{"id":15055,"date":"2016-08-24T15:22:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15055"},"modified":"2016-08-31T10:44:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:44:56","slug":"town-turned-down-metrolinx-deal-says-mpp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/town-turned-down-metrolinx-deal-says-mpp\/","title":{"rendered":"Town turned down Metrolinx deal, says MPP"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Metrolinx and Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church found themselves under fire from area neighbours and Council members alike last week over a deal to temporarily turn the church lot into overflow GO parking that will net the congregation $15,000 a month.<\/p>\n

But municipal staff turned down a similar deal which would have kept the parking lot out of Aurora\u2019s Heritage Conservation District, according to Newmarket-Aurora MPP Chris Ballard, a potential deal over which some Councillors say they were left in the dark.<\/p>\n

Metrolinx, the Provincial agency operating GO Transit, first approached Town Hall with eight sites around Town they were interested in leasing to accommodate traffic that will be overflowing to accommodate upcoming construction projects at the GO Station.<\/p>\n

Chief among them was an overture from Metrolinx to lease parking lot space at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex (AFLC), says Mr. Ballard, who had a teleconference with the body on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

The teleconference \u2013 and subsequent meeting that afternoon with concerned neighbours, as well as Councillors John Abel, Wendy Gaertner, and Tom Mrakas \u2013 came a week after adjacent residents came to Council to express frustration over the Our Lady of Grace (OLG) deal and the impacts it will have on their neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

At the time, Council members and Town Staff alike said they were as surprised as the neighbours that OLG and Metrolinx had struck a deal which would see over 150 cars come in and out of the Heritage Conservation District each weekday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn talking with senior Metrolinx executives, and I don\u2019t want to be seen passing the buck, but the Town did, in fact, know Metrolinx was looking for help,\u201d said Mr. Ballard. \u201cThey sent the Town an email and the Town responded on March 15, 2016, that they couldn\u2019t help them \u2018and good luck finding some space.\u2019 Those emails exist and I am sure the Town representatives here today will want to talk to the Mayor and find out who received and sent those emails and who turned down potentially $15,000 for 24 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to name names because I don\u2019t want to publically embarrass anyone [but Metrolinx] made an overture and it was rebuffed. Maybe it was just an oversight on the Town\u2019s part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metrolinx confirmed they first approached the Town about striking a deal at the AFLC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had engaged the Town of Aurora to lease parking spots from the Aurora Family Leisure but we respect the Town\u2019s position that this lot was needed to service other needs in the community,\u201d said Kim Johnson, Media Relations Specialist with Metrolinx. \u201cWe have negotiated similar leases in the past, including an agreement with another church. Since hearing from the community we have engaged them in conversations to alleviate some of their concerns. This is a temporary lot which will be in service during construction [to expand GO service]. We have developed a robust signage plan in consultation with the Church to ensure customers follow main streets to and from the temporary lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first couple of days after the temporary lot opens for customers we will have Transit Safety and a GO Customer Care team on site to direct customers to the station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Construction, added Johnson, is expected to be completed in \u201cmid-2017\u201d at which point the decommissioned spaces will be re-opened at the GO Station and the church lease will draw to a close.<\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s meeting, Mr. Ballard said he often finds himself \u201cfrustrated\u201d with Metrolinx\u2019 communication with the community, himself often being among \u201cthe last\u201d to learn about initiatives within the riding but, in this case, he said he couldn\u2019t fault them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I hadn\u2019t heard about those emails, I would have been even more frustrated with Metrolinx, but from my perspective, I can say they tried,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can only knock on doors so many times and Metrolinx Realty is a pretty savvy organization that has been working across the Province with all sorts of communities with all sorts of concerns and it tends to be pretty sensitive with trying to anticipate what the problems might be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three Councillors present for the meeting expressed surprise and a degree of frustration that Council was apparently not kept in the loop not only about the OLG deal, but a deal which could have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars flow into Town coffers for the duration Metrolinx would need the extra space. <\/p>\n

Councillor Abel, for instance, ventured that using the Town\u2019s former works yard on Scanlon Court would be a better option for the Town and closer to the station for GO commuters.<\/p>\n

He and the other Councillors vowed to meet with Town CAO Doug Nadorozny to find out who knew what and why the Aurora Family Leisure Complex deal was not on the table. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had discussions and it came down to [feeling] we weren\u2019t consulted and, hearing this news, I can assure you from my point of view that I think we\u2019ll try to get to the bottom of that,\u201d said Councillor Tom Mrakas. \u201cWe\u2019ll figure out what happened and who knew, because I definitely think if someone passed on it and Council wasn\u2019t informed that is an issue for us at the end of the day. We would be more than willing to partner with Metrolinx and find a different, more suitable location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Gaertner: \u201cI am very disappointed to know Council was never in this loop.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Councillors say they were “left out of the loop” in decision not to lease AFLC parking to Metrolinx, forcing GO parking into the Town’s Heritage Conservation District.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15044,"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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-15055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/2016-08-25-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3UP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 13:55:38","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\/15055","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=15055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}