Item - 2016.PW17.7

The Public Works and Infrastructure Committee recommends that:

1. City Council amend City of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 441, Fees and Charges to add the following new user fees for 2017 where third parties replace concrete or asphalt with pavers in the City's right-of-way to cover the costs of long-term maintenance, subject to the annual inflation rate:

a. one-time Paver Maintenance Fee - $55 sq. metre of paving installed plus all applicable taxes; and

b. an additional percentage of up to 15% of the above fee for complex designs based upon recommendations as outlined in this report.

2. City Council authorize the City Solicitor to introduce the necessary bills to give effect to City Council's decision.

The Public Works and Infrastructure Committee requested the General Manager, Transportation Services to meet with ICPI (Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute) representatives prior to the December 13, 2016 City Council meeting to consult and share information on paver products, installation and maintenance.

"Streetscape enhancements" are created in many forms throughout the City of Toronto to improve walkability, accessibility, safety, and character. In addition to lighting, street furniture, and planting, many third parties (private developers, Business Improvement Areas (BIAs), and agencies) have installed custom pavers into the sidewalk.

While there are many positive aesthetic attributes for sidewalk pavers in the City of Toronto, they do represent a more complicated treatment than standard concrete sidewalks. With the growing pressures for streetscape projects, there is an increasing burden placed on Transportation Services to maintain these third party encroachments across different streets.  This has led to a number of issues, notably accessibility, consistency, and significantly higher maintenance costs.

Previous maintenance arrangements have attempted to mitigate the increased maintenance pressure for paver sidewalks. Some projects have been required to purchase additional pavers which Transportation Services stores for ongoing repairs.  This results in storage costs to the City, and complicated inventory management. More importantly, it did not cover the labour costs of relaying the pavers when existing ones failed, nor the costs for contractor time spent searching the City yards for matching pavers. These costs have been covered by the City's Transportation Services Division, rather than third parties.

Accordingly, Transportation Services has recently streamlined the use of pavers through the creation of a standard palette of pavers, and developed an approach to maintain paver sidewalks over the long-term.

In order to provide the funds necessary to maintain paver sidewalks, this report seeks to charge a maintenance fee for all future paver sidewalk installations undertaken by third parties.