Details

How realistic is the prospect of all-day two-way GO trains from Newmarket to Toronto? And can Metrolinx deliver?

Last month, the Liberal Chris Ballard smashed the PC hegemony in Newmarket-Aurora, winning the provincial election on the promise (amongst other things) of “all-day two-way north and south, electric GO trains, connecting people to jobs and jobs to people”.

Fighting words, but what weight should we give them?

Back in April, the Town of Newmarket published a transportation study commissioned from the outside consultants GDH. This massive tome informs and lies alongside the Secondary Plan which has now been adopted by the Town and awaits approval from York Region.

In the section entitled “GO Train frequency” the report states:

“…Furthermore, two-way all-day services will be introduced within 10-15 years (before 2031). Metrolinx has advised that the tracks will have to be doubled to Newmarket and beyond, to accommodate this service improvement.”

Armed with this information I wrote to the Chief Executive of Metrolinx, Bruce McCuaig, in April asking if the Next Wave project running two-way all-day GO trains from Union Station to East Gwillimbury would involve laying two tracks along the route in its entirety or whether only part of the route would be dual. Specifically, I asked if twin tracking would be required anywhere in Newmarket.

Over two months later I received a reply from Metrolinx Director of Customer Care, Paula Edwards, who tells me:

“Our planned improvement for the Barrie Corridor is not solely based on twin tracking. Although twin tracking may be required in some areas, it is doubtful if it will be needed for the entire route.”

That’s fair enough but it didn’t answer my question. I made it clear I was only interested in the section of the Barrie line from East Gwillimbury to Union Station.

Ms Edwards tells me that any track enhancements would warrant a review of the infrastructure. I am amazed this hasn’t already been done.

Getting basic information from Metrolinx shouldn’t be like pulling teeth. Now I am back in touch again with Metrolinx asking to be pointed to any publicly available documents on the twin tracking of the Barrie line from East Gwillimbury to Toronto.

And who was it in Metrolinx who told GHD that tracks would have to be doubled to Newmarket and beyond to accommodate all-day two-way GO trains?

On a related matter, Newmarket’s Secondary Plan has a giant circle around the site of the proposed new GO Rail Station at Mulock Drive. When I raised this with Bruce McCuaig his surrogate, Paula Edwards, told me “there are no plans to consider a station at Mulock Drive, however we are constantly monitoring customer demand”.

Does this mean that the proposed GO rail station has disappeared completely from Metrolinx forward plans? Or is it still there, as a possibility Metrolinx may consider, if future demand warrants it?

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get straightforward answers on an issue that took centre stage in the Provincial elections only a few weeks ago.

More will follow.

 

 

Details

Earlier this week I am reminded that York Region has the lowest percentage of rental housing (11.5%) in the whole of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). For the Province as a whole, rental accounts for 28.4%. For Canada, it is 30.6%

A fascinating presentation by Adelina Urbanski from the Region’s Community and Health Services Department tells Newmarket Council (on Monday 23 June) that the average price of a house in York Region is now an eye-watering $790,000. And we learn that only 33 rental units were completed across the entire region in 2012. Clearly, there is a pressing need to make more rental properties available. Too many people can’t afford to live in Newmarket.

Regional Councillor John Taylor underlines the point when he shares with us a conversation he had with a woman working in a Newmarket Tim Horton’s who lives in Barrie, 35 miles away, and travels to and from work every day by GO bus.

With this as background, I am intrigued to find out how councillors would deal with an impasse between a developer who wants to build a 15 storey, 225 unit, rental apartment building at 212 Davis Drive and the Town’s Planning Department whose insistence on having a public right of way cutting through the development’s car park is, apparently, threatening the future of the entire project.

On 18 June 2014, in an email exchange, Marion Plaunt, the senior planner in charge of the Secondary Plan file, tells the developer’s agent, Daniel Berholz, that it would be

“premature to modify the street pattern without a proper analysis of your application”.

She tells him

“there is sufficient time between the adoption of this plan and the final decision by the Region of York, which is anticipated in the new year (2015), for a comprehensive review of the network relative to the current application and resolution of this issue.”

This infuriates Berholz who fires back on 19 June saying he is not willing to have the public “traverse through our parking lot as part of the Town’s street network”.  He continues:

“To be clear, refusing to remove these private roads/lanes will undermine the feasibility of our plan… The Town needs to decide if they want to Make Rental Happen or if they want to place unnecessary roadblocks in our way.”

Now an increasingly muscular Taylor wants to know if the impasse between the developers and planners on 212 Davis Drive can be sorted out. If not, I sense he is prepared to move an amendment to the Secondary Plan there and then to secure the promise of much needed rental accommodation – even if it blows a hole in the cherished “fine grain network” of streets that are planned to criss-cross the land on both sides of the Yonge Davis corridors.

Step forward the Town’s Planning Chief, Rick Nethery, whose emollient words defuse a difficult problem. “There is a solution” says Nethery.

He tells councillors the developer will have “the comfort level he needs”.

We all think we know what he means.

But only Nethery knows for sure.

 

Details

I’ve heard Regional Councillor John Taylor talk about the Secondary Plan on so many occasions, I think I could probably write the script. With my eyes closed.

He tells councillors on Monday (23 June) that the Plan “protects and preserves existing residential neighbourhoods” (unlike Glenway). He says it is a “very solid blueprint for the future” and that it takes a “balanced approach”.

There is a “design review process” ensuring we get the right kind of built form. And building heights have been reduced, spreading development along the corridors.

There has been a legal review to make the Plan OMB proof. And there is a “binding implementation strategy” that ties development with population and infrastructure. (see the amendment below)

He admits it has been a “difficult and emotional process”.

