{"id":14267,"date":"2016-05-18T18:13:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T22:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14267"},"modified":"2016-05-18T18:13:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T22:13:17","slug":"nursing-home-approved-despite-environmental-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/nursing-home-approved-despite-environmental-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Nursing home approved despite environmental concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A four-storey 250 unit retirement home and long-term care facility has been approved for the south end of Aurora despite land concerns raised by Councillor Wendy Gaertner.<\/p>\n

Originally zoned for a school, the Oak Ridges Moraine land was re-designated last week following a lengthy discussion. Currently dubbed the \u201cCoutts\u201d property, it is located at 14312 and 14338 Yonge Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extremely important environmental functioning area,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner. \u201cIt is so significant, in fact, that a separate growth management study was dedicated to the area. One of the things that came out of that study was it wanted to ensure that development would encourage the environmental significance of this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, the Ontario Municipal Board deemed this land was suitable for a school with a minimum of 40 per cent open area to ensure adequate water infiltration on the site, the Councillor contended, and this proposal missed the mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we here, as a Council, to protect the community\u2019s interests?\u201d she asked. \u201cAre we here to protect the environment? Or, are we here to protect the developer\u2019s interest? I am asking you to please not allow this zoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

For other members of Council, this wasn\u2019t the question at all. According to Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, the land\u2019s former designation allowed for minor institutional use and the proposal, as presented by the developer, fit the bill. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am certainly supportive of the recommendation that is in front of us,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cIt was already planned to be a school but the school board has deemed it unnecessary. For me, the proposal to bring in a retirement home and long-term care facility, I think, is the best use for the community as a whole and I am supportive of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long-term care facility in Aurora is something Council members agreed was needed, but it was all about location \u2013 and cost. When Council gave the tentative green light to the proposal at the previous week\u2019s General Committee meeting, it was cited by Councillor Paul Pirri as another option to meet demand for affordable housing. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a benefit to the community because it is going to be serving as a retirement home and long-term care facility use and typically those uses are offered at a discount to seniors who need the services and are supplemented by various levels of government,\u201d he reiterated at Council. \u201cWhen we talk about that affordability and letting seniors age in place, this is a good option for that, in my opinion. This is a use that is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Gaertner, on the other hand, said she disagreed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been talk about using this site for affordable housing and I would say that, to the developer, planner, there was never any talk about affordable housing for this area and it doesn\u2019t really make any sense because if a developer is looking at highest and best use, this is a beautiful piece of property, and [to get] the highest profit margin for this piece of land, I don\u2019t believe they would have affordable housing in mind,\u201d she said<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A four-storey 250 unit retirement home and long-term care facility has been approved for the south end of Aurora despite land concerns raised by Councillor Wendy Gaertner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14267","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\/p3D2k4-3I7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 01:07:20","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\/14267","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=14267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}