Details

The second of three so-called “public planning meetings” on the Highland Gate development in the neighbouring town of Aurora is a dispiriting affair. The developer, the Geranium Corporation, wants to build 184 houses and a ten storey condo on land identified as open space in the Town’s Official Plan.

Residents of the high-end neighbourhood stream into the cavernous cafeteria of the Maximilian Kolbe Catholic School on Wednesday (30 September) like lambs to the slaughter. They are to hear more about the fate that shortly awaits them. The former golf course which threads its way through this prosperous enclave is, like Glenway, going to be developed.

The Town’s planning committee is up on stage sitting impassively, Bhudda like. The Mayor Geoffrey Dawe, is presiding. He says they won’t be making any decisions tonight. They are there to listen and silently cogitate. The Mayor tells people they must first register to speak from the microphone as if everyone has come along with a prepared script. And he says the meeting is being video recorded. Just to make sure everything is done by the book. What I am witnessing is the ultimate box ticking exercise. I am chatting to the man beside me who tells me the Town is just going through the motions. I nod.

Greasing the wheels

The developer and his satraps are out in force. The lawyers (Ira Kagan of Glenway fame is here, inevitably) and the planners and sundry consultants who grease the developer’s wheels stand at the back of the hall in case they are called upon to give expert advice.

The Town – whose collective mind is obviously already made up – loads its website with huge amounts of information explaining what is being proposed and the process that will be followed.

One of the Town’s planning staff kicks off with a presentation, explaining what the developer has in mind. Now he reports on what other agencies think. It is a long list and most have no objections. I see York Region up on the screen and it too has no objections. This does not surprise as the chief planner, Val Shuttlesworth, has talked publicly about former golf courses being suitable candidates for infill development.

The residents have no allies. They are on their own.

Don Given, for the developer, wants the audience to believe he is all sweet reason. 50% of the land is to be left as open space and conveyed to the municipality. All the lots will be at least 50 feet and the new houses will be of comparable quality to those there now. 44 agreements have already been struck between residents and the developer, safeguarding their properties with additional planting and new grading where necessary.

Now a long line of residents waits to be called to the rostrum. They are, in turn,  impassioned, agitated, frustrated but their words are absorbed into the giant on-stage sponge that is the Planning Committee. No response. No reaction. We are told that all comments and observations will be considered and analysed with answers given in due course. I could be listening to Tony Van Bynen.

Highland Gate residents scream quietly

I hear Chris McGowan, a scientist and full Professor at the University of Toronto, call for green spaces to be preserved. We get a mini-lecture on the importance of ponds to the eco-system and how the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority doesn’t understand basic science. All very entertaining in a whacko kind of way.

Now Linda O’Connell is reeling off a list of concerns from light pollution to the increased risk of child abduction. My eyes roll heavenwards.

Gary Grierson follows, speaking on behalf of many elderly residents who are worried about traffic and people queuing up at Tim Horton’s and much else besides. He is breathing heavily, full of pent up rage, and I am relieved he gets through his presentation without keeling over. Now William Hayes wants to know the cost of hooking up the development to the Town’s existing water, wastewater and other services. He too has a long list of questions that disappear into the sponge.

Glenway is held up as a model

Now it is the turn of Klaus Wehrenberg. I learn he has been a resident of Aurora for 45 years. With his heavily German accented English and a bushy grey beard extending down to his navel, he is, I suspect, an Aurora institution. If not, he deserves to be.

He tells us they have an opportunity to develop an amazing linear park! If people reject the developer’s proposals they will be playing into his hands. A straight rejection of what is on offer will favour the developer at the OMB. As if to illustrate his point he waves his arm to get a promo of Glenway up on the screen.

We can begin every day with WOW! Just like Glenway.

It is only 75 minutes into what will probably be a long meeting. The residents are no longer furious; they are resigned. They come over as supplicants pleading with the developer to consider modifying this and that.

I hear no-one demand the Town stand alongside them to defend their neighbourhood and the Official Plan. But that probably happened at the first public meeting – the one where people were no doubt encouraged to vent.

At this point I decide to slip out into the night.

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Update on 16 October 2015: The third and final public planning meeting will be held at 6.30pm on Wednesday 28 October 2015 at St Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School, Aurora.

