Candidate aghast at $500Gs bill for 'field with fence' dog park
· Toronto Sun
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How do you spend half a million dollars fencing in a field?
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Shawn Allen thinks City Hall has a spending problem, and his first, best example is the new off-leash dog park at Lawrence Ave. E and Starspray Blvd. – east of Port Union Rd. He wants to be the next city councillor for Scarborough-Rouge Park, and for him the project has been something of a crash course in Toronto politics.
“It’s a field with a fence. We’re paying for a fence. That’s what it is,” Allen told the Toronto Sun .
“We’re paying to fence in a space – I think it’s 800 square metres, if I’m not mistaken – and we’re paying half a million dollars for that. And the majority of the cost is consulting fees, mobilization fees, arborists, geotechnical engineers, all these things.
“Why do we need a geotechnical engineer to put a fence around grass? The dogs were running along the grass perfectly fine before they put up the dog park. Why can’t the dogs run along the grass and just fence it in?”
City Hall hasn’t provided an answer for the “why.” While the park was designed with input from residents in Scarborough-Rouge Park ward, the plan never went before committee to be scrutinized by city councillors and the public.
The city wouldn’t confirm the project’s $500,000 price when asked by the Sun . The only official number comes from a motion by the incumbent councillor, Neethan Shan, to redirect $200,000 in funding for improvements from a nearby park, the Royal Rouge Tot Lot, to the off-leash area.
Allen said he’s confident in the price because of a conversation with the project coordinator.
“I asked her. She laughed about it!” Allen said.
“I said, why does it cost 500,000? She’s like, ha ha, that’s just the way it is. I go, what do you mean that’s just the way it is, ha-ha-ha?
“We gotta figure this out. This city’s going broke.”
‘What’s the priority?’
In a statement, City Hall said construction at both the dog park and the Royal Rouge Tot Lot should be complete this fall. A final project cost and name for the dog park are still to come.
The city did not address questions about what the redirection of funds means for the Tot Lot, Allen’s conversation with the planning official or why a dog park would need a six-figure budget.
Allen said he’s a dog owner and is in favour of off-leash parks – “but I’m just looking at the cost.”
“For 500,000, you could house 108 people at $2,200 a month, so what’s the priority?”
Shan redirected the Tot Lot funds with a member’s motion during May’s City Council meeting. While councillors can debate such motions, they typically draw little attention and this one passed with a quick show of hands.
In an emailed statement, Shan focused less on the off-leash park and more on the Tot Lot improvements, which had a $300,000 budget – but got $530,000 in funding.
Shan said he secured money from a playground enhancement program to pay for more amenities, including an accessible picnic table, a fitness pod and more play features. That funding allowed him to send the $200,000, from a pool of what’s known as Section 37 money, to the dog park budget. (While the Sun asked why a dog park would need a half-million-dollar budget, Shan did not address this in his statement.)
“The kids didn’t get less money, they got more,” Shan wrote. “We listened to the community, improved the original plan and secured more investment to deliver more for residents.”
Scarborough’s ‘progressive champion’
Shan’s a rookie councillor but a veteran politician.
He spent years as a school board trustee in both York Region and Toronto, then briefly served as city councillor for Scarborough-Rouge River, winning a 2017 byelection in what was Ward 42 in the city’s former 44-ward model.
The ward map was redrawn, and he narrowly lost to Jennifer McKelvie in 2018’s election. When McKelvie left last year for Parliament, Shan won another byelection, while Allen placed third.
The left-wing advocacy group Progress Toronto – founded by Mayor Olivia Chow’s political lieutenant Michal Hay – endorsed Shan last year, hailing him as a “progressive champion.”
But Allen said constituents tell him that Shan is hard to get ahold of. He said City Hall is failing to provide Toronto with “value of service.”
“The city is a corporation,” Allen said. “We have all these school board trustees as executives on the board of something that they’re not familiar with.”
Allen was born and raised in Scarborough, and has run a mortgage brokerage for about two decades. Times are tight for many Torontonians, and Allen thinks City Hall isn’t helping.
“We have food bank lines wrapped around the corner in West Hill. People are hungry,” he said.
“People have mortgage arrears, people have tax arrears and the mayor’s committed to raising property taxes next year at the rate of inflation. Well, we’re still catching up from the 20% you raised it over the past three years, so now you’re going to put people behind the 8-ball even more … We can’t ask homeowners to find savings when the city’s not doing the same.”