The house under construction at 116 Eden Court in Newmarket which looms over its neighbours does not comply with the Town’s own Zoning By-laws which are supposed to regulate matters such as height and lot coverage.
The issue goes before the Town’s Committee of Adjustment next week (30 November 2022). The Committee has authority to approve developments which do not strictly comply with the Town’s Zoning By-laws so long as these are considered minor and do not offend the Zoning By-law’s general principles.
The Town’s Planning Director, Jason Unger, told Newmarket Today that the house meets the height requirements of the municipal by-law. But does it?
The building is 9.7 metres high when the by-law stipulates a maximum height of 8.5 metres. The applicant says the building is 8.29 metres high. (Photo right)
Roof type is key
The building appears to have a mansard roof. The by-law makes it crystal clear that, for buildings with mansard roofs, height means the vertical distance between the established or finished grade (in shorthand, where the front of the building meets the ground) and
“the highest point of the roof surface or the parapet, whichever is the greater.”
If this is not a mansard roof then what is it?
The by-law puts mansard and flat roofs into the same category and draws a distinction between them and other types of roof where height is measured in a different way.
“With a gabled, hip, gambrel or any other type of pitched roof (height is measured from the established or finished grade to) the mean distance between the eaves and ridge of a roof.”
Assessing Compatibility
The Established Neighbourhoods Compatibility Study, commissioned by the Town and reporting in October 2020, recommended new, updated definitions in the Zoning By-law giving this rationale:
"The zoning by-law has long included rules that measured height differently depending on whether the roof was flat or pitched.
However, the by-law did not include definitions of how to determine what a flat, pitched, or mansard roof was. This allowed for greater height for new houses that were built with roofs that appeared like flat roofs but included cosmetic sloping elements."
Astonishingly, there is still no definition of a mansard roof in the Town's by-laws.
That said, the report helpfully shows a photo of a house with a mansard roof on page 69 (photo right). It is one of a series of illustrative examples of buildings which either meet or fail to meet the Town’s proposed new standards. It goes on:
“The building height exceeds the maximum permission of 8.5m. The assessment of building height is impacted due to the fact that this development features a mansard roof, as this increases the perception of height and massing. It is treated as a flat roof rather than a pitched roof...” (My underlining for emphasis)
Buildings with these roofs look bigger and bulkier.
"Giant freaking eyesore"
This explains why people in Eden Court feel overwhelmed by their new next-door neighbour. One resident told Newmarket Today:
“I don’t care if it’s to code, it’s a giant, freaking, eyesore.”
Lot coverage
The new house also exceeds the maximum lot coverage though only marginally. This was indicated up-front by the applicants when their drawings were submitted to the Town for approval earlier this year. It was waved through by the Town’s Building Control people.
The Director of Planning, Jason Ungar, told Newmarket Today:
“The new by-law did reduce the lot coverage from 35 per cent to 30 per cent, which this new home is violating by covering 31.5 per cent of the lot."
The paper added:
"Unger said a minor variance application is required and will be reviewed by the committee of adjustment."
Height and mass
It seems to me the lot coverage issue is secondary.
It is the height and mass of the new building dominating Eden Court that concerns people.
Clearly, we need the Town's definition of a mansard roof.
Or are we expected to know one when we see one?
The Town spent a huge amount of time and money developing its policies on compatibility to ensure new buildings fit in to established residential neighbourhoods.
We need to know if the Town seriously believes No 116 fits in with its neighbours.
And if it doesn't, what is the remedy?
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 22 November 2022
The Ford Government believes winning 40.8% of the vote on 2 June 2022 - in the lowest turnout ever in an Ontario Provincial election (43.5%) - gives him the mandate to do whatever he wants. But does it?
On 16 November 2022 a former Toronto Mayor, John Sewell, was removed from a Committee meeting at Queen’s Park by uniformed police officers because he complained he and others such as the Association of Municipal Organisations were denied an opportunity to speak on Bill 23: More Homes Built Faster.
NDP MPP Catherine Fife tweeted:
“I’ve never seen anything like this at Queen’s Park.”
Who needs a majority?
The Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy which is considering Bill 23 is also limbering up to examine Bill 39: Better Municipal Governance Act. This controversial Bill will allow the Mayor of Toronto to propose a by-law “which could potentially advance a prescribed Provincial priority” and get it passed “if more than one third of the members of city council vote in favour of the by-law”.
