My deputation at Toronto / East York Community Council | #TOpoli #OssingtonLove

Couldn’t hang around waiting for the item to come up, but I’m informed that a kind neighbour delivered this on my behalf. 

The most fun from #TEYCC by far was the nice old lady scolding @gordperks and @sol_chrom for their side conversation being too loud. #TOpoli—
Sean Boulton (@sboulton) June 18, 2013

June 18, 2013

Toronto / East York Community Council

Item TE 25.18

Request for Direction Report – 103, 109-111 Ossington Avenue – Zoning Amendment Application  (Ward 19)

Deputation by Sol Chrom

in support of a motion to amend from Councillor Layton

Good morning councillors, neighbours, and fellow citizens, and thank you for the opportunity to address you today. My name is Sol Chrom and I live at 50 Brookfield Street, one block west of the site in question.

Local land-use disputes hit people right where they live, so it’s not surprising that they become emotional. And because of that, there’s a temptation to talk in broad terms and make sweeping generalizations. This makes it easy for media gatekeepers and those with a financial interest in the outcome to portray those disputes in generalized and simplistic terms. It makes for an easy, binary, and reductionist narrative — but it’s not accurate, it’s not fair, and it does a disservice to both the neighbourhood in particular and the discourse in general.

What I’d like to do, then, is to reintroduce a degree of nuance to this. Reading some of the accounts we’ve seen over the past twelve months, it would be easy to reduce the 109 Ossington dispute to a polarized struggle between two extreme caricatures.

As is often the case, however, the truth is less a choice between black and white than a mix of several shades of grey. Name-calling, accusations, code words and dog whistles aren’t going to help us build a liveable community, and I urge you to reject simplistic framing, misleading characterizations, and silly and useless memes.

My neighbours and colleagues will no doubt go into more detail about the Official Plan’s commitment to mid-rise intensification along designated Avenues, and the misguided impulse to characterize Ossington as such an Avenue. It is not. My purpose today, however, is to step back, take a bigger-picture view, and, I hope, help establish a context amenable to civil and rational discussion. We can, in the words of one tweeter, disagree without being disagreeable.

We all recognize the pressures that continued growth places on housing stock and infrastructure. We believe that a progressive and forward-looking plan can accommodate that growth and address societal needs for housing while also accounting for external pressures such as climate change, economic dislocation, and changing demographics.

Make no mistake: we want to see the site developed. We welcome intensification and its beneficial effects (foot traffic, greater demographic variety, economic activity, a healthy and diverse retail environment, population density that will support transit, biking and walking …). Where we and the proponent differ is that we think those benefits can be realized within the current regulatory environment. There is room, on Ossington, to triple or even quadruple existing density while remaining within the existing zoning. Ossington, in other words, can do its part to absorb the pressures of growth and accommodate the need for housing without disruption to its current built form or departure from the intent of the Official Plan.

What we’re asking for, then, isn’t unreasonable, really: a proposal that conforms to the existing planning, zoning and design guidelines.

But the proponent isn’t satisfied with that. Its representatives have made it clear in preliminary meetings, that an “as of right” building just doesn’t work for them. In other words, we don’t want to follow the rules. We want to be able to do whatever we want, and we want you to change the rules for us. Remind you of anyone?

Finally, in their presentations, I’m sure my neighbours will go into more detail about why the current proposal is inappropriate for the site. And it’s here that I speak for myself, and not necessarily the community. In what may be a naive commitment to civility and good will, I want to believe that should the proponent fail to get its way at the OMB, it will demonstrate its continued commitment to the neighbourhood by working with us to craft a proposal that the community can embrace.

In conclusion, I would encourage you all to support Councillor Layton’s motion to amend. His motion today is the culmination of months of broad-based community consultation, evening meetings with a working group of which I’m honoured to have been part, and a mind-boggling amount of work by the councillor and his staff. I’d be remiss if I failed to acknowledge and thank them for that.

Thank you and good day.

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• Tempers Flare at Community Consultation on Ossington Condos
• Suitman event for Ossington
• Urban form: neighbourhoods, NIMBYs, and nuance | #TOpoli
• Politics, decency, and finding common ground: the restoration of civility | #TOpoli #cdnpoli
• Nuance, complexity, and why progressives are frequently at a disadvantage | #TOpoli #onpoli #cdnpoli
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The grass debate at #TOCouncil

Storify by
Sol Chrom

Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:33:36

The grass debate at #TOCouncil

This is what’s known as a fat juicy straight line. A hanging slider right down Broadway. A centring pass to the guy in the slot, goalie on his back … (To be fair, the context is the University of Toronto and whether it should replace the natural grass on its back campus with artificial turf.)

