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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 12 January 2015

An interesting little nugget of news buried in the agenda of Newmarket’s Committee of the Whole meeting today.

Way back in April last year, the Committee of the Whole carried a resolution on the OMB’s Glenway decision which went up to the full Council meeting on 5 May 2014 for ratification. Councillors agreed:

THAT Council direct staff to organize a public meeting after the Ontario Municipal Board releases its written decision and within this term of Council, on what has been learned about the Official Plan Amendment, Zoning Bylaw Amendment and Draft Plan of Subdivision for Mariannevile Developments Limited (Glenway) process and the effects of future development as York Region prepares for growth.

Today’s agenda item 15 (List of Outstanding Matters) tells us that a report on the “process” will come forward to Council in Q1, 2015 – by the end of March.

Neither Maddie Di Muccio nor Chris Emanuel (who moved and seconded the original motion) will be there to follow things up. Such is life.

York Region gets down to business

With the election a fading memory, York Region is getting down to business – under the jolly leadership of its new well-padded Chair, Wayne Emmerson.

He tells councillors at last week’s Committee of the Whole (8 January) that if they want to catch his eye they should raise their right arm and then, next time, their left.

“Let’s get some exercise in here!”

I am warming to his droll sense of humour.

Newmarket’s John Taylor has moved across from chairing the Planning and Economic Development Committee to his new berth at Community and Health Services. Here he will be responsible for housing, health and well being.

The Region’s top administrators – grandly dubbed “commissioners” – present their reports to the newly elected councillors in easily digestible chunks, point-by-point and slide-by-slide. The performances are polished. Burnished, perhaps.

The programmes for the next four years are set out in colourful slides. Councillors are told what they can expect to get in the way of reports, and when. It occurs to me the whole well oiled machine would purr along quite nicely, thank you, in the complete absence of councillors.

Seems to me we need some grit in the oyster.

Better off and better educated 

The Regional HQ on Yonge Street is like a giant report-generating factory, constantly mining data-sets, allowing us to look at ourselves in new and interesting ways.

The Chief Executive, Bruce Macgregor is now taking his audience through the Region’s draft 2015-2019 Strategic Plan.

We hear that residents think transportation is the most important issue – by a long way. In 2009, just over 20% of York residents thought it the most important local issue. By 2014 this had soared to 50%. No surprises there.

55% of people in employment live and work in York Region. The average each way commute is 32.1 minutes which strikes me as an under-estimate. This compares with 30.3 minutes in Peel and a more comfortable 23.6 minutes in Durham.

The average household income is $110,751 compared with the Ontario average of $85,772. I learn we are better educated. 70% of people in York Region completed post secondary education compared with the Ontario rate of 54%.

Surveys tell us a low crime rate is one of the factors that makes for a good quality of life. Now I am looking at a slide that tells me the total crime rate per 100,000 people dropped 23% between 2009 and 2013. We are not told what the actual figures are – and no-one asks - but it all sounds quite impressive. Now I am told that “Mental Health Act apprehension per 100,000 people” is up a staggering 45% over the same period – but again no actual figures, just percentages.

Affordable Housing = $425,000

Now the screen tells me that 7 out of ten residents say affordability of housing is an important local issue. 30% of households spent at least 30% of their income on housing costs in 2011.

Now everyone is getting unusually animated about “affordable” housing which, in reality, is not affordable for thousands of people.

The Mayor of Vaughan, Maurizio Bevilacqua, is clearly exasperated. He says our own sons and daughters (meaning everyone’s) can’t afford to buy a home in the area. He wants to know how to make it happen. There is a note of urgency in his voice. If we do nothing we shall be storing up problems for ourselves in the future.

Adelina Urbanski, the Housing and Health Chief, tells us a “Housing Steering Committee” has been set up. I hear silent groans.

John Taylor too wants to know what the options are – ones that go beyond what the Region is currently doing. Perhaps it is time for another workshop?  (Now I groan!)

