Terms of the New Deal Between Ontario and Toronto

Toronto’s housing supply and homelessness crises have worsened and demand an urgent range of policy and financial actions by the City, Provincial, and Federal Governments across the housing continuum to address the needs of current and future residents of Toronto, the GTHA, and Province who are impacted by the largest city in Canada. Toronto needs to expeditiously streamline and optimize planning approvals and accelerate the delivery of affordable, attainable, and rental housing across the continuum. As density is added, Toronto’s transit and city-enabling infrastructure needs to keep up. The upload of the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway will create significant additional capacity for the City to support building more homes faster in Toronto and across the GTHA.

The City commits to using immediate financial benefits as well as all future financial benefits of the upload (pending Provincial due diligence) to support historic investments in housing and the infrastructure that supports and enables growth such as transit, water and wastewater infrastructure, and local road improvements.

The City and Province commit to highest and best use of their owned lands to meet the goal of building more homes of all kinds faster (inclusive of rental, affordable, and attainable housing).

• Within 6 months identify all properties owned by the City of Toronto and Province and the determination of priority surplus sites to support building more homes of all kinds faster.
• Within 18 months have key projects started.

In recognition of the Province’s and City shared mandate and goals around increasing housing supply:

• The City and Province support each other taking action to initiate and/or catalyze the use of their deemed surplus lands for the purposes of building housing.
• A commitment from the City to work together to align use of surplus land within the City of Toronto to support shared housing priorities.
• A commitment from the City to expedite the development of and provide any additional supports required on 4 provincial sites currently in progress.
• As an immediate step, identification of 5 surplus municipal properties appropriate for the development of attainable modular home ownership, and a commitment to work together to develop one of the sites as an initial demonstration site in partnership with the province by Fall 2024.
• Additional demonstration sites should enable construction of modular housing to commence in 2025.
• Continued cooperation with the City of Toronto to determine the development charge impacts of Bill 23 and explore future opportunities for needed investments to support housing development.

Timing: The Demonstration Site will be identified within 60 days, and potential costs for developing sites, as well as any provincial supports identified.

Maintain commitments to existing agreements unless mutually agreed upon (e.g., funding of SmartTrack program budget).

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)

City agrees to finalize negotiations, including a revised model for funding operations and maintenance, on the Subway Program Agreement-in-Principle within defined timelines and seek City Council approval before June 2024.

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)
  Ontario expects execution of the Subway AIP by June 2024

City commitment to accelerate and streamline City-led approvals to advance planning and construction (e.g.,City permits, licenses, approvals, access agreements, right of way access, access to municipal infrastructure etc.) of provincial priority projects.

City commitment to get traffic moving and meaningfully address and reduce automotive gridlock across the City by working with the Province and Metrolinx to manage construction schedules of infrastructure projects.

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)

City agreement that the ledger on historical transit funding reconciliation exercise is settled and cleared.

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)
  If the City disagrees, then a deadline should be within 60 days after NDT agreement to provide time to resolve

City commitment to advance Ontario’s ‘One Fare’ program (noting the November 22, 2023 TTC Board decision and consistent with the province’s commitment to reimburse 100% of the foregone ridership revenue) and to implement Regional fare and service integration based on provincial direction and City and TTC support for the continued usage of the provincial fare card system beyond expiry of the Metrolinx and TTC Master e-Fare Collection Outsourcing Agreement in 2027. This includes ensuring Toronto is reimbursed for 100% of eligible trips.

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)

Commitment to expeditiously provide Metrolinx and the province with the necessary properties and easements to advance construction of Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE), tunnels, elevated guideway and stations and to support Transit Oriented Communities along the ECWE corridor.

City and Province to commit to zero-dollar ROW easements for priority subway projects, reflecting shared commitment to efficiencies in the delivery of critical transit projects.

• Timing: Immediate — (at time of NDT signing)

East Harbour:

• City to prioritize approvals and finalization of agreements to meet conditions precedent on commercial agreement with the development proponent, lead construction and delivery of the full implementation of the Broadview Eastern Flood Protection project outlined in the Broadview and Eastern Flood Protection Environmental Assessment, and provide its equal share of the total costs of the Flood Protection Project, currently estimated at $200M. Discussions related to cost and development risks associated with environmental conditions, and indemnification for flooding risk are tabled for consideration at East Harbour technical working groups.

• City commits to fully funding the construction and property acquisition for the Broadview Extension north of the rail corridor, and to expeditiously move forward with executing the necessary agreements to deliver the Broadview Extension as part of the East Harbour Transit Hub. Associated costs are currently estimated at $140M to the City.

Woodbine:

• Despite the City’s recently submitted Official Plan Amendments, the City commits to cooperation and collaboration on a proposal for mixed-use TOC at the future Woodbine GO as well as prioritization and expeditious treatment of planning approvals

Discussions related to land use planning around the future Woodbine GO station can be brought forward through upcoming meetings between MMAH and the City on the “Transit Related Official Plan Amendments.”

Housing Target:

A commitment to develop and submit a detailed plan to meet / exceed their annual housing targets: 20,900 in 2023, 23,750 in 2024, and 28,500 in 2025, including details on how the use of surplus lands fits into this.

• Timing: Detailed plans within 60 days.

Work with the Province to identify opportunities for the Ontario Infrastructure Bank to help finance affordable housing.

Improve alignment of incentives to help ensure availability of housing to residents, through tools such as the Vacant Home Tax and the provincial Non-Resident Speculation Tax.

Commitment to evaluate alignment of provincial and City fiscal years.

• Timing: Commitment to align provincial and city fiscal years, subject to evaluation, with introduction of legislation by Spring 2025.

Implementation of EY efficiency proposals such as: procurement, shared services, more digitized service, review of grants/free programs, reduce overtime costs, and development of revenue generation proposals.

City agrees for Metrolinx to proceed with the development of all Metrolinx identified signage locations to support non-fare revenue generation. All revenues will be earmarked to support Metrolinx’s transit operations which benefits in the City of Toronto. The TTC shall continue its non-fare revenue initiatives.

City to prioritize unfunded Capital needs as part of long-term financial plan.

City commit to working with province on shared procurement, where it can benefit from economies of scale. This work will include reviews of shared procurement by agencies, boards, and corporations of the City of Toronto, including Toronto Hydro for the benefit of ratepayers.

The City acknowledges that while city officials have not had sufficient time to complete their review of the Development Application the Province must provide project approvals by December 31, 2023 or it will otherwise be in legal breach and put millions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

The City acknowledges the changes made by the Province and its partners regarding the proposed Ontario Place Rebuilding Project and its associated initiatives, such as:

• Refinements to the planned design of the facility, including reducing its height and overall size, and increasing the amount of free and accessible public realm space.
• The Province agreeing to change its current planned location for parking at the Ontario Place site and work with the City to establish an alternative parking solution at Exhibition Place that will improve public access to the shoreline at Ontario Place and could reduce the overall area needed for parking.
• The Province agreeing to discuss partnership opportunities with the City for maintaining public, community-oriented science programming at the legacy Ontario Science Centre.

The City accepts that the Province has the authority to advance all project approvals and intends to assume ownership of identified City-owned properties necessary to enable site access and servicing for the rebuilding project, and appropriately compensate the City for these lands.