Save Union Station - Background

Background

Letter to Planning and Transportation Committee, February 4, 2004

To: Planning and Transportation Committee

Subject: Union Station,

Item No.1, February 5, 2004 agenda

Date: February 4, 2004.

From: Members of the Save Union Station Committee

We wish to speak on this item. There are a number of issues we wish to deal with, including: notice to the public; the status of the Master Plan for Union Station; the content of the Master Plan; and the previous bidding process.

1. Notice to the public

As the planning report of January 12, 2004 makes clear, a community meeting was held on November 19, 2003. None of the members of our organization, Committee to Save Union Station, were notified of this meeting even though we have addressed various committees at City Hall on numerous occasions to express our deep interest in Union Station. The planners' report notes that only three members of the public attended - as though no one was interested - when in fact many would have attended if the planners had seen fit to notify those who had previously indicated their interest.

We are most unhappy that the City decided to exclude so many interested people from this particular discussion.

2. Master Plan for Union Station

In 1991 Council approved the Railway Lands East Secondary Plan, which among other things called for the adoption of a Master Plan for Union Station. Here is what Section 10.4.2 of the Secondary Plan states:

"It is the policy of Council to ensure the retention of Union Station as a transportation terminal and to seek to ensure the satisfactory functioning of the station complex.

To this end it is the policy of Council to adopt a Master Plan for Union Station that will:

(a) respect the historic significance of Union Station;

(b) ensure transportation use is the primary function of Union Station;

c) provide for each of the necessary transportation functions in a safe, efficient and coherent manner;

(d) ensure flexibility for expansion and future changes of use;

(e) ensure that Union Station is fully integrated with its environs; and

(f) establish civic design quality."

The clear intention of City Council at that time was to prepare a comprehensive document against which proposals for rehabilitating the Station and development around the Station could be assessed. Further paragraphs of Section 10 indicate council's expectation of redevelopment initiatives. Obviously this is a wise way to proceed: define the public goals to begin with and then use the statement of public objectives as a way of determining whether any proposals received should be approved.

Our organization has stated on many occasion in the last 16 months that what Council needed was a comprehensive approach to Union Station. We were not aware that 12 years ago City Council itself had required such a document be prepared.

City staff were clearly aware of this requirement since (we now realize) it was referred to in the voluminous Bid Documents prepared in 2001 - see Request for Proposal, Volume 1, page 3 - 3.

Yet such a master plan has not been prepared. Instead, staff and council decided to seek bids before preparing this necessary document. This has meant that there has been no document outlining public objectives against which bids could be assessed and judged.

Were the planners asleep at the switch? Did they deliberately disregard the 1991 decision?

Senior staff are now suggesting that such a document be prepared. But the problem is that the very staff recommending the contents of the draft Master Plan in the report of January 12, 2004 are those who have been in charge of the bidding process, a process which is very seriously flawed, as we describe later in this brief.

It would be unreasonable to say that those responsible for the flawed process should now be in charge of drafting a document which, after the fact, justifies the decisions arrived at. That is not what city council contemplated in 1991, and it is not in the public interest. Creating a Master Plan which justifies the preferred bid - and that seems to be the objective of the January 12 report - does not serve the city interest.

The question for this committee is how it can satisfy the requirements that Council set down in 1991.

We believe a fresh approach is required. A draft Master Plan should be prepared after public consultation by an independent consultant. We expect the consultant to carry out discussions with various public bodies to define objectives, find ways to coordinate services, sort through jurisdictional conflicts and generally make recommendations that will satisfy the terms of reference agreed upon in 1991. We believe this is the appropriate way of securing a Master Plan for Union Station. We see no other reasonable way to proceed.

3. The content of the Master Plan

The limitations of the Master Plan proposed by staff in the January 12, 2004 report can be clearly seen by showing some of the matters that are not talked about in the draft that is before you. In fact, it is fair to say that the Master Plan proposal appears to conform to the plans submitted by the preferred bidder, Union Pearson - not to broadly outline public objectives as called for by council in 1991.

The following are five areas where there is probably widespread public agreement, but no mention of these concerns is made in the staff proposal for a Master Plan.

a) Publicly used areas should be in public control.

Union Station is one of the most public buildings in Toronto, used by more than 40 million commuters and travelers annually. It makes sense to ensure that the areas used by the public on a regular basis are controlled by a public body such as the city. This will ensure that high public standards are met and that the public can feel at ease in this space. This space should not become privately controlled like Eaton Centre where private security guards can decide who is permitted to be there and who is not.

b) Maximize the public use of the Great Hall

The Great Hall is one of the most stunning spaces in the city. It is both glorious and uplifting, which is why the structure registers so high on the public consciousness. Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the basement of Union Station, in mean, cramped space, and they never have the opportunity to experience the Great Hall.

Uses and routes within the Station should be configured to ensure that the maximum number of passengers possible have an opportunity of passing through the Great Hall. This can be done by appropriately considering the way platforms function, the placement of concourses, and generally conceiving of space which centres on the Great Hall rather than treats it as a problem.

c) Ensure the Beaux Arts standard of design is apparent in all large public areas in the Station.

As the draft Master Plan makes clear, the Beaux Arts design of the station is quite extraordinary. The report notes "the proportion and order of the spaces, as well as their generosity of dimension, finishes, daylight and animation" is critical and that "the primary concourses [should be treated] as important public rooms with definable edges and uncluttered floors." (page 22.)

These should be the benchmarks for determining the acceptability of any changes to the Station. New and renovated spaces should exhibit these characteristics.

