Dear Mr. Mayor,

I am pleased to bring forward the report you requested on your draft agenda for 2016. This is a good year to tackle challenging issues since even as 2016 draws to a close there will be two full years before the next election. This provides good room to smooth out any wrinkles that may arise in bringing these issues forward.

Of course before these initiatives are made public, we need to hold private conversations with those holding a special interest in them. I know we usually try to ensure this occurs with emerging issues, but it is even more important on our own initiatives, particularly since these matters were not ones we raised during the 2014 election campaign.

New revenue is at the top of the agenda. Everyone is aware of the tight constraints the city faces in the 2016 budget if we are to live within the general promise of not raising property taxes beyond the rate of inflation. But there was generally a good reaction to your idea of creating the City Building Fund by raising property taxes an extra half a per cent each year and devoting the money raised ($20 million a year?) to capital items such as housing and transit. Raising new revenue is not the bugaboo many expected.

Yet the city needs substantial new funds, much more than what the fund can generate, to meet operating and capital ambitions. Direct access by the city to a goods and services tax is something supported by the Toronto Board of Trade, and I believe that indicates a much wider acceptance of this new revenue tool. A one per cent increase in HST would generate some $4 billion a year for the city. 

I believe Premier Wynne would support legislation giving the city the ability to levy such a tax and that Prime Minister Trudeau would help. You should first meet with the premier and the PM to secure these undertakings.

This new revenue source would not be available in time for council’s 2016 budget this spring, but if the province expedites legislation, it may be available by mid-year and a secondary budget could be presented to council. In that way, a portion of the expected revenue might be collected in 2016 — say $1 billion — to assist the city this year, and the new revenue source would be available for the full 2017, providing great flexibility to you and to council.

Second on the agenda is enabling the construction of new affordable housing. Much energy has been devoted to finding funds to resolve the poor state of repair of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) units, and the new revenue source will allow this to be addressed directly. But new units of affordable housing are urgently required.

Mr. Trudeau promised a program for this purpose, and the city should make good use of this opportunity. The city already owns substantial parcels of land where new affordable housing can be built. Within TCHC’s portfolio are more than 100 public housing projects. Most can be redeveloped to make these projects more pleasant, while  adding many new units, half of which could be offered at rent-geared–to-income rates, half at market rates. At least 5,000 new affordable units can be provided in this way on city-owned land. Improving these projects in this way will be attractive to existing residents as well as neighbouring residents.

For a modest sum — say $10,000 each — architects can be asked to prepare sketch plans of what is possible on 10 or 15 of these projects in a short time frame. These are not large sites, such as Regent Park or Lawrence Heights, which take many years to develop. They are small, and development can happen quickly.

I considered several other initiatives that civic leaders have raised for this agenda, such as enacting a holding bylaw to restrain additional condominium development downtown while a new plan is put in place, and restructuring Toronto City Council. The former would offend the development industry, the latter will only cause confusion. Accordingly, both should be avoided.

The two initiatives proposed are significant enough. With the emergence of the usual array of unexpected matters, they will use our full energies, yet provide us with a Happy New Year.

Respectfully submitted, Your senior policy advisor.