Councillor Adam Vaughan and the City of Toronto Planning Division invite you to a Community Consultation Meeting
 
The King/Spadina area, east of Spadina Avenue has recently received two applications for zoning amendments that exceed the area height permissions.  Two additional proposed developments have recently been revised from the originally presented concepts.   
 
In order to give community members the opportunity to voice their views, a Community Consultation meeting has been scheduled in consultation with Councillor Adam Vaughan to:
 
- provide information regarding the two new proposed developments; and
- review recently revised applications.  
 
Upcoming Meeting Date, Location and Time:  
 
January 20, 2009
Metro Hall, 55 John Street
Room 310
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.     
 
Purpose of the Meeting:
 
The meeting will provide an opportunity for the community to have input on the proposed developments listed below, view the plans and ask questions.  
 
Proposed developments:
 
- 21-23 Widmer Street
Proposal:  44 storey mixed-use building with 445 dwelling units & 4 levels of underground parking, a portion of which would be used as commercial parking garage.
 
- 181, 199, 203 Richmond St. W., 10 Nelson Street and a portion of a public lane
Proposal:  47-storey mixed use building comprised of two point towers, having 791 residential dwelling units with non-residential floor area at grade.
 
- 352 Front Street West
Proposal: 24 storey mixed use building, comprised of 396 dwelling units and retail uses at grade.
 
- 56 Blue Jays Way
Proposal: 41 storey building (the recently approved By-law 1067-2007 permits an 18 storey building on the lands), comprised of 264 residential dwelling units, 127 hotel suites and restaurant and café uses at grade.
 
If you cannot attend these meetings, you can still make your views known by sending a fax to (416) 392-1330 - or by writing to Raymond David, Director, Community Planning, Toronto and East York District, City Planning Division, 100 Queen St W Floor 18 E Toronto On, M5H  2N.
 
If you would like further information about these proposals, please contact Philip Carvalino, Senior Planner, at 416-392-7574.
 
You may also contact Councillor Adam Vaughan, Ward 20, at (416) 392-4044 or Councillor_Vaughan@toronto.ca.
 
Attendant Care Services can be made available with some advance notice.
 
 
Councillor Adam Vaughan
Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina
416-392-4044
www.adamvaughan.ca <http://www.adamvaughan.ca/>

Monday June 30 2008 - 17:08 hrs

At some point while working on a big story, you might find yourself in a situation akin to that of a latter day Columbus, discovering the New World.

And when the locals point out that the new world had always been there, or when they suggest that it strains credulity that that plain facts could have been invisible to even the simplest fool, your best move is to stop talking and walk away.

But when a source essentially tells you that the root of all the activity you have been examining is right under your lens, only you’ve been too blind to see it, then you can’t walk away.  You have to make immediate plans for how you are going to cover that part of the story that you have been missing to date.

Because the facts don’t always just sit still and wait for you to take a photograph. The facts don’t wait for you to find a blank release form for them to read, and a pen for them to sign it with.  The facts tell you how it’s is, and how it’s going to be.  And only a fool ignores the facts.

I am discovering that the best thing an investigative reporter can do, is ask questions of the right people.  In this way, the facts may be uncovered from amongst the weeds of rumour and the mulch of decaying memories.

redacted proves his worth in gold today when he tells me that the developers who are building the Portland Street RIO*CAN project, are billeted in the Burroughs Building, which is located just across from his bedroom window.

I’d been inside the Burroughs Building before, when I crashed the meeting for property owners that had been convened by Councillor Adam Vaughan, following the fire.

I remembered how many familiar faces had been in the room, from the local business community.

I remembered how there had been a phalanx of uniformed senior brass from the Toronto Police Service, and the Fire Department, and elsewhere.  These men had clustered near the recessed door, and when I loudly asked if recording devices were permitted, the shortest one, closest to me had said in a friendly but firm voice, no.  Then he offered that he didn’t know who had let the press in here.