Ford needs a simple majority of the votes at Queen’s Park to legislate. But now the largest City in the Province will be able to pass by-laws opposed by a clear majority of City councillors. The Committee webpage tells me today:
“This committee is not currently holding public hearings related to this matter.”
But, of course, that could change. (See update below)
Highly consequential legislation is being introduced that never appeared in the PC Platform at the election only six months ago. Expect big changes to the Greenbelt.
There used to be a convention that major legislative proposals should be flagged up in Party Platforms. Ford has thrown that one overboard.
Whatever happened to constitutional conventions?
The Ontario Legislative Assembly is responsible for its own procedures and rules but there are conventions which supposedly regulate their use. Because Queen’s Park has the power to legislate for anything and everything within its competence it does not follow that it should. The recent use of the notwithstanding clause is a case in point.
These constitutional and Parliamentary conventions have been described as rules of good political behaviour. They play a key role in the orderly functioning of the legislature and, more generally, in oiling the machinery of government. These constitutional conventions are not enforced by the courts because they are not laws.
In the UK the convention is for two weekends to elapse between the First Reading of a Bill (ie when it is introduced and ordered to be printed) and when it comes up for debate at Second Reading. This delay is to allow MPs, the press and media and members of the public to familiarise themselves with what is in the Bill and to consult experts and others on the implications. Here everthing is done at breakneck speed.
The Ford Government routinely has second reading debates within a day or two of First Reading. When Bills are sent by the House into Committee for “line by line examination” the result very often is a farce. People are not given adequate notice to allow them to get in a request to speak to MPPs at Committee. Bill 23 provides a classic case study.
More time needed to consult the public
On 10 November 2022 at the end of the evidence session on Bill 23 the NDP MPP Jessica Bell asks the Committee to meet for an extra day to hear from the public.
“We’ve had an unprecedented number of people sign up to speak to us for next week in Toronto, and because the hearings in Toronto are virtual, it means that—it doesn’t just cover Toronto; it covers the entirety of Ontario…
When I look at the list of stakeholders who have signed up to speak, they are people who would be impacted by this sweeping bill; they are people who are experts on the subject matter that this bill impacts. We have AMO. We have provincial stakeholders. We have financial experts. We have a CMHC rep who is looking at speaking. We have a mayor who has signed up to speak as well. We have a responsibility, as MPPs, to make sure that the bills that we introduce and pass are as good as they can be, and that can only happen if we have expert public consultation and we take the time to listen to them and make amendments so that this bill can be improved. It’s just one extra day, and it will allow some additional experts to speak.”
MPP Vijay Thanigasalam explains in his own strangulated and convoluted way why the Progressive Conservatives are going to quash that nonsense:
“We are having adequate time to listen to stakeholders across the region, especially—I want to note that we’re just concluding our second day of these public hearings, and yesterday we had public hearings, on November 9, in the morning from 10 a.m. to 12, and also from 1 p.m. to—we heard stakeholders all the way to how many stakeholders who want to show up. Today is the second day we are going to have—and today is November 10—from morning to the entire day be allocated for public hearings.
However, since we have these adequate times allocated, which are November 9, November 10, November 16, as well as November 17—November 16 and November 17, as I said, moving forward, is going to be a hybrid model. So I feel like this is comprehensive time, adequate time for the public hearings. Therefore, we will not vote in favour of this motion.”
There speaks the ventriloquist's dummy.
Maybe this time Ford has bitten off more than he can chew.
Gordon Prentice 24 November 2022
The Ontario Legislative Assembly helpfully publishes a booklet on-line explaining how an Ontario Bill becomes law. See graphic right. It was written in the pre-Ford era – in August 2011 - and needs to be updated.
Update at 4.35pm on 24 November 2022: on Bill 39: Better Municipal Governance Act 2022: The Committee webpage says this:
The Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy will meet to consider Bill 39, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 and to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act, 2022.
The Committee intends to hold public hearings in Toronto, Ontario on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 and Thursday, December 1, 2022.
Interested people who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation on Bill 39 are required to register by 12:00 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 28, 2022.
Those who do not wish to make an oral presentation but wish to comment on the bill may send a written submission by 7:00 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, December 1, 2022.