 

Details

Metrolinx will be giving its much anticipated presentation on Regional Express Rail to Newmarket councillors at the Committee of the Whole on Monday 9 November 2015.

Metrolinx gave an update to York Region councillors on 10 September. The slides and commentary can be found in documents. (Top left panel and navigate to Metrolinx).

Remarkably, no-one present at that meeting asked the obvious questions - whether the Barrie line would be twinned tracked along its length or if the railway corridor would have to be widened at any point. I hope these matters will be addressed in November if there is still any uncertainty.

Councillors will also want to ask for an update on grade separations (how many, where and when) and the possible inclusion in Metrolinx’s plans of a new GO rail station at Mulock Drive.

We should enthusiastically welcome this huge civil engineering project and the thinking behind it. But the Town needs to be proactive and not just sit back and wait to be told what to expect.

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Details

Now that the Ontario Municipal Board has given approval in principle for a 28 townhouse development on protected meadowland at Silken Laumann Drive all eyes turn to the conditions – 99 in all though only a handful of these are critically important.

Just days before the OMB Hearing on 28 September 2015, Metrolinx submitted two conditions it wished to see incorporated into the so-called “Conditions of Draft Approval” (see note at bottom). I saw the conditions for the first time when I was on my feet giving my views to the Board.

The developer’s lawyer, Paul De Melo, tells the Board these are standard conditions. This is incorrect. Condition 88 stipulates that the owner shall ensure that the main walls of any dwelling units shall be at least 48 metres from the rail corridor. This is a condition specifically tailored to the circumstances of this development. Condition 89 is standard. (See below)

Townhouses on the move

In March 2013, the developer’s planner, Gary Templeton, tells Metrolinx’s rail corridor management division that the closest new townhouse to the eastern boundary of the railway lands would be 43.2 metres – well within the 48 metre cordon sanitaire now imposed.

Back in 2013, there is a prolonged to-and-fro between the Metrolinx people responsible for rail corridors and Gary Templeton on whether a safety berm between the railway and the new townhouse development is actually needed.

The issue is critically important. If Metrolinx insists on a safety berm it could drive a stake through the heart of the meadowlands development. The staff report from the Town’s own planners tells councillors on 14 September 2015 that

“if required, this safety berm would encroach into the proposed storm water management facility necessitating a redesign.”

No Redesign

A redesign is the last thing the developer wants given the tight constraints of the site.

The alternatives are to (a) push the townhouse development further away from the railway and/or (b) ensure there is a difference in grade between the railway and development by adding height to the latter. Both create their own complications.

In the event, the developer wants things settled and offers to locate the townhouses at least 48 metres from the railway. Based on that information, Metrolinx confirms a safety berm is no longer required.

At Monday’s OMB Hearing, Templeton tells Jan Seaborn, the OMB adjudicator, that the plan – which is also circulated to the participants in the meeting room - has not changed since it was filed in 2013. He is, perhaps, being economical with the actualité. The plan shows the lots - which won’t change- but not the building lines, which will.

Stormy waters

Condition 16 is worth keeping an eye on. This concerns storm water management. The Town’s consulting engineers, Burnside, told the Town on 20 August 2015 that:

“Block 6, which is currently indicated as a storm water management area, is not adequately sized to accommodate the storm water management pond and the outlet pipes and channels… Easements and agreements to construct and maintain facilities on Town owned lands will be required prior to registration of the final Plan of Subdivision.”

Maybe this is all fancy dancing on my part. The big picture is this: despite what the experts say, we are seeing some seriously bad planning.

If this is "good planning", try living there

The Town should not be facilitating this kind of development. The planners and lawyers who say it “represents good planning” wouldn’t be seen dead living there - sandwiched between a hydro corridor and a railway that is going to see a huge increase in train traffic in the near future. No way. Not in a thousand years.

Our councillors are probably already programmed to give approval to this inappropriate development, beguiled by the developer’s offer of a three metre wide asphalt trail, set out in Condition 48. They say their hands are tied – even the ward councillor, Tom Vegh, who finds it all slightly amusing.

