{"id":16424,"date":"2017-02-01T17:42:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T22:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16424"},"modified":"2017-02-01T17:42:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T22:42:23","slug":"region-needs-to-lower-ridiculous-fees-on-underpasses-says-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/region-needs-to-lower-ridiculous-fees-on-underpasses-says-councillor\/","title":{"rendered":"Region needs to lower \u201cridiculous\u201d fees on underpasses, says Councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Two new pedestrian underpasses on Leslie Street between St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Wellington Street are set to move forward this week, but final costs have yet to be pinned down.
\nSitting at the Committee Level last week, Council gave the tentative green light to moving ahead with the trail underpasses.
\nPart of a 50-50 cost sharing deal with the Region of York when they begin reconstruction of Leslie Street this year, the underpasses are designed to be a connection between the emerging neighbourhoods in Aurora\u2019s 2C developments on the west side of Leslie and the planned business parks in the east.
\nWith Aurora\u2019s share clocking in at nearly $902,000, excluding any additional costs the Town might decide to invest later on to provide illumination, the ballooning price tag has repeatedly come before Council for consideration.
\nBut, last week, Councillors said enough time had passed to make a decision.
\n\u201cI think it is imperative we move forward with this underpass,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes, following a delegation from long-time trails advocate Klaus Wehrenberg. \u201cWe have delayed it a couple of times, we went back to Trails and Active Transportation (committee) and at the last meeting it was unanimously agreed that it needed to move forward and\u2026we should not be wavering from the path we started.
\n\u201cThere is going to be much development of employment lands where the only way [you can get there] if this doesn\u2019t occur is by driving and I think it is imperative we move forward. I really hope we have the support around the table to really get this back on track.\u201d
\nIndeed, they did.
\n\u201cWe have been talking about this for years,\u201d said Mayor Geoff Dawe, \u201cso I really do think it is time for action and, at some point, I would like to suggest to the Trails Committee that we look at an underpass on Wellington.\u201d
\nBefore that hits the table, though, some Councillors said they wanted firmer numbers on what the final price tag might be for the two underpasses in question.
\nSpeaking in favour of the paths, Councillor Tom Mrakas said the Trails Committee had a bit of frustration when they found the underpasses were before them again for further consideration after signing off on them multiple times. The committee was firm, he said, that not moving forward now would be a lost opportunity. Nevertheless, he renewed his criticism of the Region charging Aurora 12 per cent fees on the underpass for administration and inspection costs.
\nCouncillor Mrakas\u2019 motion calling on the Region to wave these fees was approved by Committee, with the caveat the project still go ahead if that waiver didn\u2019t come.
\n\u201cAs everyone knows, I think it is absolutely insane that the Region is charging us, the municipality, a six per cent administration fee and that inspection cost,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t do it when we work on projects with them. If they want [it from] us, we can start charging them. If they don\u2019t waive it, I suggest we start charging them on any projects that we work on with them.
\n\u201cI want to move forward regardless of what the Region says; I just want to make them aware that we\u2019re not okay with this charge, and to let them know that if they are going to continue charging this we will charge them back.\u201d
\nAs far as costs go, there are other uncertainties.
\nAl Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Parks and Recreation, said that should the projects clear the final hurdle at Council this week, he will approach the Town of Newmarket for possible cost sharing for the underpass connecting to the trails aligning with the Aurora-Newmarket border.
\nIn the view of Councillor Wendy Gaertner, leaving illumination out of the equation is out of the question and should be considered along with making sure the trails can be accessed from Leslie Street.
\nAurora is negotiating with the Region on an \u201celectrical drop\u201d to help offset some costs Aurora might incur on lighting the tunnels, said Mr. Downey. But, he noted, costs for the lighting and access to street level remains uncertain.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two new pedestrian underpasses on Leslie Street between St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Wellington Street are set to move forward this week, but final costs have yet to be pinned down.<\/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-16424","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\/p3D2k4-4gU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 06:45:38","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\/16424","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=16424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}