{"id":18703,"date":"2017-10-18T13:17:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18703"},"modified":"2017-10-18T13:17:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:17:14","slug":"older-stable-neighbourhoods-need-protection-from-growth-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/older-stable-neighbourhoods-need-protection-from-growth-councillor\/","title":{"rendered":"Older, stable neighbourhoods need protection from growth: Councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Some people pick an older house for its charm, others for a plot of land with seemingly limitless potential.
\nBut, how far should this potential go? This is a fine line that needs to be looked at within Aurora, according to Councillor Wendy Gaertner.
\nNext Tuesday, October 24, Council will consider a motion from the Councillor calling on staff to undertake a study of existing bylaws governing development within stable neighbourhoods to ensure that planning policies are being undertaken.
\nProtecting stable neighbourhoods is a \u201cfundamental\u201d principle of Aurora\u2019s Official Plan, she contends, but recent reviews of bylaws did not specifically look at bylaws pertaining to older neighbourhoods.
\n\u201cFor the last five months, residents have been in touch with Councillors about new homes they felt were inappropriate in their older neighbourhoods, new homes being built, and the accumulation of that feedback prompted this,\u201d says Councillor Gaertner of her motion. \u201cWhen I got the feedback, I had a look at our Official Plan \u2013 and I remember because I was part of that Official Plan process \u2013 that there was recognition there was going to be change in the older residential neighbourhoods but this change there should also [respect its character].\u201d
\nPeople often don\u2019t understand the difference between an official plan and a zoning bylaw, she adds, and the Official Plan (OP) \u201crecognizes the importance of protecting and enhancing these stable neighbourhoods when new homes are built [and that] all new developments shall be compatible with its surrounding context.\u201d
\n\u201cWe just went through a very long zoning bylaw review and, during that time, we didn\u2019t think of looking at the zoning bylaws in what are called \u2018stable neighbourhoods,\u2019\u201d says Councillor Gaertner. \u201cThe large homes that are being built actually do fit in with the zoning bylaws that exist \u2013 that is, according to staff because I can\u2019t go out and measure them \u2013 with how far a home can be from a neighbour\u2019s property line, how high they can be, how much of the lot can be used.\u201d
\nWhile most of the concerns Councillor Gaertner says she has heard on the matter are primarily neighbourhoods north of Henderson, west of Murray, Temperance Street and in the vicinity of Town Park moving south towards Dunning, she says there is a \u201cfine line\u201d that needs to be walked between protecting residents who plan to stay in their homes, and protecting the rights of residents who are looking to move elsewhere and realise the maximum value for their land.
\n\u201cIt is their primary investment,\u201d says Councillor Gaertner of those planning to sell up. \u201cThe intent isn\u2019t to try and stop these larger homes from going in to decrease anybody\u2019s gain from selling their homes; it is just to try and take those zoning bylaws to see if we can do anything that is more in keeping with older neighbourhoods. We looked [at something similar] on Hillview. That street didn\u2019t want to have any additional zoning restrictions and we heard from residents. Some of them wanted to keep the size of the [incoming homes] in keeping with their own, but others wanted to have no restrictions on their properties when we sold them. We listened to them and we didn\u2019t put in any restrictions.
\n\u201cWe have heard from a lot of residents who are unhappy, so hopefully we will hear from residents who are not happy, residents who are happy, and then it is up to Council to make a decision. That was a comprehensive review and out of it came all these planning principles that older neighbourhoods need to be protected from incompatible development. I don\u2019t think that translated to the zoning bylaws and I think we need to look at that and [see] if we\u2019re happy with that or if we need to change that. We looked at zoning bylaw for the whole town. I take responsibility because I have been on Council the longest \u2013 but it didn\u2019t occur to me that we needed to look at the zoning bylaws for older neighbourhoods. In my opinion we should have and, in my opinion, we should do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people pick an older house for its charm, others for a plot of land with seemingly limitless potential.
\nBut, how far should this potential go? <\/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-18703","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\/p3D2k4-4RF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 14:06:50","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\/18703","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=18703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}