Elected members in the smaller northern municipalities of York Region believe a Regional Chair from any of the big southern ones would disadvantage them. I don’t know if that is necessarily true but it was certainly a factor in deciding how the votes were cast.
Who voted for whom
7 Votes for Joe Li: Michael Chan (Markham); Jim Jones (Markham); Frank Scarpitti (Mayor of Markham); Alan Ho (Markham); Mario Racco (Vaughan); Godwin Chan (Richmond Hill) and Joe Li (Markham).
14 Votes for Wayne Emmerson: Tom Vegh (Newmarket); Steven Del Duca (Mayor of Vaughan); Gino Rosati (Vaughan); Margaret Quirk (Mayor of Georgina); Iain Lovatt (Mayor of Whitchurch Stouffville); Joe DiPaola (Richmond Hill); Naomi Davison (Georgina); Virginia Hackson (Mayor of East Gwillimbury); David West (Mayor of Richmond Hill); Mario Ferri (Vaughan); Tom Mrakas (Mayor of Aurora); Linda Jackson (Vaughan); John Taylor (Mayor of Newmarket); and Steve Pellegrini (Mayor of King).
Until the votes were cast, Emmerson was not a member of the Regional Council and had no vote. Now, after his election Emmerson’s vote is of equal weight to all the other members. And he will use it, as he has done over the past eight years, not just to break ties.
Unknown quantity
For most people Joe Li was an unknown quantity though he had been on the Regional Council for 12 years. In last week’s inaugural meeting of the new Council, Li was allowed five minutes to set out his stall.
I discover he speaks six languages. He left India decades ago to seek his fortune and ended up as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Sweden. Within ten years he was running four restaurants of his own. He then made the move to Canada.
Had there been an election at large – decided by the people rather than the 21 voting members of the Regional Council – I dare say we would know a lot more about Joe Li and, possibly, about Steven Del Duca too. After losing his own riding in the Provincial election in 2018 Del Duca decided to run for York Regional Chair in the election later that year.
Direct elections cancelled by Ford
The Wynne Government had legislated for direct elections in those regions that didn’t have them and candidates had already thrown their hats into the ring – and had raised money and were incurring campaign expenses – when Ford made his bombshell decision.
On 27 July 2018, Doug Ford introduced legislation (Bill 5: The Better Local Government Act) to slash the size of Toronto City Council and to cancel the first direct election ever in York Region – and in Niagara, Muskoka and Peel.
New Regional Council members Steven Del Duca, now Mayor of Vaughan, spent $67,191 on his abortive campaign and Mario Racco, Vaughan Regional Councillor, spent $54,534 which included $15,149 on legal fees in appealing unsuccessfully against Bill 5.
$607,503
The General Spending Limit for candidates running for Regional Chair was set (on a per voter formula) at an eyewatering $607,503.
Bill 5, cancelling the elections, became law on 14 August 2018. Emmerson, having said he wasn't going to stand again, changed his mind.
In his 27 August 2018 filing, required by Statute, Wayne Emmerson, indicated:
“I did not accept any contributions or incur any expenses.”
We can safely assume candidates for the new directly elected Regional Chair would have campaigned on a raft of policies, perhaps even including pledges to protect the Greenbelt. Had they done so, they would have had a stronger mandate than Ford’s Progressive Conservatives who said nothing about the Greenbelt during this year’s Provincial election. People who take politicians’ promises at face value would have concluded the Greenbelt was safe.
Shameless
The Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister, Steven Clark, the most shameless dissembler of the lot, said this in February 2021:
“I want to be clear: We will not in any way entertain any proposals that will move lands in the Greenbelt, or open the Greenbelt lands to any kind of development.”
Now more than ever we need Regional Councils elected on a popular mandate. But is it even remotely realistic to expect individuals, running as “independents”, to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to run for Regional Chair?
I don’t think so.
Political Parties, for all their well-publicised faults, are familiar and recognisable to the public. They drive up turnout (if only at the margins) and should be permitted to organise at the municipal level if they so wish.
New Kids on the Block
And new municipal parties should be allowed if like-minded individuals want to share expenses and campaign on a common platform.
Until this happens Doug Ford will be allowed to get away with blue murder.
