Item - 2020.IE13.5

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee referred the item to the General Manager, Transportation Services with the request for a report to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee.

The City of Toronto has the largest number of major construction projects among the 13 largest cities in North America, some of them in the heart of Midtown Toronto. With the multi-year construction of the Crosstown LRT line and the major densification of the area around Yonge and Eglinton, the impacts on the community have been significant. Noise, congestion, longer travel times, lack of parking, and unsafe conditions for pedestrians/cyclists/motorists on the public right-of-way, have all negatively affected local residents.

Through the creation of the Yonge-Eglinton Construction Hub, the City has taken a meaningful step toward addressing the daily reality that local residents face by taking a more coordinated and holistic approach to dealing with the more than a dozen projects in the small area. However, a big part of the puzzle has been left unresolved – the demands from developers to occupy the City's public right-of-way for their construction staging for low prices. The City's street occupation permit fees for staging on the City's right-of-way currently consists of 5 areas with different prices for occupation: AA, A, B, C, D (in order of the most to least cost to occupy the right-of-way). Currently, the area of the Construction Hub has a mix of areas:

-  Eglinton Ave, from Duplex Ave to Dunfield Ave is Area A;
-  Mt. Pleasant Rd, from Merton St to Eglinton Ave E is Area B;
-  Eglinton Ave E, from Mt. Pleasant Rd to Dunfield Ave is Area B;
-  All the other areas within the Construction Hub are Area D.
 

The local and collector streets in the Construction Hub area (such as Soudan Ave, Roehampton Ave, Broadway Ave, Dunfield Ave, etc.) are placed in "Area D", despite having multiple, simultaneous construction projects that have a large impact on the residents.

This motion requests City Council to place the entire Construction Hub area into the "Area AA" category as it relates to street occupation permit fees, effective immediately.