[5] He was also an opponent of the early proposals for the SkyDome, on the grounds that it would have displaced land that the city had already earmarked for new housing units.
Although the developer sought and won an Ontario Superior Court decision ordering the city to issue the demolition permits, Martin was one of 11 councillors, alongside Layton, Richard Gilbert, Joe Pantalone, David Reville, Dorothy Thomas, June Rowlands, Anne Johnston, Ron Kanter and Chris Korwin-Kuczynski, who walked out of council chambers to prevent the meeting from attaining quorum.
[11] He regularly stated that he was not opposed in principle to development, but simply wanted to ensure that it was done in a balanced way that addressed the social and cultural needs of the city, and earned a reputation in this era as a pragmatic consensus-builder who was willing to seek out common ground with ideological opponents to achieve his political goals.
[12] He was also an opponent of Network 2011, a Toronto Transit Commission expansion plan which he labelled as tilted too strongly toward the benefit of developers rather than the community.
Martin was subsequently appointed by the provincial government of Bob Rae to a position with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, tasked with helping to reduce bureaucratic red tape in development applications.