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On April 7th, 2016, planners and the region’s land use community gathered at the distinguished Arcadian Court event space for ULI Toronto’s 2nd Annual Meet the Chiefs gala. The hundreds that attended came to discuss the future of land use policy in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA), specifically the opportunities and challenges ahead. This sold out event brought together 27 of the region’s provincial and municipal planning officials along with public and private partners from the development community, with notable additions of the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, and the Honourable Steven Del Duca, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation. The Evening Sponsor was Toronto Pearson and the Reception Sponsor was MMM Group, a WSP Company.

The guiding topic for the evening was ULI Toronto’s Electric Cities initiative. The central focus of the new initiative is to bring innovative thinking towards placemaking, mobility and technology in order to advance urbanism across the Toronto region.

The Honourable Amarjeet Sohi delivered an opening address that introduced another prominent theme for the evening — the role that government policy plays in fostering community development of infrastructure in both the social and physical context. Prior to being a member of the Edmonton City Council for 10 years, Minister Sohi worked as a bus driver for the Edmonton transit system. This experience gave him a very personal understanding of the importance of good transit planning. The Minister led negotiations for Edmonton’s LRT and throughout his address he focused on the importance of developing sustainable modes of transportation capable of integrating into existing developments.

The address was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Toronto’s own Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat, with participation from prominent members of the region’s planning community and Marilee Utter, EVP at the Urban Land Institute’s global office. The discussion brought to light three very important considerations in the context of the current development environment.

Policy
Government policies are instrumental in the successful development of communities and coordination among the multiple levels of government is critical to community building. Rob Horne (Region of Waterloo) highlighted the importance of protecting employment lands and ensuring the rules governing their protection made sense. He suggested that the creation of tax incentives specific to particular development sites and coordination with the private sector were important components to community building. Social housing was cited by multiple panelists as an essential pillar to building successful communities. Marilee Utter noted that the cost of housing in Toronto when compared to other global cities is still reasonable but will not continue as such without an active policy framework. Mary Lou Tanner (City of Burlington) suggested that a sustained, longer term strategy for infrastructure projects was preferred to the singular, site specific announcements often employed at various levels of government. The discussion very clearly demonstrated the constructive role that government policy can play in the development of successful community planning.

Capital
It comes as no surprise that the funding needs for the GTHA’s infrastructure ambitions are significant. The panel discussed at length the various ways that funding can be achieved as well as the variables and social factors that play a role in the availability and reliability of capital. MaryFrancis Turner (VivaNext), noted that public/private partnerships have become an increasingly viable approach to successful developments. She indicated that the private sector is often more experienced in project execution and may have a better ear to market opportunities and the timing of development. Marilee Utter suggested that transit should follow development and the fallacy of “if we build it they will come” ignores that sometimes a Whole Foods may be a bigger draw to a particular area than a transit line. Rob Horne noted that in our increasingly global environment “capital is footloose,” and that municipalities must learn that they are competing on a global scale. All members of the panel stressed the need to approach capital requirements with creativity and an open mind.

Planning
Under the umbrella of planning, a central topic introduced by Jennifer Keesmaat (City of Toronto) was the importance of vision — not just measured in scale or scope, but also in time. She highlighted the significance and importance of setting timelines with a foreseeable completion. Although Keesmaat lauded the success of the West Don Lands for its improvements made over a long duration she suggested that 15 year timelines, for example, could be more easily implemented and scrutinized. This idea was supported by Marilee Utter who cited the Denver case of building out transit where, despite cost overruns, the projects largely maintained public support. She argued that the public were more willing to accept financial setbacks if it meant seeing progress in a comparatively short time period. However, visions across stakeholders are not always uniform. Brian Bridgeman (Region of Durham) suggested that there are usually competing visions of development that must be “stitched together” into a more cohesive set of ideas before execution can begin.

All panelists were in agreement that transit investments are important building blocks in the modern community. In today’s global economy, there is an immediacy to these investments unique to the present day.

“Our region took a break from transit investments for 30 years,” said Keesmaat.

The concluding thought of the evening was that the time for investment is now.