Does Toronto actually have a plan?

Toronto's housing plan includes

Toronto has been implementing zoning changes to increase housing density and create more diverse housing options, particularly along major streets and in low-rise neighborhoods. These changes include permitting multiplexes (2-5 unit buildings) in all residential areas and allowing for more townhouses and small-scale apartment buildings on major streets. Additionally, the city is exploring ways to incentivize developers to build more affordable housing, including through inclusionary.

If this includes suburbia I wonder if they will think past the ends of their noses.

If someone converts a bungalow into a triplex, where are they going to park the cars? I don't know if Chow, the mayor of downtown Toronto knows we don't have as much public transit in the burbs. They don't run 24 hours a day, affecting shift workers. The main routes are spokes to downtown making it time consuming to go from one suburb to another suburb. Some enterprising souls might have extra gigs to get ahead and transit times could make it unproductive.

Street parking will create traffic jams as the streets are typically 30 feet wide. Cars parked both sides makes a two way into a one way.
 
nobbie48 said:
Toronto's housing plan includes

Toronto has been implementing zoning changes to increase housing density and create more diverse housing options, particularly along major streets and in low-rise neighborhoods. These changes include permitting multiplexes (2-5 unit buildings) in all residential areas and allowing for more townhouses and small-scale apartment buildings on major streets. Additionally, the city is exploring ways to incentivize developers to build more affordable housing, including through inclusionary.

If this includes suburbia I wonder if they will think past the ends of their noses.

If someone converts a bungalow into a triplex, where are they going to park the cars? I don't know if Chow, the mayor of downtown Toronto knows we don't have as much public transit in the burbs. They don't run 24 hours a day, affecting shift workers. The main routes are spokes to downtown making it time consuming to go from one suburb to another suburb. Some enterprising souls might have extra gigs to get ahead and transit times could make it unproductive.

Street parking will create traffic jams as the streets are typically 30 feet wide. Cars parked both sides makes a two way into a one way.
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Most of the 3/4 plex rebuilds don't have a parking spot for every unit. In the rare case they do have parking, it's because they turned the rear yard into a parking lot. Each unit gets a balcony. First floor is often smaller footprint to allow driveway to get to rear yard. I'm not sure what the city is requiring for drainage if you want to hardscape your whole lot. They spend a bunch of their time going after seniors that install astroturf to ease maintenance (which percolates water just as well as grass).
 
GreyGhost said:
Most of the 3/4 plex rebuilds don't have a parking spot for every unit. In the rare case they do have parking, it's because they turned the rear yard into a parking lot. Each unit gets a balcony. First floor is often smaller footprint to allow driveway to get to rear yard. I'm not sure what the city is requiring for drainage if you want to hardscape your whole lot. They spend a bunch of their time going after seniors that install astroturf to ease maintenance (which percolates water just as well as grass).
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So how do the suburbanites get to work or go shopping without a car? Public transit sucks even if it exists.

Corner stores are no longer being built. Instead, miles away, they build a mall or bunch of big box stores.
 
nobbie48 said:
So how do the suburbanites get to work or go shopping without a car? Public transit sucks even if it exists.

Corner stores are no longer being built. Instead, miles away, they build a mall or bunch of big box stores.
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Ebikes? Most have a bike rack to offer your expensive rides up for the thieves.
 
Annnnnd the city of Toronto still doesn't have a plan for replacing broken water meters. So we are left with estimated rates. And they have the balls to approve a rate increase?!? WTF.
 
sburns said:
Annnnnd the city of Toronto still doesn't have a plan for replacing broken water meters. So we are left with estimated rates. And they have the balls to approve a rate increase?!? WTF.
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"Estimate" equals lots of sprinkler time.
 
GreyGhost said:
"Estimate" equals lots of sprinkler time.
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Except the meters work the remote reading doesn't. So that will just end up as a huge bill once the meter is read!

In general, this is my concern for many. This goes on and on, and then years from now people are getting a four maybe even five figure bill once the meter is read because they had no idea about some running toilet in the basement, leaking faucet etc.

I tried their self reading/reporting portal a while back and it kept crashing...
 
backmarkerducati said:
I tried their self reading/reporting portal a while back and it kept crashing...
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I didn't know they had this, I tried looking for something on the bill, or the CoT website where the notice of the meter reading problem, but noting. Might check again.

Probably just as bad as thier eBill sign up, I'm still getting paper even when I signed up for electronic...
 