The offers to purchase will, of course, contain warning clauses along the lines set out below in the 2013 noise and vibration study. (see Documents)

This dwelling unit has been supplied with a central air conditioning system which will allow windows and exterior doors to remain closed, thereby ensuring that the indoor sound levels are within the noise criteria of the Municipality and the Ministry of the Environment.

Caveat Emptor

But our councillors could do more. They could adopt some of the measures set out at page 43 in the Guidelines for New Developments in Proximity to the Railway. I like the sound of this:

Municipalities are encouraged to require appropriate signage/documentation at development marketing and sales centres that

  • identifies the lots or blocks that have been identified by any noise or vibration studies and which may experience noise and vibration impacts;
  • identifies the type and location of sound barriers and security fencing;
  • identifies any required warning clause(s); and contains a statement that railways can operate on a 24 hour basis, 7 days a week.

The 28 townhouses may still sell like hot cakes.

But I rather doubt it.

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To read the conditions of draft approval, click documents in the panel above left, navigate to the folder Silken Laumann and open.

Metrolinx conditions

Condition 88: The Owner shall agree that the main walls of any dwelling units on the subject lands will be located a minimum of 48 metres from the Rail Corridor.

Condition 89: The Owner shall agree in the subdivision agreement to provide the following warning clause in all offers of purchase and sale:

Warning: Metrolinx, carrying on business as GO Transit, and its assigns and successors in interest are the owners of lands within 300 metres from the land which is the subject hereof. In addition to the current use of the lands owned by Metrolinx, there may be alterations to or expansions of the rail and other facilities on such lands in the future including the possibility that GO Transit or any railway entering into an agreement with GO Transit to use the Metrolinx lands or Metrolinx and their respective assigns or successors as aforesaid may expand their operations, which expansion may affect the living environment of the residents in the vicinity, notwithstanding the inclusion of any noise and vibration attenuating measures in the design of the development and individual dwellings. Metrolinx will not be responsible for any complaints or claims arising from use of such facilities and/or operations on, over or under its lands.

 

Details

To the Town’s Operations Centre for the 10am OMB Hearing (28 September 2014). We are in the Training Room decorated in beige and office grey.

At the front, behind a table, sits the pleasant and quietly efficient adjudicator and Vice Chair of the OMB, Jan Seaborn. She has been on the Board since May 2000 and clearly knows the ropes.

In front of her sits Paul De Melo, from Ira Kagan's law firm, representing the developer and with him is his planning expert, the mumbling Gary Templeton. I see the familiar faces of Esther Armchuk, the Town Solicitor, and the genial Dave Ruggle who is the senior planner responsible for the Silken Laumann file. He is silent throughout.

There is a group of people from Silken Laumann who hope to have their say.

Some tinkering needs to be done

To recap. The Developer, in the shape of the numbered company 292145 Ontario, and the Town have stitched up a deal to allow a development of 28 “at grade” townhouses on protected meadowland between the GO rail tracks and the hydro corridor. Paul De Melo tells us he has worked diligently with the Town and they have reached a consensus. He says Metrolinx has no concerns “but some conditions”. He admits that, overall, “some tinkering needs to be done”. In order to bring the project to completion the developer will need access to Town-owned lands. This will be forthcoming if the developer comes up with some “significant benefit” to the Town. This is how the bartering works.

Esther Armchuk tells the Board the Town has worked very hard to “scope down” the issues.

Surrounded by Town owned land

Gary Templeton is now addressing the adjudicator. He says it is a small site, 200 metres long; 55 metres at the southern end and broadening out to 110 metres at its northern end. We are told it abuts municipal land on the north, south and west. He says the plan has not changed since it was first submitted in 2013. He stresses the land is outside the flood plain and that the environmental impact assessment, carried out by the developer’s expert, Beacon, shows the development would not cause “any negative impact”.

He then takes us to s51.24 of the Planning Act and tells us he has “had regard to all the elements in this section” and that in his professional planning view the development is not premature. Whoa! Not so fast!

The Planning Act stipulates that:

“in considering a draft plan of subdivision, regard shall be had… to

(b) whether the proposed subdivision is premature or in the public interest;”

Experts say development “represents good planning”  Pull the other one!