1. 

   David Rider@dmrider

   “What are we smoking, are we smoking this grass today?” asks Mammo, who has apparently shaken off his post-surgery zen outlook

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:22:03

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
2. 

   David Nickle@DavidNickle

   “What are we smoking–are we smoking this grass today?” wonders Cllr. Mammoliti, about what he describes as grass preservation at U of T.

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:22:06

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
3. 

   A. R. Arvelo McQuaig@arvelomcquaig

   “Are we smoking this grass today?” -Mammoliti contributing to the debate as cogently as usual

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:22:09

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
4. 

   James Bradshaw@jembradshaw

   There it is: Mammoliti says, “what are we smoking here, are we smoking this grass?” Figured someone would try that one. #topoli

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:22:10

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
5. 

   Sunny Dhillon@TheSunnyDhillon

   Cllr Mammoliti, speaking of this debate, asks if people are smoking grass #topoli

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:22:16

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
6. 

   Don Peat@reporterdonpeat

   Someone tells Cllr Giorgio Mammoliti to talk about the flagpole. “You know where you can put the flagpole,” Mammoliti says #TOpoli

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:23:09

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
7. 

   Josh Matlow@JoshMatlow

   City Council is discussing the value of grass today. To be clear, the kind that one finds on a field.

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:24:42

   ReplyRetweetFavorite
8. 

   catfish8888@catfish8888

   #TOpoli When asked if he preferred grass or Astroturf, Joe Namath once said he “had never smoked Astroturf.”

   Wed, Jun 12 2013 08:26:13

   ReplyRetweetFavorite

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Video: Suitman event for Ossington | #TOpoli

Ossington community members, not content with being portrayed by media gatekeepers as anti-development NIMBY zealots, stage a 109-second sit-in to demand development with vision.

Yes, we’re advocating for community, sensible development, critical thought, and nuance. Radical notions, I know.

H/t Joel Richardson, @SuitManPower, @OssingtonCA, and my neighbours.

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The crack video, hearsay evidence, and the mutability of ‘fact’ | #TOpoli

Thoughtful and troubling read from @navalang on the crack video and the mutability of factual evidence is.gd/aK4vlC #TOpoli—
Sol Chrom (@sol_chrom) May 22, 2013

Two worthwhile reads this morning from Edward Keenan and Navneet Alang.

Nav first: Over on Hazlitt, he discusses the virtual impossibility of faking what’s in the putative Rob Ford crack video. The technology simply doesn’t exist. Nav goes through that and, in the first three or four paragraphs, disposes of it neatly and persuasively. (Disclosure: I’ve met Nav at an @EthnicAisle event.)

More troubling, though, are the issues he raises about the mutability of fact, and thereby the basis of evidence upon which we all rely in forming our own opinions and making our own interpretations. As he puts it:

Whether or not this means the allegations are true, however, isn’t my concern here. Rather, interesting to me are the implications of the seemingly widespread belief that creating such believable alternate realities using technology is not only possible, but easy.

Nav’s essay speaks for itself. I can’t really do it justice by trying to summarize it here, so please — go read it. There are a lot of valuable takeaways from it, but for me the most troubling runs tangent to the truism about being entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. That has clear and uncomfortable implications for the argument about picking and choosing which facts you want to believe, based on your ideological predispositions. Those of us who like to criticize Ford Nation for ignoring the facts, rationalizing away the evidence, and dismissing everything as a condescending-downtown-elite-gravy-train conspiracy have just felt the ground shift under our feet.

Ed’s argument is a little more concrete, but no less troubling. (Disclosure: I’ve met Ed, had a few beers with him, and taken a course with him. I think of him as a friend and as a teacher. For as long as I can remember, I’ve admired his writing, not just for its clarity and cogency, but for its generosity. If you’re looking to filter out the important stuff from the bullshit, make sure you’ve got Ed on your daily reading list.) Earlier this week, he argued that collectively, we are hurt by the Ford Follies’ all-consuming occupation of energy, attention, and oxygen; it’s not a new argument, but I haven’t seen it made more convincingly and compassionately than this in a long time.

Today, however, I have to disagree with him, albeit on technical grounds. It’s about hearsay: in today’s essay, he suggests that the accounts we’ve read in Gawker and the Star aren’t hearsay, but

eyewitness testimony from people who have seen the video.

