reporters after of the morning meeting, Tory said he plans to create a task force to look at how to improve the “disgraceful and unacceptable condition” of TCHC housing.
Last year, the city approved $2.6 million for a 10-year plan to repair hundreds of aging TCHC buildings but Tory said the problem is that other levels of government have not yet committed to funding the much-needed repairs.
“One of the advantages to the other governments in agreeing to come and be part of this urgent process of repairing Toronto Community Housing is it will be a significant job creation program, a significant skills training program,” Tory said.
Prior to the meeting, Tory also said his team, led by former deputy mayor Case Ootes, would be looking at how to improve the situation with affordable housing in the city.
“We’ve got a city that is very successful and with that success in a market, creates difficulties for some people because the law of supply and demand pushes up the price of housing,” Tory said.
“We have to find some answer to that, that isn’t just shrugging our shoulders and saying, ‘Well that is the marketplace.’”
The discussion is the first of three advisory committee meetings for Tory’s team. Next week, the group will be brainstorming ideas on how to improve traffic congestion and later in the month, they will be tackling Tory’s SmartTrack plan and transit.
In addition the transition team meetings, Tory’s spokesperson Amanda Galbraith said the mayor-elect’s staff has also been discussing housing and transit with members of the premier’s staff.
A story published in The Globe and Mail suggested that during those meetings, Tory and Wynne’s staff discussed the possibility of the province paying for part of the TTC’s operating costs.
Wynne’s office released a statement on Thursday morning saying the claims in the story were incorrect.
“Our government has and will continue to make capital investments to improve Toronto’s transit infrastructure, including investing $416 million in renewal of Toronto's streetcar fleet, $870 million for the Toronto-York Spadina Subway extension, $5.3 billion for the Eglinton Crosstown project, and $1.4 billion for the Bloor-Danforth subway extension to Scarborough,” the statement read.
“We look forward to working with Mayor-Elect Tory and the newly elected Toronto City Council as we implement "Moving Ontario Forward", our plan to build a seamless and integrated transportation network across the province, including investing $15 billion in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.”
Tory told reporters Thursday afternoon that his team never discussed TTC operating costs with Wynne’s staff.
“We have begun to be engaged in a wide variety of discussions about getting more assistance from the other governments with some of the big challenges that face Toronto,” he said.
“But there have been no specific sort of granular discussion of that kind that I have taken part in or that my staff has as of yet.”