Templeton says the development represents “good planning”. The Town’s Solicitor chimes in that in her view too the development “represents good planning”. I am left wondering what “bad planning” would look like. Their contributions are all so obviously fake.

Now Paul De Melo is going through the formulaic script, ticking the boxes as he goes. It is all so utterly predictable. We hear no objections were raised by York Region and Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority. Hydro One had no concerns about proximity of the development to the hydro corridor. Metrolinx, apparently, has no objections, sending in a standard condition in the last few days. Of course, concerns were raised by a number of agencies but these were either worked through (as with the safety berm issue) or shunted into a siding, to be addressed later.

Gene-pool

Now it is open to the members of the public. First up is Katharine McLeod who is concerned about the development’s environmental impact on protected meadowlands. She talks about the importance of wildlife corridors, allowing creatures to travel widely to mate which is good for the gene-pool.

Wasim Jarrah is next up. He appears calm and confident, speaking without a note. He points to the twin tracking issue which, he says, has not been addressed by either side. There has also been no mention of the Town’s proposal for a new GO rail station which could impact on the development.

Another resident, Mary Colton, tells us the area in question is a well-head protection area. How does that square with developing it? She is concerned about protecting our supply of clean drinking water. She is also worried about the absence of a safety berm between the railway and the townhouses. She says children will always go exploring and next to the railway that’s dangerous. She also worries about the noise.

Tom Vegh chortles

I am up next and am feeling a tad hyper. All this stuff about the development representing “good planning” is almost more than I can take. I see the ward councillor, Tom Vegh, amused and chortling as I put in my twopenny worth. He is ostensibly against the development but ends up voting for it.

I return to the points made by Wasim Jarrah. There are proposals from Metrolinx to double track the rail corridor but the implications of this are, as yet, still unclear. There is also a proposal in the Town’s Official Plan to locate a new GO rail station a stone’s throw away on industrial land south of Mulock Drive. Neither the Town, nor the developer, nor indeed the adjudicator shows any curiosity about the Town’s policy on the GO rail station. No questions. No comments. No interest.

The twin tracking seems to be regarded by everyone who is paid to be at the OMB Hearing as speculative. We are asked to believe that Metrolinx would have flagged it up with specific conditions if they were serious about doing anything to the railway corridor. As it is, all they send to the Town are their standard conditions safeguarding their position if developments take place within 300 metres of the railway. (The condition will be posted here as soon as I get it from the Town’s solicitor.)

It is not my finest moment as I badger the developer’s lawyer about the significance or otherwise of the Metrolinx condition – which had been kept from me until that very moment. I feel exasperated by the way in which everything is stage-managed down to the last expert's opinion. Paul De Melo walks up to my table and lays the paperwork in front of me. That’s the condition. It’s all there for you to read.

No basis to stop the development says OMB

Now all eyes are on the adjudicator who, without missing a beat, tells us she will approve the development, citing the close working relationship between Town and developer. She tells us the Town has worked hard with commenting agencies and has gone through the proposal carefully, reviewing it with a fine tooth comb. She says there is no legal or planning basis to stop the development proceeding.

But she says, this doesn’t mean that everything is finalized. There are close to 100 conditions that will have to be satisfied before the first concrete is poured into the protected meadowland.

What do I take from all this?

The whole planning system is totally, hopelessly bankrupt.

Who - other than a professional planner or lawyer – would conclude that what is on offer at Silken Laumann Drive and is now approved in principle “represents good planning”?

Why is it that no-one from the Town – either at the Council on 14 September or at the OMB this morning - is prepared to venture any opinion whatsoever on how the development could impact on its own proposal, set out in the Official Plan, to locate a new GO rail station close by?

The progress of this development needs to be followed very, very closely. Step by step. Condition by condition.

Like Glenway, it has all the makings of another text book classic on what’s wrong with a planning system that is no longer fit for purpose.

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Details

A controversial plan to build 28 townhouses on protected meadowland at Silken Laumann Drive in Newmarket, sandwiched between a hydro corridor and the GO railway track, looks certain to be approved by the Ontario Municipal Board on Monday (28 September 2015) after the Town and developer struck a deal.