OMB Review

Someone asks the Region’s newly promoted Chief Planner, Val Shuttleworth, what is happening with the review of the OMB, promised by the Premier in last year’s election. Kathleen Wynne told the Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Ted McMeekin on 25 September 2014 that he should lead

“a review of the scope and effectiveness of the OMB and… recommend possible reforms that would improve the OMB’s role within the broader land use planning system.”

Val Shuttleworth tells us:

“I’ve heard nothing about the breadth or extent of that review.”

This is refreshingly candid. It occurs to me the way to keep the Commissioners on their toes is for councillors to ask short, simple, straightforward questions. And if councillors don’t get an answer they should repeat the question.

It is not rocket science and in my experience it generally works.

The next Committee of the Whole is at 9am on 15 January 2015 at the York Region HQ on Yonge Street. Councillors will be getting another series of overviews, this time on environmental services, finance, corporate services and legal and court services.

We shall soon know who is really setting the agenda.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 29 December 2014

On 27 March 2014, the Ontario Municipal Board decided that Marianneville Developments could redevelop the former golf course which threads its way through Glenway. Soon, over 700 new dwellings will be shoe-horned into the neighbourhood, utterly transforming it forever.

The previous Council agreed in April 2014 there should be a “lessons learned” meeting in an effort to understand what went wrong. We are still waiting for that meeting to be scheduled.

In the meantime, on 17 December 2014, I formally asked the OMB to review its decision.

The simple question that is crying out for answer in my own mind is this:

Would the OMB adjudicator, Ms Susan Schiller, have made the same decision on 27 March 2014 if she had known then what she knows now?

Since the end of March 2014, a mass of material has come into the public domain that would, at the very least, have changed the dynamics of the OMB Glenway Hearing. New questions would have arisen. Others, seemingly relevant at the time, would now be regarded as otiose.

Above all, in the context of what we now know, the absence from the OMB Hearing of any planner directly employed by the Town of Newmarket would have been seen as inexplicable. The empty seats would have set alarm bells ringing.

You can read my request for a review of the OMB’s decision on Glenway by clicking on “Documents” in the main menu panel on the left. Navigate to “Government Documents” and open “Request for a Review of OMB Decision on Glenway”.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 26 December 2014

A curious anomaly in the provincial Municipal Conflict of Interest Act allowed Frank Dale, the newly elected chair of Peel Region, to vote for himself, in a ballot he otherwise would have lost, thereby landing a job with a $184,898 salary and juicy pension entitlements.

The Toronto Star’s Urban Affairs Reporter, San Grewal, explains:

“Through three rounds of balloting, Dale cast his vote for himself, with rivals eliminated after each round. In the fourth round, he tied with Sanderson — 12 votes each. If Dale had not voted for himself, he would have lost. Instead, he won in the fifth and final round, a tiebreaker, in which he again voted for himself.”

“Sanderson couldn’t vote for himself because he is not a member of council.”

John Sanderson, who came from nowhere and almost won, complained the process was “completely unfair”. The round-by-round balloting is detailed here.

Sounds like a bit of a pantomime to me.

Another reason – as if any more are needed - for all Regional Chairs to be elected by the voters at large.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 12 December 2014

To the York Region Administrative Centre for the appointment of the new Regional Chair who will take over from Bill Fisch, retiring after 17 years.

The job pays just enough to keep the wolf from the door. Last year, Fisch took home a useful $217,780.

It is a glittering occasion. The council chamber is packed. I see the enrobed Michelle Fuerst, the Superior Court Justice who will adminster the oaths of office. The police top brass are here too, decked out in gold braid.

I see Canada’s longest serving councillor, Dave Kerwin, all suited-up, perched in the back row, as far away from the action as possible. And sneaking in through a side door, I see Tom Vegh.

