Clamping Down on Lane Occupancy

Navigating Toronto's streets should not feel like a maze of sidewalk and lane closures. All too often, developers are permitted to shut down huge portions of the sidewalk and curb lane for the purpose of staging construction equipment and materials – in some cases cutting off the sidewalk entirely and, in most cases, resulting in significant traffic impacts. Earlier this month, a Toronto Star poll found that almost 86% of readers felt some construction sites were impossible to navigate safely.

At City Council, I have been a vocal opponent of permitting prolonged lane occupancy for residential and commercial construction projects. Last term, I led the charge to clamp down on private construction by increasing fees for street occupation. I directed City staff to report on options to shorten the duration of street occupations, including escalating fees, increasing fees at the time of permit renewal, and considering fees for congestion-related economic impacts, such as the City's time and productivity losses. On several occasions, I have pushed to eliminate the practice of private lane occupancy altogether.

Since then, permit fees have increased dramatically to better reflect the market rate for space on public roadways – from $5.77 per square metre per month to between $29.90 and $145.26 per square metre per month in some areas. However, in a report to City Council, staff identified several critical barriers to banning the practice outright, concluding that it was not legally feasible to eliminate construction staging on the public right-of-way. In particular, they highlighted that many developments are approved lot-line-to-lot-line, limiting the amount of private space available for construction staging. Often, these development applications were appealed to and approved by the Province's Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT), formerly known as the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT)/Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).

With new Construction Staging Area reports regularly coming to North York Community Council for approval, we must continue to identify ways to minimize the impacts of private development on our public right-of-way–starting with the development approval process.