News Items

Redevelopment of the 40 Scott Street Site (updated on 26 January 2012) Yesterday, all registrants at the 14 September 2011 meeting should have received notice of the first Committee of Adjustment meeting on this development. MTCC 1170 will be addressing concerns that the Board identified during their Regular Meeting in September 2011. The CoA meeting is the opportunity for other parties to present other perspectives and/or different concerns. Today, many of MTCC 1170's residents will have received the City of Toronto's notice of a Community Consultation Meeting that will be occurring between 7.00pm and 9.00pm on Wednesday 14 September 2011. The venue is the Bluma Appel Lobby of the St Lawrence Centre for the Arts - at 27 Front Street East. What is a Community Consultation Meeting? It is the first step that the City and the proposed building's developer must take following her/his application for a Site Plan Approval. In this instance, the City received the application on 18 August 2011. (Readers can continue to monitor this process via the Development Application Status page.) Do any decisions, reversible or otherwise, occur at a Community Consultation Meeting? No, they do not. Indeed, if this proposal's progress follows our neighbourhood's usual pattern, this might be only the first of several such meetings. Does this mean that I can skip the meeting on 14 September 2011? Definitely not. Although there might be other opportunities, the first Community Consultation Meeting is often the reason that subsequent consultations do, indeed, occur. At any Community Consulting Meeting, you will find that there are at least four audiences that you will seek to influence favourably (however you define "favourably"). Those audiences are the local councillor (in person, or represented by a constituency assistant), the local neighbourhood association (in our case, the SLNA), the City's planners, and the developer. Your prior research and logical, reasoned input are potentially influential and meaningful for at least three of those four audiences. To prepare yourself for the meeting on 14 September 2011, you really do need to read the Staff Report that the Director of Community Planning has already prepared for the Toronto and East York Community Council. Not only does this Staff Report provide significant information about the proposed development, but it will also give readers a considerable insight into the process that the City uses before granting (or denying) approvals. What, then, is the step that will likely occur when the community consultative process is complete? Probably, the next step (a few months hence) will be the Committee of Adjustment. When you arrive at the CoA's page, you should scroll down to the Community Council table. Our area is Toronto and East York, with a link to past decisions and future meeting dates. (As at 26 August 2011, no agenda was available for meeting-dates past 17 August 2011.) In addition to checking this site periodically for meeting-dates, readers might also want to peruse past decisions - to get a flavour of the sorts of requests that occur and the responses that petitioners receive. Elevator Upgrades (updated on 26 August 2011) MTCC 1170's Board and Management thank residents for their co-operation and patience during recent upgrades, and during the fine-tuning that followed (approximately 15 to 22 August 2011). Shortly, additional work will occur; albeit, probably less intrusive. MTCC 1170 will be complying with Ontario's MoL guidelines/requirements regarding installation of machine-guards for our elevator-related equipment. When we know the start-date, another newsletter will be available. 04 August 2011: As MTCC 1170's noticeboards indicate, we are currently undergoing upgrades that will enhance our elevators' efficiency. Additionally, all residents have received a newsletter that explains the upgrade-process. The newsletter also explains that, over the next fortnight or so, we will all be trying to make efficient use of the available 2/3 elevator capacity in the main tower. Aside from providing passenger service for all residents, the main tower's elevators also play in role in providing building-related services, such as cleaning and removal of recyclables from all floors' garbage-chute closets. To that purpose, all residents have also received an illustrated memorandum showing how we can all contribute to reducing the amount of time that our elevators consume when providing building related services. And, for residents who might simply wish to acquire general knowledge about elevators, we are pleased to provide links that further explain elevators' safety and general operations.