The Town desperately wants to avoid the cost of going to the OMB for a full Hearing – estimated at $100,000-$150,000 – even though few believe the development represents good planning. The ward councillor, Tom Vegh, voted for the proposed development despite proclaiming it is way too close to the railway.

Silken Laumann is another shining example of a planning system that is truly deformed – where approval in principle is given before all the details are fully worked out. Slessor Square, a barren plot in a prime site in central Newmarket, empty for years, provides the case study par excellence of this approach.

On 14 September councillors agreed that the Silken Laumann development could proceed leaving loose ends to be tied up later in discussions between the Town and developer. Councillors also wanted some significant community benefit from the developer as the price for allowing development on protected meadowland. Their decision is premature at best; cavalier at worst.

Resolve issues now – not later

As recently as 20 August 2015, Burnside, the Town’s consulting engineers who reviewed the developer’s plans, raised questions about culverts under the railway which were not shown in the plans. They said the stormwater management area, next to the railway corridor, was not big enough. They told the Planning Department:

“Our preference is that all the outstanding issues be addressed at this time, although we acknowledge that some issues can be deferred to the detailed engineering design stage with appropriate draft plan conditions.”

Metrolinx sets conditions for the development

Earlier this week Metrolinx gave the Town’s planners conditions it expects to see incorporated into the so-called “Draft Conditions of Approval”. The developer must comply with these conditions if the project is to proceed. These were not available to councillors on 14 September and will be kept from the public until after Monday’s OMB Hearing.

We do not know if the Metrolinx conditions are significant or inconsequential.

These draft conditions will morph into the “terms of settlement” that will be put before the OMB Hearing on Monday 28 September 2015.

Until earlier this week, the sole comment from Metrolinx focused on whether a safety berm was or was not needed. (When the developer decided to add additional height to the site by using fill, Metrolinx agreed that a safety berm was not needed because of the difference in grade between the railway and townhouses.)

Twinning the train track

Councillors had no information on whether the track at Silken Laumannn would be twinned and whether that might involve widening the rail corridor. One of my well connected spies tells me a second track and electrification can be accommodated within the existing corridor and, in any event, there is no guarantee that the track will be twinned.

Fair enough. But councillors had no information before them on 14 September showing what Metrolinx has in mind for the 6km of railway through Newmarket. Senior staff at the meeting were unable to shed any light on its thinking.

However, we do know that Greg Percy, the President of GO transit and the person responsible for the roll-out of Regional Express Rail, told the Metrolinx Board in September 2014:

“We know one new track will be required pretty much along the full length of the (Barrie) corridor because much of it is single track today. We need to double track that corridor and it also includes quite a few road and rail grade separations along the way.”

  The Metrolinx Board heard on 25 June 2015 that an    Environmental Assessment of the Barrie corridor was currently under way and is scheduled for completion in December 2016. It is looking at additional track from Parkdale (Toronto) to Allandale (Barrie) and a layover facility north of Bradford. We do not know where that additional track will necessarily be laid but the accompanying graphic – which went to the same Board meeting - clearly shows the possibility of twin tracking to East Gwillimbury. (Work on twin tracking between Rutherford and York University is currently underway.)

New GO Rail Station – a stone’s throw from the Silken Laumann development – is ignored

Although I raised the issue in my presentation to councillors on 14 September, there was no discussion of the possible impact of the development on the proposed new GO rail station at Mulock Drive or vice versa. The Town’s own consolidated Official Plan (2014) says

“conflicts between railway facilities and adjacent land uses shall be minimized where possible”.

Indeed, a report by the Director of Engineering to councillors on 23 April 2015 recommended that Metrolinx be invited to give a presentation to Council in which the new rail station would feature.

“The Town has a policy in its Official Plan (2006) about a potential new station in the industrial area on Mulock Drive. It would be an opportunity to discuss this concept with Metrolinx in the context of the new Regional Express Rail program.”

Questions about the footprint of the proposed GO rail station on the south side of Mulock Drive were simply left unaddressed by councillors.

The OMB Hearing on the Silken Laumann development will be held at 10am on Monday 28 September 2015 in the Training Room at the Town’s Operations Centre, 1275 Maple Hill Court (off Harry Walker Parkway). It is open to members of the public.

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