{"id":21704,"date":"2018-09-27T12:16:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T16:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21704"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:18:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:18:37","slug":"consultant-will-advise-on-next-steps-on-protecting-stable-neighbourhoods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/consultant-will-advise-on-next-steps-on-protecting-stable-neighbourhoods\/","title":{"rendered":"Consultant will advise on next steps on protecting Stable Neighbourhoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A consultant will now provide some impartial advice on how Aurora can best protect its stable neighbourhoods.
\nCouncil last week formally approved a notice from Councillor Wendy Gaertner last week to obtain the services of a consultant, expert and experienced in the field of development within mature residential neighbourhoods, to help this ongoing debate come to a resolution.
\nCouncil has spent the last eleven months looking into how to strike a balance in protecting Aurora\u2019s so-called Stable Neighbourhoods, long-established neighbourhoods like Town Park, Regency Acres, and Aurora Heights, better regulate what residents say is an influx of \u201cmonster homes.\u201d
\nThe debate has gone around in circles with the crux of the issue being the fact that protections for stable neighbourhoods contained within the Town\u2019s Official Plan are out of alignment with already-existing zoning bylaws.
\n\u201cWe have been going around and around, backwards and sideways, and I brought this motion forward in October,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner at last week\u2019s Council meeting. We\u2019re coming up [to a year and] we\u2019re just not getting anywhere. Maybe, at the end of the day, we\u2019ll decide not to protect the stable neighbourhoods; maybe we\u2019ll decide to partially protect them, but let\u2019s just decide something. The more information we have the better.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s get an outside voice. The Mayor said last week that maybe it would be a good idea to get somebody impartial to come in because we\u2019re just not getting anywhere and we need to do something for the residents.\u201d
\nThe idea of a consultant was supported at the podium by area resident Allison Halls, who said Halton Hills hired a consultant in the past to address this issue and it brought real results for the community and its residents.
\n\u201cI have read about and witnessed various groups coming to Council and asking for money, or asking the Town to spend money, and they seem to not have any problem getting everybody to agree on something like that, yet here we are: three ratepayers groups representing a couple of thousand homes at least,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have been here month after month asking for a freeze and zoning changes and we can\u2019t seem to get that accomplished. It makes me wonder, what is motivating Council not to support us?
\n\u201cWhat that means is since we haven\u2019t been able to get a freeze on development to get the zoning bylaw changes before the election, now our only course recourse is to use our right to vote and to recommend to those who ask us who we would support, who support us in protecting our Stable Neighbourhoods. Hopefully we will have a new group who is willing to support us, do the right thing, and protect the integrity and character of these three Stable Neighbourhoods.\u201d
\nOf the current group, Councillor Gaertner\u2019s motion was supported on a vote of 7 \u2013 1, with Councillor Paul Pirri being the lone dissenting voice. Councillor Harold Kim was unable to attend last Tuesday\u2019s meeting due to illness.
\nTaking the middle of the road in his arguments, Councillor Pirri said he agreed with Councillor Gaertner that an \u201cimpartial consultant\u201d should be involved, but he was unsure how this impartiality would be ensured.
\n\u201cDo you go after a consultant who has already worked on these types of developments who are more inclined generally in their mindset to put rules in place to prevent something like this, or do you choose a consultant who typically is against this?\u201d he asked. \u201cI would feel more comfortable having a report coming back with more information as opposed to a relatively short motion on the agenda saying, let\u2019s go out and hire a consultant. I think from a process standpoint that is typically what we would undertake. The flipside to all of that is I don\u2019t think it is a bad idea to go out and get a second opinion. I am just more concerned with how do we do that in a practical manner or practical fashion to make sure we get a high quality report at the end of the day.\u201d
\nAlso lukewarm in his response, although ultimately supportive, was Councillor Jeff Thom, who said the idea of \u201cmonster homes\u201d is vague and should be defined before moving forward.
\n\u201cI find it hard to protect against something if you don\u2019t have a clear definition of what that is,\u201d he said. \u201cI am happy to move forward with a consultant and an expert who is going to look at this and, perhaps, provide some clarity. We really need to look [at the impacts] in a more in-depth way.\u201d
\nFrom the perspective of Councillor Tom Mrakas, bringing on a consultant should have been done at the start of this process.
\n\u201cWe talked about the process that many municipalities follow and part of that process is to bring on a consultant to study, put in a freeze with an interim control bylaw and once that study is complete, Council makes a decision to move forward. It is a shame we didn\u2019t go exactly down that road, but as Councillor Thompson mentioned, hindsight is 2020.
\n\u201cI understand your concerns but at the end of the day, all of us around here have stated we want to protect our stable neighbourhoods. In essence, we would be looking for someone to inform us on the best way to protect our stable neighbourhoods. I don\u2019t know why we want to get someone to tell us how not to protect our stable neighbourhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A consultant will now provide some impartial advice on how Aurora can best protect its stable neighbourhoods.
\nCouncil last week formally approved a notice from Councillor Wendy Gaertner last week to obtain the services of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21704","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\/p3D2k4-5E4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 19:37:08","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\/21704","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=21704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}