{"id":19900,"date":"2018-02-22T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19900"},"modified":"2018-02-28T15:39:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T20:39:34","slug":"council-has-made-progress-mayor-wants-to-see-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-has-made-progress-mayor-wants-to-see-through\/","title":{"rendered":"Council has made progress Mayor wants to see through"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Nearly 20 years ago, Geoff Dawe stood at the Council podium.
\nAs co-chair of the fundraising committee for Aurora\u2019s new library, which has since become the Town\u2019s most popular community hub, he thinks back to his pitch to the Council of the day and wonders, in hindsight, why it took 17 years to tear down the old Library and Seniors\u2019 Centre on Victoria Street and get something going for downtown revitalization.
\nAlthough it took nearly two decades to get there, the buildings were torn down last month and now Mayor Dawe wants to see this redevelopment through to completion.
\nAhead of his speech to local business and community leaders at the Aurora Chamber of Commerce this week, Mayor Dawe sat down for his annual pre-address interview with The Auroran talking about the year ahead and, for him, the year ahead will include a re-election campaign.
\n\u201cAbsolutely, and I\u2019m looking forward to it,\u201d said Mayor Dawe on whether he would indeed seek a third term. \u201cI remember standing up as vice chair of the fundraising committee to say, \u2018We need to get rid of those two buildings and move forward with something in this area.\u2019 We have now made that decision and I would love to see it to conclusion. I think there are some fabulous opportunities in that area for what the new buildings we\u2019re looking at can provide.
\n\u201c[There is also] the Armoury coming to fruition and doing something with that. When [the Town] bought it, we all had a vision and we all had an idea and to see that through as well. [Being Mayor] is, without a doubt, the most fascinating thing I have ever done and will go from someone wanting to know why their green bin wasn\u2019t fully emptied to right now working with Community Living helping them fundraise for their new facility that will help them service this area.\u201d
\nThere is never a dull moment in the job, he says, but he also says he is looking forward to tackling some of the less \u201csexy\u201d but no less important issues that will face Aurora and the Region of York not too far down the road.
\n\u201cThere is a huge amount of angst in terms of infill,\u201d he says, on an issue which has been the subject of a great deal of community discussion in 2018 thus far. \u201cOne of my concerns when we look at things like that is we put rules and policies in place in a [piecemeal] basis and people would say it is good politics, but it is bad policy. I think we need to be looking at how to do an official plan and start doing an official plan. We can\u2019t do it officially, but I think we need to start it unofficially in conjunction to what the Region is doing with their Municipal Comprehensive Review. I think it is a great opportunity to look at how we [do this] holistically. We have to stop doing things piecemeal because it is not a good, long-term decision. We have to be more disciplined moving forward.\u201d
\nLooking back on the year that was, Mayor Dawe cites the progress on Library Square as an important achievement. Although he says he would have \u201cmuch preferred unanimity\u201d in the decision that Council ultimately took, he is heartened that the majority \u201csaw fit to move forward\u201d with what he says will be \u201ca fabulous focal area.\u201d
\n\u201cWe have talked forever about revitalizing downtown, but you don\u2019t want to do anything,\u201d he says of some inaction around the table. \u201cA lot of people would say after all is said and done a lot was said but not much was done. I think we have moved past that. Certainly one of the things that is frustrating through this whole process is the amount of misinformation or the number of times people will grab misinformation and leverage on that.\u201d
\nOne misconception he sites is an argument that the Library Square area will have less parking than it does now, a statement he contends is untrue.
\n\u201cThere was a good exchange,\u201d he says of the progress, \u201cPerhaps not the most pleasant of exchanges at times, but it was a good exchange of ideas and moving forward.\u201d
\nOne of the primary benefits of bringing Library Square to fruition is the benefits it will bring to businesses in the area, he says. A number of decisions have been made over the last few years that will bring people into Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core, he says, including the redevelopment of Aurora United Church, the redevelopment of Wells Street School into a loft complex, and higher density housing near the northern of Yonge and Wellington.
\n\u201cIt is always a Catch-22 \u2013 you want people there, but you have to bring people in before people want to be there,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is part of that process to recreate that area.\u201d
\nAn integral part of this, he says, will be the transformation of the historic Aurora Armoury into an off-shoot of Niagara College\u2019s Canadian Institute of Food and Wine. This repurposing, which will see the Armoury completely renovated for both the College\u2019s and community\u2019s uses, is something Mayor Dawe says has generated even more chatter than Library Square.
\n\u201cThe Canadian Food & Wine Institute (CFWI) is a good example of a post-secondary institution thinking outside the box,\u201d he says. \u201cWe talked to a number of different educational institutions about expanding and it didn\u2019t work out for them within the guidelines that were put in by the Provincial government. The CFWI looked at this as an opportunity to do that expansion, keep within the rules, but think outside the box at the same time. Will others follow? We\u2019ve thought maybe there would be potential for a private school. There is lots of foreign interest in the Canadian educational system and the energy that is put into it.\u201d
\nIn the last term of Council, investors were looking to bring another private school to the site of the George Browning House on Yonge Street, just north of Reuben. While this ultimately fell through, Mayor Dawe says this site is once again up for redevelopment and, if approved, will bring new residences \u2013 and, most importantly, residents \u2013 to the Downtown Core.
\nThere will be further places for people to rest their heads on the east side of Town as well.
\nWork is already underway constructing the new Microtel hotel on Eric T. Smith Way in the heart of Aurora\u2019s business park. In addition to the second hotel development announced last year on nearby Don Hillock Drive, and Frank Stronach\u2019s plan for a hotel and conference centre on the southeast corner of Bayview and Wellington, Mayor Dawe says there is an application for another hotel on Eric T. Smith way working its way through the planning process.
\n\u201cWe went from zero to sixty,\u201d says Mayor Dawe on Aurora going from no hotels to a deluge after the Region of York reduced development charges on hotel developments. \u201cThis has kick-started hotel activity in both Aurora and Richmond Hill.\u201d
\nThis will be a boon to sports tourism, he says, citing the recent McPherson hockey tournament at St. Andrew\u2019s College which saw teams coming in from as far away as Germany. In these cases, until Microtel opens their doors, there is no place for these teams to stay within Town and, consequently, spend money in Aurora.
\n\u201cThere are a number of small steps we will continually take,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have added over 5,000 full time jobs in Aurora and that is substantial. We\u2019re changing the mix of jobs. Although seasonal part-time and full time employment has increased, there has actually been a shift in the total mix from part-time to full-time jobs, which is great news for the Town. There is the ability to live more closely to where you work and it helps re-energize the sense of community we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawe will seek third term to see Library Square, Armoury brought to fruition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19884,"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-19900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5aY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 00:28:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-02-22-01.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19900","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=19900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}