Now it is time for the Presiding Officer, the Regional Clerk, Denis Kelly, to guide us through the arcane rules and procedures - at length. I learn that a candidate doesn’t even have to live in the Region. All councillors must vote. No abstentions are allowed. Kelly is, unusually, the centre of attention and is milking it for all it is worth, lapping up every moment.

The absurdity of it all strikes home when Kelly tells us that anyone can go for the vacancy (you can theoretically walk in off the street) so long as you are proposed and seconded by members of York Regional Council.

Wayne "it's my turn" Emmerson

Step forward the rotund Wayne Emmerson, the former Mayor of Whitchurch-Stouffville, who chose not to stand in the recent Regional elections because he had his sights set on the top job and didn’t want to foist a by election on voters back in his patch. He has been a fixture in the municipality for as long as anyone can remember.

Newmarket’s John Taylor also throws his hat into the ring.

A third contender pulls out and the pressure is on Taylor to do likewise.

Emmerson’s proposer, Richmond Hill’s Mayor, David Barrow, describes him as “someone with a fiscally responsible vision” which presumably means he likes to keep taxes low. (Fair enough, but why not say so in plain English?) I learn he has been Chair of the Region’s Transportation Services Committee since the dawn of time. Clearly, he is someone who knows all about congestion and gridlock.

Now Emmerson is invited to address his colleagues while the rest of us look on.

His speech gallops along. He swallows his words and occasionally gets them jumbled up. But, despite this, he gives the impression of having it all sewn up. He says he works well with people.

Van Bynen paints a picture

Now it is the turn of Newmarket’s Tony Van Bynen whose hagiography of Taylor is designed to bring a tear to the eye.

The audience hears that Taylor is passionate about building great communities. We learn that the hard infrastructure is being put in place but the social infrastructure has been neglected. John will sort that out. He is fact based and relies on data (so does my I Pad). And, bravely, he is willing to take on policy challenges such as rental housing. He is driven by a strong desire to do what is right (whatever that means) and he is willing to compromise to achieve consensus.

As I am digesting this encomium I hear two women directly behind me. “That was very nice. Very nice.”

I turn round and smile and they smile back, hesitantly.

Now it is time for Taylor to take to the podium. His first attention-grabbing sentence is: “I am not going to win this vote.”

Now he tells us why.

Some people feel I should have dropped off the ballot, installing the new Chair by acclamation without risking a messy old election (I made the last bit up.) But people outside wouldn’t understand why there was no contest.

Taylor sets out his stall

So he is staying in the race – knowing he will lose – to set out his own prospectus.

He talks about York’s ageing population; homelessness and affordable housing which, he says, is at “near crisis” levels.

He wants all-day GO trains to be fast tracked. And one year’s free transit pass to get people out of their cars. (There was some kind of qualification in there but I missed it.)

It all sounds pretty good to me. But, for the other 19 voters, it mostly falls on deaf ears.

Taylor gets four votes out of 20. (Jack Heath from Markham; Brenda Hogg from Richmond Hill; Newmarket’s Tony Van Bynen and his own.)

To applause, Wayne Emmerson ascends to the Chair and then sinks into it.

“I think I need a booster seat.”

This seems hilarious at the time. Less so now.

It is Emmerson’s second speech of the evening and he chooses to recite the achievements of the last term in the life of York Region.

We hear that 364 units have been added to the stock of rental – in four years, across nine municipalities! This, apparently, qualifies as an achievement. Oh dear!

Safely installed, I soon discover that Emmerson will be the guiding hand but “Regional Councillors will have to do all the heavy lifting.” I am left wondering what on earth that means.

He is generous to Taylor whose critics in Newmarket will say the vote was humiliating.

On the contrary, his short (and rather eloquent) speech highlighted the bankruptcy of the current system, based on deals, nods and winks and stitch-ups, to direct election of the Regional Chair by the voters at large.

Even though he lost, Taylor deserves a round of applause.

He did the right thing.