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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 22 May 2015

To York Regional Council to see the big debate (21 May 2015). It’s the only way. There is no video feed. Nothing on YouTube. The alternative is to sit next to a radio, and listen. They used to do this in the 1930s.

The Region is considering its response to three very significant Provincial policy reviews: the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the Greenbelt Plan and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan.

The Region’s Chief Planner, the ubiquitous Valerie Shuttleworth, outlines her recommendations with the usual colourful Powerpoint presentation replete with graphs and bullet points.

As they are absorbing this, Councillors are leafing through a 119 page report, printed on canary yellow paper to grab their attention, asking them to “endorse the staff recommendations contained in this report as the Region’s formal response…”

Whoa! Not so fast.

Thank goodness for Markham’s Jack Heath. He is not the type to rubber stamp anything. He wants an assessment of how the three plans are working in practice. He warns of “unintended consequences” arising from the existing plans and cites, as an example, the movement of places of worship into industrial areas. He says soaring land prices in residential areas have forced churches, cemeteries and sports facilities to look elsewhere for sites they can afford.

The Planners are getting ahead of themselves

Markham’s Frank Scarpetti, the highest paid Mayor in Ontario and, possibly, Canada, is also unhappy. You can see it in his face. He clearly feels councillors are being bounced into endorsing some very specific recommendations. He wants the submission to re-affirm positions previously adopted by the Region. He wants the Region to take a position next week at the special council on May 28.

Newmarket’s John Taylor wants his colleagues to focus on one or two big issues and not get lost in the undergrowth. He talks about the greenbelt in South Simcoe and making employment lands available along the 400 series of highways.

The planners want to grow the Greenbelt northwards into south Simcoe County as a way of preventing “leap-frog” development into agricultural areas.

The irrepressibly jolly Chair, the rotund Wayne Emmerson, says the 404 corridor is a huge opportunity for local municipalities and they should make the point strongly in their own municipality’s response. (Regional councillors were told, provisionally, that Newmarket would consider a staff report on May 25 and again at Council on June 1.)

Threats to the Greenbelt

Taylor’s ally, Richmond Hill’s Brenda Hogg worries about threats to the integrity of the Greenbelt and points to a staff recommendation which would permit “compatible community recreational uses”. Hmmm. She gets Valerie Shuttleworth to agree with her that the original purpose of the Greenbelt is to protect water sources and agriculture. Now a senior staff member responds saying the word “recreational” should be deleted. I am beginning to feel they are making it up as they go along. Shuttleworth agrees they need to come up with a definition of “compatible”.

Hogg is now taking us to Attachment 3 to the report which lists site-specific landowner requests to adjust the boundaries of 51 properties. I see Ballantry Homes, West Hill Development Company Ltd and the names of other developers. (There are no requests for boundary changes in Newmarket but all other municipalities are affected.) Hogg wants to know what the total acreage is that could be gobbled up. The planners don’t know but we are told the Province wants no net loss in Green Belt land.

I don’t need my crystal ball to predict many deputations from salivating developers next week.

Carrot Farmers: a cautionary tale

Now it’s Heath again, this time concerned about the loss of wet lands to agriculture. We hear from Valerie Shuttleworth about the Holland Marsh carrot farmer who lets some of his land lie fallow and, to his horror, is told by the powers-that-be that he can’t turn it back into land for growing carrots.

We are now into a very long to-and-fro discussion about carrot farming. The planners want the Province to resolve the conflict between two of their own policies: protecting (1) the Holland Marsh Speciality Crop Area in the Greenbelt Plan and (2) the Provincially Significant Wetland.

Heath, so often behaving like a shaggy old dog with a bone, wants to know how many carrot farmers we are talking about. Just one? Or is it a much wider problem? If it’s just one he can live with it.

Employment lands

Point made, Heath moves on to employment lands; the issue also raised by Taylor. The planners are recommending:

“the Province develop a process to allow municipalities to access strategically located employment lands, if deemed necessary through a Municipal Comprehensive Review”.

Heath wants to know how much land the planners are talking about, say, east of the 404 to Woodbine. I learn the planners are intentionally not being specific. It is all general and “high level”. Shuttleworth tells us the Region should keep its gunpowder dry and respond in detail when the Province publishes its draft amendments to the plans. Heath, shaking his head, disagrees with this entire approach (as I do) arguing that now is the time to be specific, not later.

Now I am hearing about Whitebelt land (neither urban not Greenbelt) and how it should be protected for development in the longer term, after 2031. It should not be, for example, incorporated into the Greenbelt. Now Mayor Margaret Quirk from Georgina is talking about affordable housing and how this issue needs to be highlighted.

Now we are talking about supporting agricultural viability. Councillors, their faces blank, are told they must address

“compatibility challenges at the interface between urban and rural agricultural land uses”. 

I sense they are ready to call it a day.

