b'FEATUREOLIVIA CHOWAN EARLY LOOK AT THE MAYORS ADMINISTRATIONAFFORDABLE HOUSING AND NEW MUNICIPAL REVENUE STREAMS TOP THE AGENDA By Sarah B. HoodTHREE MONTHS IN, what doHowever, faced with a municipal budgetHe notes that we also have to find a way Olivia Chows first acts as Mayorcrunch, fulfilling her building goalsto expedite approvals; it takes an eternity of Toronto tell us about how her tenurewill depend on Chows ability to forgeto get a site plan approval in Toronto. Its will affect Torontos construction sector?creative partnerships not only withall about striking a balanceensuring Her election was widely framed as aprovincial and federal allies, but alsogood planning, but not at the expense of novel choice: the citys first Chinese- with other stakeholdersincluding thethe process taking painfully long.Canadian mayor and first female mayorconstruction sectorsomething she since amalgamation. However, she is ais well aware of. Her approach so farMunicipal affairs journalist John Lorinc very familiar face who has served sincehas been collaborative; for example,suggests that an obvious and easy fix 1985 as school trustee, metro and cityshe has built her city hall team withwould be for Chow to significantly boost councillor, federal MP and, briefly, wife ofnew faces and veterans from both leftthe planning departments operating the leader of the Official Opposition whenand right, promoted some councillorsfunds so chief planner Gregg Lintern her husband, the late Jack Layton, heldwho ran against her and vowed notcan bulk up his staff to process more the position. to take advantage of the new strongapplications, and thereby reduce the mayor powers. time-risk and delays associated with the There is little mystery as to her priorities.construction of almost everything.She took several runs at the mayoraltyTCA President and CEO John Mollenhauer before her recent victory on a platformpoints out that the voices of downtown that included promises to build 25,000residents have a lot of influence at cityHe writes that her affordable housing homes on city-owned land, includinghall; he hopes Chow will strike a balancetarget will be a tougher nut to crack 7,500 affordable units, to increase thebetween the needs of all these newunless Chow can prevail upon the federal land transfer tax on homes over $3residents in the core and keep the costsLiberals and CMHC to actually allocate million, to raise property taxes and toof construction affordable so we dontthe unspent billions earmarked for support transit. drive investors elsewhere. affordable rentals.32Quarter 32023 BUILDERSDIGEST'