A customer enters a Circle K shop in Toronto, in January, 2021.CHRIS HELGREN/Reuters
Most Torontonians will be protected from the scourge of convenience after council voted recently to allow small shops on residential streets only in the older parts of the city. And only in some places. Under some circumstances.
It’s a discouraging decision that raises questions about whether Toronto actually wants to reduce traffic, which would help it meet its climate goals, and whether some of its local leaders even want to live in a city.
Although corner stores may seem a trivial issue, allowing them near where people live can make a neighbourhood more pleasant and, well, convenient. But antiquated zoning laws make them illegal in most neighbourhoods of Canada.
Toronto is not the only city to make halting progress changing that. Vancouver approved this year a plan to allow small stores as part of development around a pair of transit stations. The city is now looking at how to create areas that mix moderate housing density, with buildings up to six storeys, and local shops, while also studying the possibility of allowing “discreet opportunities for retail” along residential streets.
A similar patchwork of rules is emerging in Toronto, where divisions that linger more than a quarter-century after amalgamation meant a city-wide solution couldn’t be found in the corner store debate.
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Stores will be allowed on larger streets in every ward, though many streets are exempted.
Some residential streets in the old cities of Toronto and East York will allow stores, subject to rules about location. Not all types of business model will be allowed. There can be no on-site food preparation, for example. However, in what constitutes a great unbuttoning for what was once called Toronto the Good, selling espresso-based drinks will be permitted, meaning that the city is making it easier to open a café.
These new businesses will join those that opened before zoning rules were tightened, in 1959, and have been permitted to continue. But stores will not be permitted on residential streets of the former cities of Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and York.
In practical terms, this means that the areas where people most rely on cars to get around will continue to do so. Residents wanting to grab milk or other essentials won’t be able to go by foot – reducing traffic and emissions – to a place down the block. These neighbourhoods will continue to fail the popsicle test, the urban planning goal that a child should be able to walk to a local store, buy a cold treat and make it home before it melts.
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To some councillors, though, that vision is at best a questionable idea, and at worst a serious problem.
Concerns were raised about small shops bothering their residential neighbours. This channels the spirit of an advocacy group’s AI-generated video opposing neighbourhood retail, which purported to show people drinking alcohol and littering on the sidewalk outside a shop. Both activities, it should be noted, are illegal already.
Other concerns spoke to a more serious problem among some of Toronto’s leaders: an inability that crosses ideological lines to understand what makes cities good.
A progressive councillor worried that traffic could become worse if new shops encouraged lots of customers to drive to them. Corner stores, by their nature, are more likely to attract people living nearby. But if some become very popular, such success would seem a good problem to have. The best cities are destinations, not places to drive through.
And a conservative councillor chimed in to warn that the stores might not be useful local retail but instead boutique shops selling strange things. If someone has a passion for selling vintage guitar picks, Basque berets or some other niche product, why would city council stand in the way? Eclectic shops are a key part of the urban experience – not to mention the free market in action.
Earlier this year the city of Toronto put out a call for suggestions on how better to regulate buskers and street vendors. Then, apparently with no sense of irony, it put out another call barely half an hour later looking for advice on how to cut red tape.
Here’s a free idea for any city: if you want to reduce red tape, think about removing regulations on buskers and street vendors. And while you’re at it, make it easier for people to open a small business where they live.