On cue steps forward the disgraced Vaughan councillor, Michael Di Biase, who moves that the report is referred to another meeting next week. Agreed. He is still, no doubt, collecting his pay cheque from York Region.

Planning for all-day two-way GO trains

Now Taylor is tying up some loose ends from matters discussed at an earlier meeting of the Region’s Committee of the Whole on 7 May. He wants a report on the implications of the Province’s decision to press ahead with all-day two-way GO trains. Quite right too. What about grade separation (getting rid of level crossings)? What about additional car parking that will be necessary? He fears we could have a 15 minute service (though not from Newmarket) but with only enough parking to service the current numbers of train users.

Frank Scarpetti supports the motion but with caveats. He says we can’t build enough parking spaces for private vehicles. Bravely, he says there’s a limit. He sees transit as the solution – but that’s a battle for tomorrow.

Regrettably, Taylor fails to press home the point he made in January 2014 about sunsetting planning approvals. The Regional planners say the Province should “consider imposing a sunset clause for applications transitioned by the plans”. Shuttleworth tells us landowners should be given a year or two to act on any applications they have in their back pocket. The issue is, of course, wider than this. But what does it take for the Region to address it? *

Van Bynen plays the spectator again

Newmarket's John Taylor is engaged throughout but his sleeping partner, the somnolent Tony Van Bynen, lets yet another meeting pass without uttering a dicky bird. If everyone on York Region acted as he does - as a spectator rather than participant – meetings would be over in five minutes.

I stay to the very end just to see what happens.

Councillor Jim Jones from Markham moves the adoption of various Bylaws affecting Newmarket. Mayor Van Bynen casually raises his hand to second the motion but Jones declines. He tells us he has his own seconder in mind.

Everyone laughs.

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* update on 24 May 2015. As they stand at the moment, the Region's proposals to sunset development rights only apply within the green belt and oak ridges moraine conservation area.

Update on “sunset clauses” on 27 May 2015:  John Taylor has been in touch to say that he pursued the issue of sunset clauses with the Chief Planner, Valerie Shuttleworth, on 21 May 2015. The Region’s proposed submission to the Province (on proposed amendments to the Planning Act and Development Charges Act under Bill 73) did not contain any reference to the issue which Taylor first raised in January 2014. It was overlooked by the planners.

In a memo to all Members of the Regional Council on 21 May 2015 Shuttleworth acknowledged the proposed submission “did not address the following 2014 request” that:

“the Province also consider possible legislative changes to the Planning Act that would allow approval authorities to place time limits on zoning approval, similar to those lapsing provisions already available on plans of subdivision”

(You can see the memo by opening “Documents” in top left panel and navigating to York Region. Open Sunset Clause.)

Although any changes to the legislation would not be retroactive, it would prevent situations arising in future where developers get approval for major projects and then do nothing about it for years, if ever. In the meantime, the value of the land soars as a result of the planning approval. (Slessor Square received planning approval in early 2013 and remains a 4.6 acre patch of dirt. It is now on the market for $15,800,000.)

Taylor’s proposal will be in front of the Regional Council tomorrow (28 May 2015) when it meets to finalise the Region’s submission.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 20 May 2015

To Mulock Drive for a presentation on Newmarket Hydro from Grant Thornton (GT) who are offering “strategic advice” on whether to (a) sell or (b) retain the hydro company in municipal ownership. There was also talk about the pluses and minuses of merging with another hydro outfit.

The Town owns 93% of Newmarket Tay Power with the municipality of Tay holding the remaining 7% stake. The Mayor tells us the review is all part of “due diligence”.

The presentation from Troy MacDonald is upbeat in a Bay Street kind of way. The utility has a “strong conservative balance sheet” and outperforms comparators. Service levels are better (fewer outages) and rates for residential customers are “significantly below” the industry average. Commercial and industrial rates are “slightly above”.

Backslapping

There is much self congratulatory back slapping.

Tom Vegh wants to know why our hydro company is so good.

Dave Kerwin, always lavish with praise, lays it on with a trowel. He points to the outstanding helmsman, Chief Executive, Paul Ferguson, who orders trees to be pruned back if there is any danger they may interfere with hydro lines. Such foresight is entirely missing in, say, Toronto.

The Mayor (who, depending on your point of view, either accepts or refuses $10,000 a year for sitting on the hydro board) wants to hear about the MAAD rules which, apparently, have something to do with mergers.  

MacDonald tells us we should “actively monitor and explore merger activity to seek opportunities to build greater scale and be positioned for consolidation”. No surprises there from someone who, presumably, makes a mountain of money from advising on mergers.

Seller’s Remorse

John Taylor astutely asks if work has been done on the consequences of mergers within the industry say over a ten year period. What is the risk? Is there ever “seller’s remorse”?

We are told it is important to get to a scale that protects from risk. But MacDonald can’t point to the studies that Taylor is after. I am sure they exist.

