Toronto striking city workers mark their 30th. day, the impact goes beyond just garbage pick-up!

The builders were supposed to be plunging shovels into the dirt by now, but at the University of Toronto campus in Scarborough, what should have been a construction site is still an empty parking lot.

As Toronto's striking city workers mark their 30th day off the job, the impact goes beyond garbage pickup.

Colleges and universities have costly renovation projects on the line, and in the absence of officials to issue permits, they are at risk of missing some important deadlines - and in the worst-case scenario, millions of dollars in government funding.

"There is concern," U of T spokeswoman Laurie Stephens said. "But we're hopeful that we can get this resolved, that we can get the approvals that we need. We're looking for approvals for building permits, site plan agreements, rezoning, that kind of stuff."

As part of its economic stimulus plan, the federal government will spend almost $1.4-billion to expand and refurbish 181 colleges and universities across the country.

Announced in May, the Knowledge Infrastructure Program includes eight postsecondary institutions in Toronto.

Schools that were shovel-ready this summer were given priority; projects must meet a completion deadline of March 30, 2011, and the program will not cover costs incurred after that date. "It's pretty aggressive," said Rosanna Cavallaro of Centennial College. The Scarborough school had planned to start construction next month on a 103,500-square-foot building that will add 22 classrooms and a library.
Under the KIP funding, Centennial will receive $27.7-million from the province and $7.3-million from the federal government, as long as the school meets its deadline.

"A lot of the colleges and universities are in the same boat," Ms. Cavallaro said. "We're supposed to have shovels in the ground by the end of August, and projects were supposed to be completed by March, 2011. Because we don't have our building permit yet, we haven't been able to break ground. The moment the permit is ready we'll be able to start construction immediately."

York University faces similar pressure. Together, the federal and provincial governments have pledged $25-million to expand and renovate the law school at Osgoode Hall, and $70-million to construct a life sciences building on its Keele campus.
"We still don't have our permits," York spokesman Alex Bilyk said. "However, the city has reassured us that they would have some kind of expedited method once the strike is over for going through the permits."

Not every school has suffered the same fate.

Ryerson University received almost $33-million from the federal and provincial governments to renovate its school of image arts building, and managed to secure some partial permits just a few days before the strike. The university anticipates those permits will see the construction through the fall, and hopes that the strike will be over before any inspections are needed.

The city, for its part, may be moving forward in the near future. In a July 16 letter to councillors, Mayor David Miller asked for urgent matters to be brought to his attention in preparation for a possible council meeting before the strike ends.

Rob Andrusevic, a spokesman for the city, said some of the KIP projects could be on that list. Construction plans for the U of T Scarborough campus, for example, were on the agenda for the July 5 council meeting, which was cancelled because of the strike. Mr. Andrusevic could not confirm whether that project, or any of the others, will be discussed at a possible council meeting in the near future, nor could he confirm when that meeting might take place.

For now, the ground at the Scarborough campus sits undisturbed. University of Toronto officials have signalled their need for permit approvals to the mayor's office.

"We're basically waiting to hear back from that," Ms. Stephens said. "These are matters that are beyond our control."