By Sameer Sayed
Thorncliffe Flemingdon Residents Council Member
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu
Back in Dec 2023, TNO-The Neighborhood Organization had helped facilitate preliminary city budget consultations with grassroot leaders and community members at The HUB, located at East York Town Centre (45 Overlea Blvd). It was a fun and unique experience where participants were asked to independently highlight the top 3 priorities where they think the city should invest more and likewise, the top 3 areas where they think the city should invest less for 2024. This was my first rendezvous with the City Budget Consultation process.
This year, once again TNO reached out to several groups, including the Thorncliffe Flemingdon Residents Council (of which I’m a part of) about an opportunity to host a virtual Community Consultation on the City of Toronto’s Budget with the residents of East York Don Valley. This initiative was being led in partnership with Albion Community Services. It got me very excited. It was a platform to collate and present Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park neighborhood voices in the City’s budget planning.
The groundwork had begun. As the Community Ambassador, my first task was to identify eight individuals in the Thorncliffe Flemingdon area who could best represent the rich cultural diversity of this neighborhood. In a week’s time, I had finalized the list of these eight champions, who were all equally excited to be a part of this great initiative. We had the virtual consultation on a Friday evening over Zoom. The key focus areas that were identified in the meeting were: RentSafe Toronto, Parks and Recreation facilities, Traffic chaos due to construction and road repairs, TTC, etc.
As a next step, I was invited to share these budget priorities of my local community in the city-hosted, public pre-budget consultation meetings. As a precursor, I attended a workshop by Social Planning Toronto (SPT) for Community Ambassadors, which provided valuable insights and guidance on how to navigate the in-person city budget consultations.
On October 19, I attended the in-person budget consultation at North York Memorial Hall. To my pleasant surprise, Mayor Olivia Chow was also present in the meeting. I had done my homework and collated three pages of stats and data about the key issues in my neighborhood such as – above AGI rent increases, renovictions, lack of proper RentSafeTO implementation, new developments and high-rise constructions, lack of parks and recreation facilities, abrupt closure of Ontario Science Centre, traffic chaos due to Toronto Hydro and construction of Ontario Line – to name a few. I was grateful to be able to chat 1-to-1 with Mayor Chow for almost 10-15 mins on all of these issues.
She patiently listened to all these concerns (including going through my notes) and then sprung into action! She got me in touch with a couple of her staff members and they collected all the detailed feedback that I wanted to convey as a representative of my neighbourhood. More importantly, it ensured that the voices and needs of my community were amplified even further.
After attending the in-person consultations, I sent an email to the city staff summarizing the key discussion points I had raised on behalf of our community:
1. Parks and Recreation: The number of new constructions (apartment buildings / condos) is “Inversely Proportional” to the number of Parks and recreation facilities. Due to two new railway lines being proposed in the area – Eglinton LRT and Ontario Line – many Developers want a slice of the land to build 40-50 storey buildings, but we have ONLY ONE parks and recreation centre @ 29 St. Dennis Drive (Dennis R. Timbrell Resource Centre). Also, the Ontario Science Centre has been closed since June 24, depriving kids of learning opportunities. We have to make sure that these new developments are also contributing to parks and recreation facilities – either expanding the existing one and/or adding new ones in the community. Also, the Ontario Science Centre and/or its Parking Lot must be opened up for the community.
2. RentSafeTO: Investment in RentSafeTO is a must so as to ensure that existing tenants have acceptable standards of building maintenance and services provided by landlords. Renovictions, Above Rent Guideline increases, etc. are kind of becoming the norm in the Thorncliffe Park/ Flemingdon Park area. Landlords would prefer existing tenants to move out and new ones (at double / triple the rent) to move in. Ensuring that existing tenants are not forced to move and their children can also stay in the area when they grow up should be a priority.
3. Improve Traffic: There are many road construction projects happening simultaneously in the community. To name a few – Overlea Boulevard bridge, Milwood bridge, Ferran Drive, etc. Due to this, commuting especially during peak hours is a nightmare. A 1 KM stretch sometimes takes over 30 mins to navigate. A lot of people take alternate routes – like using Costco / East York Town Centre parking lots – to bypass the Overlea Boulevard traffic.
Finally, in January 2025, I was invited as a guest speaker at a Housing Deputation Workshop organized by Social Planning Toronto, TNO, Don Valley Community Legal Services, ACTO and Right2HousingTO to share the Thorncliffe Flemingdon community experiences, as well as my own personal experiences, with hosting concerns in the neighborhood. It was another great opportunity to highlight and share that housing must be a key priority in the 2025 city budget planning process.
That’s it from me. Before I end, I want to thank TNO-The Neighborhood Organization, Albion Neighborhood Services (ANS) and Social Planning Toronto (SPT) in helping me with successfully conveying Thorncliffe Flemingdon community voices from the ground level to the Mayor’s office. I’m confident that these voices will be heard and counted towards a successful 2025 Toronto city budget allocation.
