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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 04 October 2015

If the Town is remotely serious about getting a new GO rail station at Mulock Drive it should buy the land it needs now. The site, already identified by Newmarket planners as a suitable location, is up for sale.  It was the home of the former Magna armoured vehicle facility.

The 15 acre site at 402 Mulock Drive is almost directly opposite the Town’s HQ. It is on the market for $7,995,000. The property details describe it as being adjacent to the hydro corridor and on the rail line though the spur is not currently in use. It is available immediately.

Metrolinx is now actively working on its new stations strategy for the Barrie line and will be drawing up a shortlist over the winter months 2015/16. They say the new station shortlist will be based on public consultation and further analysis.

Circles on a map

Who knows if there is anything more to the Town’s pitch for a new station at Mulock Drive than a few circles on the map? Are there background papers? Has any serious work been done? How has the proposal been developed and taken forward? Have any steps been taken in closed session to buy the land that is now available? If not, why not? The Chief Administrative Officer, Bob Shelton, may well have warned councillors of the perils of going down that road, telling them the Town is not in the business of railways. After all, he told them years ago in secret session that the Town was not in the business of running golf courses. And the open spaces of Glenway are now being built over.

A new GO rail station at Mulock Drive would be transformational - though getting the thumbs up from Metrolinx would be no easy matter. If the Town is coming from a standing start I fear it will be impossible.

Regional Express Rail promises fast frequent services and every station slows the journey down. Aurora, Mulock, Newmarket and East Gwillimbury come in quick succession. The arguments in favour of Mulock have got to be persuasive.

Safeguarding the GO rail station site

When Metrolinx gave its presentation to York Region's Committee of the Whole on 10 September, our Regional Councillor, John Taylor, asked if there were any provisions for safeguarding land that might be needed for a future GO rail station. The answer is no. New stations are not funded beyond those already planned.

York Region’s response to the Metrolinx Regional Express Rail plan does not flag up Mulock Drive as a priority. Indeed it is not mentioned at all except by way of another circle on Map 11 of the Regional Official Plan where it is one of “a number of new stations recommended for inclusion in the GO Transit network”.

All this shouldn’t come as a bolt from the blue to councillors. The Town’s Planning Department has an important horizon scanning function and they have been drawing little circles on maps of Mulock Drive for years.

Planning chief, Rick Nethery, must have known what was coming down the track. It’s time he shared his insights with the rest of us. Time is running out.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 02 October 2015

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

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 01 October 2015

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

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 30 September 2015

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.