Backstory: On 25 October 2022 the Provincial Government announced plans to discharge treated wastewater from Newmarket and the surrounding areas into Lake Ontario saying the previous plan to put the effluent into Lake Simcoe was no longer the best solution.
The Environment Minister, David Piccini, accused the previous Liberal Government – with some justification – of dragging its feet, neglecting to make a decision on critical infrastructure. The Ford Government now wants to send the wastewater down to the Duffin Creek treatment plant in Pickering before being discharged into Lake Ontario. (Photo right)
A so-called “panel of experts” ruled out the ready-to-go North York Sewage Solutions project on the grounds that it wouldn't support growth long term in Upper York region and would increase phosphorus discharges to Lake Simcoe. And, importantly, the Chippewas of Georgina Island were dead against.
Newmarket-Aurora's new MPP, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, told me in September she would accept the report of the expert panel convened by the Ford Government last year to decide where Newmarket’s sewage should go – up to Lake Simcoe or down to Lake Ontario. The panel chose the latter.
The report, not even three weeks old, has now been overtaken by events. Will the treatment plant at Pickering on the shores of Lake Ontario be able to handle the extra load generated by the thousands of new houses that Ford wants to see being built in Newmarket and on the adjacent Greenbelt which is to be opened up for development?
Servicing capacity "fully used up" in five years
The Panel knows an alternative is urgently required:
"The 2021 Servicing Capacity Assignment Status Update completed by York Region indicates that there is only approximately five years of growth capacity available in the York Durham Sewage System for the Upper York Sewage Service area. This means that, without receiving approval from the province of the Upper York Sewage Solutions project, servicing capacity for new development in Aurora, East Gwillimbury and Newmarket will be fully used up in about five years, restricting development and limiting the ability to meet Growth Plan targets after that period."
The Panel says
"updated growth projections completed since the submission of the 2014 Environmental Assessment show slower uptake and deferred growth projections for the UYSS service area. The previous 2031 population and employment targets are not anticipated to be reached until 2039. A 40 MLD (million litres per day) solution would now service growth to 2039 based on updated growth projections from the draft 2021 York Official Plan. An 80 MLD solution could service growth out to 2055."
The Panel believes this gives the Provincial Government some breathing space.
Growth has, of course, been reined back precisely because of these very same capacity constraints which the Panel has itself acknowledged.
In Newmarket these “servicing allocations” have been rationed for years in the absence of the sewage capacity needed to handle all the applications for new developments in the Town.
"Completely ignored or underplayed"
However, the “panel of experts” set up last year to examine the issue afresh has produced a report which does not take into account the huge number of new homes planned for Greenbelt land which was announced on 4 November 2022.
The left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
At York Regional Council on 10 November 2022, Public Works Commissioner, the impressive Erin Mahoney, tells Newmarket Mayor, John Taylor:
“We see it as a bit of an oversight on the panel's recommendations that these higher population projections, now being advocated for by the province, were not included in the definition of the solution.”
Taylor fears that the Duffin Creek plant may not be able to handle the extra load without a major upgrade which, he says, may cost many millions of dollars.
Mahoney tells Taylor:
“The implications on Duffin Creek you could either say were completely ignored or underplayed in schedule 10.” (ofBill 23: More Homes Built Faster).”
Upgrading Duffin Creek
Taylor says the new population figures arising from the thousands of new homes which the Province wants to see built in Newmarket – and the new housing developments in the adjacent Greenbelt – have not been factored into the province’s calculations and the Duffin Creek plant may need an expensive upgrade in seven or eight years.
Earlier, at Queen’s Park on 1 November 2022, Dawn Gallagher Murphy asks the Environment Minister David Piccini:
“York region has waited on an answer to its Upper York Sewage Solutions proposal since 2014, and I know that our government has been steadfast in working on this file since we came to government. Our government assigned the York region wastewater independent advisory panel to consider options regarding addressing wastewater solutions for the future. The panel has now published a report backing the Duffin Creek treatment facility for wastewater management.
Can the minister please elaborate on how this decision was made and why this is the right choice for all of Ontario and my community of Newmarket–Aurora in the great region of York?”
The Minister thanks the Panel for their "incredible work" claiming they’ve saved over $800 million for the ratepayers of York region:
"and provided certainty for both York and Durham regions so that folks can have a place to call home, not just today but for years to come."