And the press had been there, a phalanx clustered at the back of the room, but not so far back as the senior uniforms.  They had better tripods than I knew about, and more impressive cameras that they were already using to shoot videotape.  But at the time I was certainly being investigated in connection with a major fire, which was the subject of this very meeting.  

And so I had decided not to videotape inside the Burroughs Building.

But now here was a veritable challenge to invade the Burroughs Building, because people inside the Burroughs Building were invading us, and had posted the location of their outpost, on a giant sign for all to see.
 

Sunday June 30 23:28 hrs

Det. Chaisson never called back.

And the time came when I found myself staring into the bowels of the City of Toronto’s government, which had its eye fixed on me.
 
The City had commissioned a study of what they called the Queen West Corridor, to “ better understand the elements that give it its heritage character.”  During the course of the study, someone had taken a photograph of my former landlord’s business, and stuck it in this pictorial description of the plan, and its beneficiaries.

And now I was planning to attend a meeting of the Planning and Growth Management Committee of the Toronto City Council, and I needed to know what they knew.  And I had downloaded the PDFs detailing the various aspects of the study that had been commissioned and executed by the Planning and Growth Management Committee.

My new friend Councillor Adam Vaughan was on this Committee.  But the meeting began at 09:00hrs. 

Nothing good could come out of a meeting held at that hour.

At around this point I encountered the consultants who had helped the City of Toronto draft its Official Plan.  One of these consultants was called the Office For Urbanism.

On their website, I was able to see a cheesy corporate video that described one of their sample projects, which was a visioning process for bringing the City of Mississauga into the 21st century.

The video fairly gushed over how the City of Mississauga would be remade into a greener, more inclusive world leading city. 

The Office For Urbanism had a frightening array of services they provided listed on their website.  But something about the slick video failed to engender a sense of trust in the kind of work they did. 

And so I closed their web page and moved on.

 

Tuesday May 13, 2008 18:27 hrs

There are several important new pieces of information in the mix.

As usual, the sources of the information matter. The motives of the people supplying the information matter. As usual, the pertinence to the facts matter.

Now is not the time for censoring ideas. Nor is it the time to avoid pejorative thinking. Now is the time for cold beady eyed analysis.

A sober consideration of the circumstances surrounding the fire would have to include consideration of the possibility that the fire may have started by accident. By accident we mean that the fire may have started without any deliberate acts having been undertaken by any individuals currently known or unknown.

Next, is the possibility that the fire started as a result of negligence.

In this case the fire is assumed to be the result of acts taken or not taken, that would have prevented the outbreak of the fire.

The most sinister branch of this line of reasoning would posit that the fire began as a result of deliberate acts undertaken by individuals known or unknown. That is, the fire may have started as the result of an act of arson.

The standard saws of motive, means and opportunity do apply here.

No serious observers would consider this line of reasoning without a clear path of logic showing how the perpetrator of the arson would have had the motive, the means, and the opportunity.

All the necessary elements are not present to draw conclusions.

But scenarios that were previously improbable can now be shown to be in fact, quite probable.

Specifically, Adam Vaughan alluded to a certain  redacted who had been redacted the other redacted, while redacted that redacted

redacted statements open the possibility that this individual was not in fact redacted, but rather the redacted, by proxy, of redacted Queen Street West.

This would explain the oddity of redacted, who when redacted, did not know that the building had burned down.

If the putative tenant is actually redacted the property, then that would give him or her a motive for burning down the building. That motive is insurance money.

Further in this line of reasoning, if no one could easily prove redacted, the redacted could easily be seen to have an airtight alibi against accusations that he or she profited from the fire.

On the subject of the subject's means of starting the fire, one must consider redacted, and his alleged training redacted.

Did the subject have the knowledge to construct redacted device? It's hard to see how not.

As for opportunity, the subject had all the time in the world to redacted catastrophe. And catastrophe did come. On 20 February 2008, a fire destroyed 7 buildings, including one housing thousands of dollars of my equipment.