Christina Bisanz wants to know who we would merge with if we were so inclined. What would they bring to the party?

An inquisitive Joe Sponga wants to know what the right size is for a hydro company. He talks about Aurora selling out to Powerstream, before memorably adding: “the bigger the fish, the bigger the predator”. MacDonald’s answer is conveniently elastic. You are too big if you can’t do things in your local community you would otherwise have done.   

He makes one thing crystal clear. An outright sale would not make sense.

Spookily, I find myself thinking about Darryl Wolk.

Time to move on.

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Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 18 May 2015

From time to time, gazing out of the window in the early morning, I see garbage collectors throw my mountain of old newspapers into their truck before dumping the contents of my green bin on top. Whoa!

Isn’t all that stuff supposed to be separated?

I learn from last week’s York Region Committee of the Whole (May 14) that even the most sophisticated waste management systems sometimes struggle to cope. Erin Mahoney, the very impressive Commissioner of Environmental Services, tells Newmarket's John Taylor that some of the contents of the green bins go to landfill because of limited processing capacity. Oh dear!

The 2014 Annual Diversion Report tells us non-recyclable garbage accounts for 29% of the stuff put out at the curbside but, at the processing plant, this rises to 36% where the wheat is, as it were, sorted from the chaff.

For whatever reason, we often get it wrong and put garbage in with recyclables.

An energized John Taylor asks a series of probing questions while a few feet away, Tony Van Bynen gently snoozes. (Another entire meeting goes by without him opening his mouth once.) I learn that, last year, the City of Markham generated 282 kg of waste per capita compared with 352kg here in Newmarket and 385 kg in Georgina. Why the big difference asks Taylor?

Yard waste may be one explanation but, clearly, more work needs to be done to explain different behaviours across the Region. Hmmm.

Food for Thought

Taylor swallows hard and is now asking about the contents of the average green bin. 20% is diapers and pet waste. But an astonishing 34% is “avoidable” food waste. Uneaten leftovers and stuff past its sell-by-date.

Across Canada, a staggering $27 billion of food is thrown out every year.

Despite our best endeavours, material that should be recycled ends up in landfill. One of my environmentally conscious spies here in Town tells me a recent flyer had piqued his interest, informing him that newspaper plastic bags are no longer accepted as recycling.

He makes some enquiries and is informed by an impeccable source that

“not only are plastic newspaper bags now directed to the garbage (landfill) but all other forms of plastic packaging (water softener salt bags, fertilizer bags, produce bags, 15L single use water jugs and on and on. The gist of it appears to be that we recycle biodegradable materials that if put in the landfill would break down but we do not recycle tons of plastic that will be there a thousand years from now. Apparently they muck up the machines that handle recycling. Perhaps a few jobs as hand sorters would be in order to add to the dismal few hundred jobs created last year by Newmarket?”

The sting in the tail is, of course, gratuitous but I understand where he is coming from.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 18 May 2015

Why is the Slessor site, opposite Upper Canada Mall, still a moonscape of dirt and debris years after Newmarket Council controversially gave planning approval for a mixed use, high density development?

Why is the 4.6 acre site taking so long to sell?

Probably because the site poses some major challenges that would test the brightest engineering and planning brains on the planet. Clearly, they have not been solved yet.

Take the cavernous underground car park designed to accommodate more than 1,200 vehicles – as huge as the (surface) car park at Southlake Hospital. How to get vehicles in and out without clogging up Yonge Street in the process? Good question. It is one of the many imponderables.

Planning approval was granted in February 2013 for the giant development with all sorts of conditions attached. These “holds” were set to ensure the Town could be satisfied that the development as first conceived would actually work. Although the original proponents are selling, their retirement/ entertainment/ retail concept lives on with the zoning approval remaining in place. This explains why the land is worth a fortune.

Colliers, the Brokers charged with selling the site, tell us:

“Zoning is in place for a proposed four-phased mixed use development containing 600 residential units in three mid to high-rise condominium buildings, a 221-suite retirement building and a four-level commercial/retail component fronting on Yonge Street.”

The canny Slessors, with decades of experience in the auto trade, have drained millions out of the equity while they wait for a buyer to come along.

As an issue, Slessor Square dominated the early part of the last Council term. It got the green light from councillors terrified that the matter might go to the OMB and be taken out of their hands completely. Only a few months after approval, we learned a sale was on the cards.

With approval in principle safely tucked under the Slessors' belt, the “adult retirement living” project was put on hold and the site was put up for sale in May 2014.

In the world of planning, Slessor Square is all too typical. Councillors are told they must move at the speed of light or else the OMB will be called in. Approvals are then given for half-baked developments that, for one reason or another, fail to materialise.

We are left to contemplate empty, desolate sites while the landowners sell on and walk away, laden down with cash.

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