{"id":10311,"date":"2015-04-09T00:52:12","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T04:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10311"},"modified":"2015-04-09T00:52:12","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T04:52:12","slug":"business-park-continues-growth-but-councillor-concerned-about-precedent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/business-park-continues-growth-but-councillor-concerned-about-precedent\/","title":{"rendered":"Business park continues growth, but Councillor concerned about \u201cprecedent\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s business lands on the east side of Leslie Street continue to fill up following a decision of Council last week, but one Councillor is concerned that approving a smaller block of land for an incoming business could set a \u201cbad precedent\u201d at Town Hall. <\/p>\n

Council signed off on a new development on Eric T. Smith Way, near the new Bulk Barn headquarters just south of Don Hillock Drive. The land sale to an unspecified business was previously approved by Council in closed session, but was up for Council\u2019s consideration last week on a \u201ctechnical clarification\u201d resulting in a shorter lot frontage and overall area. <\/p>\n

This, argued Councillor Wendy Gaertner, did not fit into the overall vision for the area to provide large tracts of land for large employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fear is it sets up a bad precedent for carving up these larger tracts of employment land,\u201d she said, stating Aurora is \u201cheavily reliant\u201d on residential taxation. \u201cThey are so important to our overall health. If we grant this severance it will potentially\u2026be detrimental to the Town\u2019s economic potential and potential to attract large businesses to Aurora. We need those jobs. We need the tax base. It is crucial. If we don\u2019t want our residential taxes to go sky high, it is crucial we have those high quality big businesses coming to Town.\u201d <\/p>\n

This, however, was not a concern shared by municipal staff, nor fellow members of Council.<\/p>\n

Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, said he did not believe this would set a negative precedent for Aurora and many companies looking for lands to move or expand their business are looking for further flexibility in lot sizes.<\/p>\n

The changes before Council, he added, conformed with Aurora\u2019s official plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am seeing interest and we\u2019re going to see that moving forward not only in our business park, but in the business park north of State Farm where you will see some lots within the planned subdivision where there will be boundary adjustment to create smaller parcels or combined parcels to create larger land holdings,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno, noting this was a suitable size for employment in this particular area as it is at the end of the row and near a stormwater pond.<\/p>\n

Responding to Councillor Gaertner\u2019s argument that moving forward with this was \u201cpenny wise and pound foolish\u201d, Aurora CAO Neil Garbe said this is an opportunity to bring in a \u201chigh quality employer\u201d on a way that makes sense. <\/p>\n

\u201c[This severance] leaves us a full two acres on the other side with frontage on two sides, it is a rectangle as opposed to an odder shaped piece that would be, in all likelihood, used for parking or some other ancillary use for the main building,\u201d said Mr. Garbe. \u201cThe purchaser is a high quality employer. If the private sector was subject to the Sunshine List, all those employees would be on it. It is their corporate head office. It is the exact kind of employer we want to promote and it does leave us with a very good parcel we want to sell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Paul Pirri offered a similar take: \u201cThis is very much a no-brainer and I would like to focus on bringing in high quality people. If they only need a little bit of space, we can bring in more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Gaertner\u2019s concerns with incoming employers on the Leslie Street lands are not limited to this business. She made similar comments when Bulk Barn re-located its headquarters to Aurora last year. While the move brought executive positions to the area, much of their development was taken up by warehouse space, a point she reiterated last week \u2013 sparking a debate with Mayor Geoff Dawe on the \u201cquality\u201d of these employment opportunities.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s business lands on the east side of Leslie Street continue to fill up following a decision of Council last week, but one Councillor is concerned that approving a smaller block of land for an incoming business could set a \u201cbad precedent\u201d at Town Hall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Gj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 23:38:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}