With respect, I think he’s wrong. Right in his intent, but wrong in his argument.

Let’s put this in context: if I read him correctly, he’s distinguishing between the evidence we use to form opinions and the evidence upon which courts make legal determinations. And in that regard, he’s absolutely right; we don’t need to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of what we believe in order to have a defensible basis for believing it. That’s part of the distinction between what’s admissible in courts of law and what’s admissible in the court of public opinion. It’s also part of what makes dealing with the members of “Ford Nation” so challenging. We don’t have to like it, but they’re entitled to believe what they like, regardless of how questionable or irrational it may seem.

But when it comes to hearsay, there’s a very specific and technical definition that comes into play. There’s a reasonable summary of it on Wikipedia, but in the present circumstances, it boils down to this: We don’t know what’s in the video. We can’t know because we haven’t seen it. We’re relying on the accounts of John Cook, Kevin Donovan, and Robyn Doolittle.

Now, I don’t have any reason to think John, Kevin, and/or Robyn are lying. (Disclosure: I’ve met Robyn at one of the inaugural #WiTOPoli events.) This goes back to the question of ideological predisposition I touched on earlier; while I don’t think they’re lying, there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, do want to think that. But that’s not the question here; the problem is that in the absence of the video itself, we have no way of knowing. We can evaluate the truthiness of what they’re saying in light of past evidence of Rob Ford’s behaviour and in light of our own political views, but we can’t make definitive factual evaluations of what’s in the video. We simply can’t. We haven’t seen it. If we believe that the mayor’s been doing crack because John Cook, Kevin Donovan, and Robyn Doolittle say they saw him doing it in a video, we are basing our beliefs on hearsay.

In fairness to Ed, it’s a fact of life that judgments in the court of public opinion are frequently based on hearsay. We’re entitled to make up our minds on the basis of whatever we like. My reasons for believing what I believe may not be the same as your reasons for believing what you believe. In a perfect world, I’d be able to convince you of the rightness of my position through civil discourse — rational argument, factual evidence, appreciation for nuance, plausible interpretation, and maybe even a soupcon of generosity of spirit. Or vice versa.

But that’s a very different thing from a judgment in a court of law, and it’s why the evidentiary standard is so much more demanding. If we’re going to work our way through this properly, then it’s important to be clear.

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Nuance, complexity, and why progressives are frequently at a disadvantage | #TOpoli #onpoli #cdnpoli

Critical thinking. First item on the list in the Citizen's Toolbox. #citizenship
(h/t Class Warfare Exists) tmblr.co/ZOZvTxW4sGMa—
Sol Chrom (@sol_chrom) October 27, 2012

Couple of quick thoughts about efforts to reform the voting system, spurred, as is often the case, by another thoughtful and well-crafted post from Daren.

I’ll confess at the outset that I haven’t really given that much thought to the various options, be they ranked ballots, single transferable votes, pure proportional representation, or whatever. The debate’s been carried by smarter and better-informed people than me. I’ll also disclose that I consider Dave Meslin, one of the guys working on RaBIT, a friend and a civic hero, even if I haven’t always agreed with him.

But that’s not my purpose today. As Daren observes,

those speaking under the banner (if not official endorsement) of Fair Vote Canada – the side of proportional representation and against ranked ballots – did themselves no favours.

I’m not taking sides in that particular debate because, as I’ve admitted, it’s complicated and I haven’t given it as much thought as I should. That the dysfunctions of our current First Past The Post system don’t really serve the needs of democratic governance ought to be self-evident by now; it underlines the need for serious and well-considered electoral reform, at every level from the municipal to the federal.

No, what concerns us today is the challenge posed by complexity itself. Daren’s not the first observer to note the internecine warfare among various progressive factions, whether they’re championing electoral reform, a particular set of social or economic measures, or even discursive change. It’s never especially easy to analyze arguments, to evaluate evidence, and to follow chains of reasoning — hence this little corner’s continuing fascination with the notion of critical thought and its importance to the demands of engaged citizenship.

It’s difficult to approach this without sounding all preachy (really? we hadn’t noticed — ed.), but that’s inherent in any worthwhile public-policy discussion. Anything that involves multiple objectives, multiple stakeholders, conflicting priorities, and finite resources is going to require a difficult process of analysis and evaluation. It takes time, concentration, and a willingness to embrace complexity, as well as an acknowledgement that such things rarely boil down to simple answers. In short, it’s about seeing nuance, making tradeoffs, recognizing shades of grey.