But does Dawn Gallagher Murphy have any insights or information on whether Duffin Creek needs to be upgraded? And, if so, when? And at what cost? And who is going to pay? The Province or York Region taxpayers? And when can the service allocations that hold back development in her Newmarket-Aurora riding be lifted in their entirety?
Gordon Prentice 14 November 2022
Click "read more" below to see the exchanges between John Taylor and Erin Mahoney at York Regional Council on 10 November 2022.
The retiring Mayor of Vaughan, Maurizio Bevilacqua, last week (10 November) advised members of York Regional Council to play by the rules and reject any proposals for an advertising campaign against Ford’s Bill 23 (More Homes Built Faster) which will allow development on the Greenbelt.
This is the same Maurizio Bevilacqua who voted for the adoption of York Region’s Official Plan, redesignating agricultural land in Vaughan to rural and allowing football, tennis courts and other recreational uses on cropland.
Newmarket’s Mayor, John Taylor, had been pressing for an ad campaign to highlight the many flaws in the Bill. He told members the Province expected Newmarket to deliver 12,000 new units while requiring wastewater and sewage to be sent down to Lake Ontario and not up to Lake Simcoe. He said the new infrastructure could take six years to build. Taylor says:
"We have an allocation for 2,000 housing units left until (the sewage servicing infrastructure) is built. So in six years… we’ve built 2,000 of the 12,000 required homes. And then the last two years of the timeline - you have until 2031 to build – we’re supposed to go build 5,000 homes each year to hit this target when we're building 300 now. The math is so bad it's not even remotely realistic."
"They're gonna follow the rules"
I laughed out loud when I heard Bevilacqua, a former MP, tell his colleagues:
“I'm sure they're going to follow the rules in Queen's Park. There are certain things called committees before laws are enacted and they have to go through a public consultation. And if I'm not mistaken I think there are 444 mayors in the province of Ontario and they all have a say on behalf of council to appear in front of such committees.”
When Bevilacqua urged his colleagues to behave in a “diplomatic” and “refined” way, avoiding "confrontation" and using the levers that were available to them, the deadline had already passed for people wishing to make oral presentations to the Bill Committee.
Consulting the public. Don't blink or you'll miss the opportunity
The Legislature ordered the Bill into Committee on 31 October 2022. The Committee (Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy) decided to hold public hearings in Markham on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 (in-person), in Brampton on Thursday, November 10, 2022 (in-person), and in Toronto on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, and Thursday, November 17, 2022. The Committee’s web page tells us:
“Interested people who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation on Bill 23 are required to register by 6:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, November 3, 2022 (Markham and Brampton) and 6:00 p.m. (EST) on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 (Toronto).
Those who do not wish to make an oral presentation but wish to comment on the bill may send a written submission by 7:00 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, November 17, 2022.”
By Thursday of this week it will all be over.
Many of the old conventions which have regulated proceedings in the Legislature have been thrown overboard by Ford. Giving people adequate time to collect their thoughts and comment on major legislative proposals is just one. The use of the notwithstanding clause is a symptom of a deeper problem – believing an election victory gives the Government a mandate to do whatever they like.
The Doctrine of the Mandate
Bevilacqua believes this too:
“This Conservative government just recently received a majority from the province of Ontario and we collectively need to respect that.
And part of that agenda was housing… Now did they address all the issues that we are concerned about? Probably not. But do they have a mandate to govern? Yes they do.”
In his platform for the 2022 Provincial Election Doug Ford never said he would build on the Greenbelt.
So does the doctrine of the mandate now extend to any and every policy proposal whether or not it is included in the Party Platform?
This is not the way our democracy is supposed to work.
Telegraphing intentions
If a political party seeking office wants to do something big, bold and significant it should be in the Manifesto.
Doug Ford was caught on camera in 2018 promising to open-up chunks of the Greenbelt for development and then, when the story got out, he pledged he wouldn’t.
In Bevilacqua’s contorted logic, the fact that Ford “telegraphed his intentions” years ago gives him the mandate to do now what he repudiated then.
Personally, I’m all for Taylor’s ad campaign.
The bigger the better.
Gordon Prentice 15 November 2022
Click "read more" below to read Maurizio Bevilacqua's speech
