The city budget: Show us the money

Last week, the city council brought forward a budget for hard times, the Toronto Cares budget. Although the mayor called for a 4% increases in taxes, critics are saying it's more like 10%.

Well, here on Queens Quay, we may have had a little bit of sticker shock in our latest tax assessments. This resident say a 20 per cent rise from the last assessment. All of this is to say that we're paying more, so what are we getting for return.

Here are a few items that are focused on our neighbourhood, from the budget's highlights

"Toronto's budget protects City services and supports residents and businesses

Lake Ontario Park, construction activities in the East Bayfront, West Don Lands and the Central Waterfront ($1.597M gross, $1.012M net. East Bayfront, of course, is the area to the east of the Redpath building where George Brown, Corus are making homes. In addition there will be residential, mixed use and two parks in there. The first parks are scheduled for 2010.

- Introduce next vehicle notification, automated customer notification, e-commerce and internet trip planning ($0.448M gross and net) Note they started this program at Spadina station and Union station for the 510 line.

- Provide overall operations at Union Station including 24/7 security ($13.182M gross, $0 net) Many of us commute through Union to downtown, lets see if this eventually makes it smoother.

For the longer term, the city's 2009-2013 captial budget (which we assume has not been approved, doles out quite a bit of cash for the waterfront area:

Waterfront Renewal, focussing on public investment in parks and public.
Develop West Don Lands and East Bayfront precincts including the introduction of transit

• Union and Mimico Parks (2009 $1.700 M, 2009 – 2013 $10.300

• Dev George Brown College academic/student residence campus (2009 $36.300 M, 2009 – 2013 $161.200 M).

• Complete Fort York Pedestrian Bridge (2009 $2.000 M, 2009 – 2013 $17.000 M).

• Complete EAs on the Gardiner Expressway (2009 $5.000 M, 2009 – 2013 $10.000 (Environmental Assessments)

• Develop the Central Waterfront Public Realm (2009 $11.500 M, 2009 – 2013 $29.800 M