And that, I’d submit, is why those willing to engage that way are so often at a disadvantage. Not only are they asking more of their fellow citizens than the purveyors of simplistic catchphrases and lapel-button slogans — they’re also more prone to thrashing out their differences in public. The term “message discipline” isn’t an accident. When you can reduce complex issues of governance to bumper-sticker memes like “gravy train” or “strong stable majority,” you demand far less of people, and you give them an excuse to turn off their critical faculties.

It’s effective, but it’s also wrong, and it betrays not respect for people, but contempt. We needn’t delude ourselves that engaging our fellow citizens critically is an easy thing, but ultimately it suggests a great deal more respect for them.

To nuance, then, and to raising the conversation.

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Projecting the effects of extending the Island airport runways | via @NoJetsTO | #TOpoli

via NoJetsTO – YouTube.

Goddamnit. Where’s Richard M. Daley when we need him?

H/t Jude MacDonald.

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Bikes, BIXI and the public good | #TOpoli #onpoli

Disclosure: I’m not familiar with the BIXI business model, and I’ve got a bike, so I haven’t used the service.

In any event, evaluating the soundness of BIXI’s strategy and financial status isn’t really the point of this post. I’ve let the long-winded sanctimonious wankery slide of late, focusing instead on the short-hit, squirrel-on-crystal-meth model of the sibling blog over on tumblr, but a recent and typically thoughtful and well-reasoned post from Daren has prompted a return to the LWSW (oh, that’s nice — ed.).

It’s no secret that Toronto suffers from gridlock, poor or non-existent planning, outmoded urban design, and a transportation network that might have been appropriate decades ago in an era of cheap and plentiful oil. That it hasn’t been updated to reflect current realities isn’t news either. Simply put, it’s no longer possible to rely solely on private automobiles as our primary means of getting from place to place. The effects of congestion, pollution and the rising costs of energy make that obvious.

A thoughtful, rational, and sustainable approach to moving people and goods around quickly and affordably, therefore, has to account for a variety of needs, distances, purposes, and modes of transportation. That’s not just cars, but also cycling, walking, and public transit. Urban development and neighbourhood design need to consider that, as do the practice of planning and the renewal of public infrastructure.

A no-brainer, one would think. I’m not going to bring out all the arguments about cycling being a healthier choice and cardiovascular benefits and not burning carbon and not requiring huge amounts of space and parking and efficiency and yada yada yada. That’s all been done by smarter people and more committed cyclists. That encouraging cycling, as part of a well-thought-out transportation strategy, advances the public good ought to be self-evident by now.

Anyone bored or desperate enough to return here more than once will already know about this little corner’s fascination (monomaniacal obsession? — ed.) with the public good. One of the consistent themes in its discussion is a reluctance to evaluate it solely in terms of dollars and cents. And one of the most important overarching parameters is an insistence on framing things in terms of our identity as citizens, rather than as taxpayers or consumers of services. In brief, citizenship carries responsibilities and obligations as well as rights and entitlements.

It’s through that lens that we evaluate governance and the crafting of public policy, whether it’s at the national level or focused on local neighbourhoods. Simply put, public decisions must be evaluated in terms of how well they advance the public good. Our touchstone is achieving the greatest good for the greatest number. And it’s in that light that resource allocations and public priorities ought to be decided.

Specifically absent from these discussions, at least in this little corner, is any bloviating about the private sector. There’s an ideological bias about its inherent superiority that’s poisoned public discussion for far too long, and that’s been a natural consequence of evaluating everything in terms of dollars and cents. Public service and government don’t exist to make a profit or generate shareholder value or cement brand loyalty. They’re there to provide for public and social needs.

It’s hard to see how allowing rampant smog, congestion and gridlock advances the public good. It may generate short-term profits for certain private actors, but it costs everyone in terms of poor health, stress, lost time, and quality of life. Obviously, therefore, it’s in the public interest to encourage modes of transport that don’t contribute to smog, congestion and gridlock. That means using policy tools that facilitate the use of public transit, walking and cycling wherever appropriate, and those policy tools include investment in public infrastructure, road tolls, a pricing regime that reflects the real cost of parking and burning carbon, and yes, taxation and licensing fees.

And if it means public investment in services like BIXI, so be it. It’s a pittance compared to what our decades of reliance on private automobiles continues to cost us. As Toronto Council prepares to take control of the transit file from a mayoral administration that’s clearly not interested in governance, let alone sound policy, it needs to spare a thought for BIXI as well.

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