A week before council votes on the Ford brothers’ contentious vision for Toronto’s dormant Port Lands, one member of the mayor’s once-loyal executive committee is breaking ranks.Jaye Robinson, rookie councillor for Don Valley West, said the Ford-endorsed plan to build a mega-mall and Ferris wheel on 180 hectares at the mouth of the Don River is “too light” for her to back.
“I can’t support this plan,” she told The Globe and Mail. “The lack of consultation, the lack of a business plan, it’s a concern.”
Her rejection of the Fords’ port plan came the same day a poll was released showing plummeting support for the mayor, and follows a string of Ford allies openly questioning the mayor’s policy direction on everything from possible library closings to potential layoffs of emergency workers. Left-leaning members on council are interpreting the grumbling as a sign of a slow-motion mutiny in the Ford camp.
“The honeymoon is clearly over,” Councillor Adam Vaughan said.
Much of the waning enthusiasm stems from an escalating sense of panic over the layoffs and cutbacks members of the mayor’s team have suggested to tackle the city’s budget shortfall. That number, one Ford adviser told The Globe, sits closer to $500-million rather than the $744-million figure that the mayor and his allies repeat like a mantra.
But for Ms. Robinson, it is the mayor’s and his brother’s plan for the Port Lands that caused her to pull her support. Councillor Doug Ford has long spoken of his belief that Waterfront Toronto, the three-government agency charged with redeveloping the Port Lands, is a “boondoggle” and said he wants the city to seize control of the area and fast-track construction.
Last week, the city got its first glimpse of the kind of development the mayor and his brother favour, courtesy of a London-based architect hired by a city agency to do lavish conceptual drawings. The vision replaces the proposed riverside park and new mouth for the Don River with a shopping mall and includes high-rise development and a new marina, as well as the much-discussed Ferris wheel.
Ms. Robinson left the room for the committee vote last week and now says she’ll vote against the plan when it goes before council next Wednesday – though she likes some elements such as the “emerald necklace” linking green space and playing fields.
“I’ve had around 500 e-mails from constituents about this issue, more than I’ve had for anything else,” she said. “Waterfront Toronto has a good model. I’d like to see us proceed with their plan. If we keep changing that vision then you end up never realizing any vision.”
Critics lambasted Doug Ford for meeting with the Westfield Group, an Australian mall developer interested in the Port Lands, something that also worries Ms. Robinson.
“You have to ask about the genesis of this whole thing,” said Ms. Robinson, who is actively meeting with the mayor’s office and a range of councillors to craft a compromise on the issue in time for next week’s council meeting.
While the Ford plan clearly undermined Waterfront Toronto’s decade worth of planning and consultation on the Port Lands site, Councillor Ford told The Globe that he’s since reached out and offered an “olive branch” to the agency’s CEO, John Campbell.
Not everyone is following Ms. Robinson. Ford loyalist David Shiner is backing the mayor’s plan.
“There is an opportunity for the city to deal with the land that it has to get things going more quickly than they were,” he said, adding developers, not taxpayers, should be covering the cost for infrastructure in the area.
The mayor made it clear on Wednesday that weakening support isn’t deterring him. Responding to a poll that pegged his public support at 42 per cent – down from 57 per cent in June – Mr. Ford said he will “stay the course.”
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Source:Globe&Mail
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