But we know that unless there is great vigilance, these goals will not be met. Union Pearson has proposed concourses filled by almost two dozen staircases. The Master Plan must be forceful in requiring that the Beaux Arts standard of design is apparent throughout the public parts of the Station.

d) Ease of vertical travel by pedestrians

Currently, the distance from the concourse level to the track level of GO Transit involves 31 steps. The distance between the teamways on Bay and York Streets and the GO Track platforms will be more than 31 steps.

To make these links accessible to most people, escalators must be installed. It doesn't make sense to design a facility used by 40 million people (the plan is to double that number) and requires that most people walk up and down three or four flights of stairs.

The Master Plan has a section about barrier-free access, but no section about ease of vertical access for most of the travelers. This can be done by escalators and should be a requirement.

e) Taxis and drop-offs

Areas for taxis and drop-offs should be readily available to all travelers. This is not an item that is dealt with in the Master Plan but it clearly is important for many people. There should be short-term parking directly under the station to allow ease of access for those driven to the station by friends and relatives, and who may have luggage. It is not good enough to suggest that they find a parking space within 400 or 500 metres of the Station. As well, there should be clear and commodious places for taxis to pick up and drop off passengers.

We believe these are five ideas would find wide public acceptance as important public objectives for Union Station. They should be part of any Master Plan. If there had been more time to review the Master Plan as well as opportunities for more general public discussion, other suggestions might also come into view.

We believe the public requires, and the 1991 city council decision now demands, that an independent consultant be retained to prepare a draft Master Plan, which is subject to public scrutiny and debate before consideration by council.

4. The previous bidding process

We are very concerned with the problems in the previous bidding process and the impact it has on documents such as this report. A brief history of the bidding will clarify our concerns.

Although City Council did not ensure that the Master Plan be prepared as called for in the Secondary Plan, Council did establish a very precise bidding and selection process in order to attract and judge private sector bids for Union Station, a process intended to ensure that there would be no undue influence in the selection of a preferred bidder.

Before a bidder was permitted to participate fully in the bidding, that bidder had to be financially pre-qualified, that is, the bidder had to show the financial ability to carry out the contract. In the end there were only two bids by financially pre-qualified bidders: Union Pearson, and LP Heritage.

A selection team of six persons was established. It included several senior city staff, including the current Commissioner of Urban Development Services.

On May 8, 2002, the selection committee members scored each of the two bids according to nine different criteria. The decision of the committee, by a considerable margin of votes, was to award the bid to LP Heritage.

One would have thought that would be the end of the matter, and the decision would be reported to council. That was not to be. The next day Union Pearson wrote to the selection committee asking for some changes and within a day or two it was decided that the financial health of LP Heritage was in some doubt even though it had been financially pre-qualified. LP Heritage was not told of these doubts, nor was city council. Instead, in utter secrecy the selection committee decided to take a second vote.

That vote second vote occurred on June 17, 2002. One senior city staff person awarded LP Heritage zero points in three of the categories relating to financial matters. The result was that Union Pearson narrowly won this second vote and was recommended as the preferred bidder. If this staff person's aberrant vote was excluded, LP Heritage would have again won this second vote.

City staff reported the results of the second vote to City Council, never hinting that there had been two votes and that the first vote had gone to LP Heritage. City Council was never told the full story, but agreed with the staff recommendation that Union Pearson should be the preferred bidder and a contract should be negotiated with Union Pearson. Attempts to make both bids public were rebuffed. The scoring sheets were destroyed by city staff, contrary to established practice and law.

Eight months later, after much public pressure, City Council agreed to ask the provincial integrity commissioner, former judge Coulter Osborne, to review and report on this situation. It was Mr. Osborne's research which first revealed that there had been two votes, not one, and that a city staff person had taken the action which resulted in Union Pearson winning the bid. Mr. Osborne noted the zero scores by the city staff member was "patently unreasonable," (p.55 of the report). He said it was "something of an over reaction, a misguided response" (page 55.) If this vote were excluded, the original decision of the selection committee would stand, awarding the LP Heritage the preferred bidder status.

We believe it is difficult to believe that senior staff who in the past have hidden details of the Union Station bidding process from City Council can now be expected to offer fair and objective advice on Union Station matters. We question whether a senior staff person who has been criticized so strongly by an independent investigator can have the credibility to continue to have carriage of such an important matter.

It is for these reasons that we think it appropriate that City Council seek independent advice on the contents of a Master Plan for Union Station. We fear that asking the same senior staff who have already recommended one bidder after such an unsatisfactory bid process, and after refusing to inform council of that process, may not give fair and professional advice. In retrospect, we find it disturbing that senior city staff have left it so late in the process to propose the Master Plan called for more than 12 years ago. At the least, one would call this bad planning.

For this reason, we believe Council should retain an independent consultant to advise on the contents of a Master Plan, which would then be a matter of public comment, and decision-making by Council.

In the interim, we believe that any city staff person who served on the Selection Committee should recuse themselves from any involvement or decision-making regarding Union Station.

5. Recommendations:

(i) City Council retain an independent consultant to advise on the contents of a Master Plan for Union Station, as called for in the Secondary Plan approved by Council in 1991.

(ii) The consultant's report, when available, be the subject of at least one public meeting, with notification going to, among others, those who have already indicated an interest in Union Station.

(iii) Once a Master Plan is adopted by Council, the Union Station lease should be considered by Council and evaluated against the Plan, and the lease should either be amended to comply with the Plan or rejected.

(iv) Any city staff person who served on the Selection Committee should recuse themselves from any involvement or decision-making regarding Union Station.

Yours sincerely,

Save Union Station Committee

John Sewell (416 977 5097)

Linda Sheppard

Cathy Nasmith

Laura Cooper

Bobbi Spec

Noelle Zitzer

Alison Reid

Copy: Mayor David Miller.