Subsidized waterfront condo for starving artists & poop-covered squalor

Waterfront condo building to include affordable rentals for starving artists

Groundbreaking project in the new Bayside neighbourhood will include 80 units to be managed by Artscape, which has a long waiting list.

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The project’s $26 million capital cost is being covered by an expected $12 million contribution from the federal-provincial Investment in Affordable Housing program and $7 million from the city’s development charges reserve fund. Artscape is expected to take out a mortgage for the remaining $7 million and recoup the cost through rent.

The city is covering an additional $7.66 million in indirect contributions, including land, and relief from property taxes and development charges.

Under the federal-provincial housing program, rents must be set at 80 per cent of average market rent or $828 for a one-bedroom, $980 for a two-bedroom and $1,190 for a three-bedroom, at current costs. At these rents, families, couples and singles with an annual household income between $40,000 and $57,000 would be eligible to rent a unit. Rents and incomes will be adjusted for expected occupancy in 2018-19, according to a staff report.

Mayor Rob Ford said last fall that putting affordable housing on the waterfront was a waste of valuable real estate. However, he was reminded that the city’s Central Waterfront Secondary Plan calls for 20 per cent of all new housing in the area to be affordable.

Read more http://www.thestar.com/

Liberty Village begins its inevitable slide into poop-covered squalor

The latest salvo in Liberty Village’s ongoing war on dog poop was fired in the Parkdale Villager over the weekend. In an article about the problem, local anti-poop activist Geoff Webb is quoted saying that his neighbourhood’s infamous feces issues are only getting worse, in part because the entire community relies on one small park for most of its dog-walking needs. Even more telling is Ward 19 councillor Mike Layton’s quote in the same article: “No one contemplated the number of dogs that would be in the area,” Layton said. “I often joke that there’s five dogs for every half a child per floor in Liberty Village.”

Layton may be joking, but he’s not wrong to suggest that Liberty Village’s poop problem stems from questionable city planning. Railroad tracks isolate the neighbourhood from the rest of downtown, and an abundance of new condo high-rises puts extra stress on the area’s amenities. And those are only today’sproblems. The fact that many of Toronto’s new condo buildings are probably only 25 or 30 years away from major capital-repairs crises means things in places like Liberty Village could get worse over time, not better. In other words, the poop may be trying to tell us something.

http://www.torontolife.com/