Joe Sponga tells us it has been a long haul. But we are moving forward on what he considers to be “a cautious plan”.

Now it is the turn of the reinvented small town girl, Maddie Di Muccio. She chose to come to Newmarket to live because it is a close-knit community. We are told people came here to escape from Markham and places like that. Now we are being raked with more population statistics. We are going to see more cars on the roads; more social problems. Saying No to the Plan is the responsible thing to do.

“I see the future and I don’t like the problems that will come with this level of growth.”

The Taylor Amendments

Taylor now moves amendments to the draft Secondary Plan making explicit what is usually taken as implicit. He believes his last minute amendments address head-on the concerns of those who think Newmarket is growing unsustainably in a helter skelter fashion. He wants another report on “sequencing of development” brought back to councillors before the Region approves the Plan (in early 2015).

(a) It is the policy of this plan that phasing of development shall be coordinated with the provision of human services, transit, roads, parks and recreation facilities, schools and infrastructure (for example water and wastewater). As such, development in the Town of Newmarket shall proceed in a coordinated and phased approach in conjunction with the necessary infrastructure to support it.

(b) In order to further define and address the appropriate sequencing of development,staff be directed to report back prior to Regional approval of the Plan with a binding implementation strategy addressing population thresholds and the infrastructure necessary to support the identified population targets. Infrastructure considerations might include but not be limited to the following: roads, parks, recreation facilities, schools and water and wastewater conveyance.

If nothing else, this will keep the planners busy.

 

Details

I tune into The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

The panel of four PC die-hards – including Newmarket’s Maddie Di Muccio - pick over the entrails of the once mighty, but now humbled, Progressive Conservatives.

Di Muccio wastes no time in sticking the knife into Tim Hudak who – for reasons never fully explained - vetoed her candidacy in Newmarket-Aurora. She says Hudak “went rogue on the Party”. It wasn’t a grassroots campaign but one directed by “the management”. She says bluntly: “The Leader blew it.”

Di Muccio took a half page advertisement in the Era Newspaper on 10 April 2014 denouncing Hudak for blackballing her. We must presume she paid for this out of her own pocket - unlike the earlier one denouncing the Mayor for his fondness for tax increases.

The discussion now touches on Ontario’s changing demographics. She says her nemesis, Frank Klees, was offered an outreach role to connect the PCs with minority communities but he turned it down. She doesn’t elaborate.

For much of the time Di Muccio is crowded out of the conversation. But she comes quite animated at the very end when Paikin asks who the next Leader of the PCs should be.

Di Muccio wants:

“Somebody who is dynamic. It should be a woman. Someone who can communicate and connect emotionally with people.”

I wonder who she has in mind?

Andrea is sticking around

While Tim Hudak wanders off alone into the forest, the NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, proclaims the election result is some kind of victory.

She says it is the best result for the New Democrats in a quarter of a century. "The numbers tell us that we achieved the highest seat total for our Party in a general election in Ontario since 1990."

She aims to lead the ONDP into a third Provincial Election, four years away.

She brazenly announces her decision before meeting her caucus for the first time since the election, a move clearly designed to snuff-out any opposition before it can take root.

She tells us there is a leadership convention in November. If people aren’t happy, they can do something about it then.

If only.

 

Details

The Clock Tower and adjacent buildings owned by developer and self-styled entrepreneur, Bob Forrest, is up for sale.

An ad in the Business Section (page B13) of today's Globe and Mail states this:

FOR SALE

180-194 Main Street South – intersection of Park Avenue and Main Street South in Downtown Newmarket.

(Site includes historic Clock Tower building and four commercial storefront buildings)

0.656 acres

Present Zoning: UC-D1 OP

Historic Downtown Centre

Contact us at

905-752-6776 ext 229

or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Bob Forrest snapped up the Old Post Office (now known as the Clock Tower) on 1 March 2011 for $2,340,000. It was on the market for $3,275,000. He then bought several adjacent properties on Main Street South from Michael Bryan, reportedly for some $1.7 million, giving him a parcel of land big enough to develop. Even so, to this day, Forrest still needed Town-owned land for his project to get off the ground.

Newmarket’s professional planners worked closely with the developer for two years yet, astonishingly, councillors were never asked if they wanted to make Town-owned land available to a developer whose project ran directly counter to the Town’s policies for the area.

In September 2013, Forrest’s business tenants at 184-194 Main Street South (Lemon and Lime, Upper Crust Bakery, Econo Pizza, the Video Store etc) were given notice to quit by 31 March 2014.  But in early March the eviction threat was thought to have been lifted.

The site for Forrest’s proposed 9 storey condo was smack-dab in the middle of the Town’s Heritage Conservation District that was designated in 2010. However, it was not until October 2013 that the foot-dragging Town Council got round to enshrining that policy in a By Law. Pressure had been mounting all year for the Town to act. An artist’s impression of what Forrest’s condo would look like sent shock waves through civic groups. Many people were outraged. The Town’s Heritage Advisory Committee voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposal in April 2013. 

In November 2013, Forrest’s company Main Street Clock Inc appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, claiming a planning application for the condo proposal had been lodged with the Town before the By Law was enacted. 

On 3 February 2014, the Town held the required Statutory Meeting to consider Forrest’s proposal. A report on that meeting has never been published by the Town.

Forrest’s planned timetable for the project was thrown out of kilter by the Heritage Conservation District By Law passed in October 2013 that, he says, “caught us by surprise”.

He subsequently offered to extend the lease of his tenants until September 2014 and then on a month-by-month basis but only if all opposition to the project stopped.

That was never going to happen.

 

  • You are here:  
  • Home