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sburns said:
I didn't know they had this, I tried looking for something on the bill, or the CoT website where the notice of the meter reading problem, but noting. Might check again.

Probably just as bad as thier eBill sign up, I'm still getting paper even when I signed up for electronic...
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I can't find the link now... but it says you can submit it via 311.
 
backmarkerducati said:
Except the meters work the remote reading doesn't. So that will just end up as a huge bill once the meter is read!

In general, this is my concern for many. This goes on and on, and then years from now people are getting a four maybe even five figure bill once the meter is read because they had no idea about some running toilet in the basement, leaking faucet etc.

I tried their self reading/reporting portal a while back and it kept crashing...
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The Mrs noticed an increase in the water bill and we tracked it back to a slightly leaking toilet. Shutting the valve at night showed on the meter as there were no other uses.

Water was a common expense at my industrial condo and was out of line. An inspection found several toilets running almost steady and one place was filling a tanker truck at night to do mobile truck washes. Ouch
 
sburns said:
And to no surprise

A lot more heads should have rolled years ago but here we are with still nothing to show for. This kind of gov accountability makes CP look profitable.
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That doesnt surprise me either. Those trains have probably been sitting for ages waiting for a track to run on. Same thing will happen with the Mississauga line that has no completion date. Those trains are already sitting in Brampton, no idea for how long, noticed them a few weeks ago.
 
hdsomeday said:
That doesnt surprise me either. Those trains have probably been sitting for ages waiting for a track to run on. Same thing will happen with the Mississauga line that has no completion date. Those trains are already sitting in Brampton, no idea for how long, noticed them a few weeks ago.
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Yeah I read someplace the trains are already 10 years old. Still all seems crazy to me
 
PSA - Here is how you submit your water meter reading for Toronto.

www.toronto.ca

Utility Account Lookup

MyToronto Pay is no longer in service. Sign in below to access your account and set up pre-authorized payments. If you received a mailed notice asking you to submit an actual reading of your water meter, you can do so in the Utility Account Lookup. If the account number on your mailed notice...
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

You have to look up your account, then you have access to the meter reading submission.

I'm not sure why they don't implement an Account type user thing, like a CoT Account, which you can log into and see the bills you have etc. All in one place. Now I have to lookup Utility and Property taxes separately. At least I can receive them electronically, some progress.....
 
sburns said:
PSA - Here is how you submit your water meter reading for Toronto.

www.toronto.ca

Utility Account Lookup

MyToronto Pay is no longer in service. Sign in below to access your account and set up pre-authorized payments. If you received a mailed notice asking you to submit an actual reading of your water meter, you can do so in the Utility Account Lookup. If the account number on your mailed notice...
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

You have to look up your account, then you have access to the meter reading submission.

I'm not sure why they don't implement an Account type user thing, like a CoT Account, which you can log into and see the bills you have etc. All in one place. Now I have to lookup Utility and Property taxes separately. At least I can receive them electronically, some progress.....
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I've never bothered to submit a water reading (I don't even know if I can). They manually read and bill every three months so I don't see any point in this situation.

My municipality has one login where you can see water and tax. Until last year, they would send an email stating that the water bill would appear online in three days. Wtf. If you checked the day you got the email, it wasn't there. There was no additional email until you were a month late. Thankfully, they have finally fixed that stupidity. When email comes, you can get bill and setup payment without having to revisit it. Tax bills don't show up online, only physical mail. If you have overdue tax, the balance shows up online. There is still work for them to do to make the system make sense and be fully functional.
 
GreyGhost said:
I've never bothered to submit a water reading (I don't even know if I can). They manually read and bill every three months so I don't see any point in this situation.

My municipality has one login where you can see water and tax. Until last year, they would send an email stating that the water bill would appear online in three days. Wtf. If you checked the day you got the email, it wasn't there. There was no additional email until you were a month late. Thankfully, they have finally fixed that stupidity. When email comes, you can get bill and setup payment without having to revisit it. Tax bills don't show up online, only physical mail. If you have overdue tax, the balance shows up online. There is still work for them to do to make the system make sense and be fully functional.
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Toronto's automatic water meter submission is broken, with no fix planned, so we either get an estimate or submit ourselves.

With it being 2025 I do not understand the antiquated methods of slowly implementing what should be a straightforward system of information. Even if they have some antiquated backend, there is plenty of tools to convert, process, and translate the data.
And they want more taxes from us - F - that.
 
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