{"id":15443,"date":"2016-10-06T13:06:55","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T17:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15443"},"modified":"2016-10-06T13:06:55","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T17:06:55","slug":"seniors-care-addition-could-prompt-change-to-public-planning-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/seniors-care-addition-could-prompt-change-to-public-planning-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Seniors Care addition could prompt change to public planning process"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A four-storey addition onto a seniors\u2019 care facility in an established southwest neighbourhood could prompt a change in how residents will be informed about applications on nearby properties.
\nCouncil approved a motion last week calling on planning staff to develop a policy requiring full notification for site plan applications and public planning applications.
\nThe motion was proposed by Councillor Wendy Gaertner in response to a number of residents in the Murray Drive and Seaton Drive neighbourhoods angered about not being notified of significant additions planned for the area long-term care facility, formerly known as Kingsway Arms.
\nOnce complete according to the proposal, the present two-storey facility will loom four-storeys over present homes, the owners of which were not formally notified these changes were working their way through Town Hall.
\nFormal notification is simply a matter of \u201crespect,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner.
\n\u201cWe saw recently where a site plan was proposed for a neighbourhood, the application would come to Council for a General Committee meeting and a Council meeting, the residents wouldn\u2019t have known about it, they wouldn\u2019t have been able to give us their input, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for: to know what our residents are thinking about, whatever is going on in the Town,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cBut, in this case it was in their particular neighbourhood. I think that it would be respectful that if any kind of development was going on in the neighbourhood that we do the notification, that we do the posting on the particular piece of land or building, just as we do for our public planning meeting applications. That\u2019s it. I just think we need to have as much input from our residents as we can, so out of respect we should provide notification.\u201d
\nSpeaking in favour of the motion, Councillor Michael Thompson said the recent concerns brought forward by the residents show there is indeed a \u201cgap\u201d that has to be addressed. While municipalities may not be required to notify residents of these applications, they should.
\n\u201cI think we need to go above and beyond to keep our residents informed, especially when it is something that can dramatically impact the neighbourhood,\u201d he said.
\nIn response, Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, said he didn\u2019t have a problem with requiring applicants to post a sign on their properties to notify residents they have submitted a site plan application, but a further report would have to come to Council.
\n\u201c[Posting] at the very minimum will advise neighbours that they have submitted an application and they could then call the planning department to find out further about what is being proposed,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno of the potential changes.\u201d
\nCouncillor Thompson said he looked forward to a draft policy coming up for their review, but said notification should go beyond just tacking up a sign for the neighbours to find.
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be opposed to looking at the same processes we do with other planning development applications and actually notifying the residents ourselves,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cI know there is a cost implication to it, but we can have that discussion when the draft policy comes out. Too often, I have heard residents come in and say, \u2018I wasn\u2019t aware, I didn\u2019t see the sign\u2019 and we have struggled with this time and time again. It is about making sure residents have the information they need.\u201d
\nCautious in his support for the motion was Councillor Paul Pirri, who said he was concerned the motion might be seen as a \u201cknee-jerk\u201d reaction.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to call this\u2026a knee-jerk reaction from discussions we had over the last meeting with the last development because I do think there is a prolonged history of this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t come out of one single application, but I don\u2019t think this is the right time to be having the discussion around what the pros and cons are.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re asking for a policy to come back to us. I want to make doubly sure that that policy will have a report outlining things like how many site plan applications we are already approving. Are there any benefits [for it coming] straight to Council [and] that we\u2019re not causing problems for ourselves down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A four-storey addition onto a seniors\u2019 care facility in an established southwest neighbourhood could prompt a change in how residents will be informed about applications on nearby properties.<\/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_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-15443","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\/p3D2k4-415","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 15:37:30","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\/15443","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=15443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}