{"id":21795,"date":"2018-10-03T17:32:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21795"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:32:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:32:29","slug":"affordable-housing-delays-wellington-industrial-redevelopment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/affordable-housing-delays-wellington-industrial-redevelopment\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable housing delays Wellington & Industrial redevelopment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

It has been a destination for craftsman for decades, but the northeast corner of Wellington Street and Industrial Parkway North, currently home to Royal Wood Working, could soon be transformed into a residential complex with two eight storey towers.
\nPlans for the redevelopment proposal, known as Metropolitan Square, were brought forward for consideration at Council last month, but developers\u2019 attempts to secure an amendment to the Town\u2019s Official Plan to allow for buildings three storeys above the limit hit a snag over how much of the building will be dedicated to affordable housing.
\nThe property owners propose two eight storey condominium towers joined by a common lobby area. If approved as-is, it would bring a total of 223 residential condominium units to the site, along with two levels of underground parking, all accessed off Industrial Parkway North near Centre Street.
\nIn order for the developers to get approval on the extra storeys, they will have to go through an exercise called \u201cbonusing\u201d where significant amendments to the Official Plan (OP) are allowed in a trade-off for some community benefit.
\nThese community benefits often include provisions for public parkland or other forms of amenity space, but the developers behind the Industrial Parkway\/Wellington proposal were hoping to achieve this through 10 units of affordable rental housing within the building for a time period of 15 years.
\n\u201cWe have received very favourable comments from the Town\u2019s peer review architect,\u201d said Angela Sciberras on behalf of the developer. \u201cWe have been back and forth with them and they have provided a considerable amount of input and the design of the building has been accommodated to address those comments. Approval by the committee and, ultimately, Council will allow us to continue that process. It will allow us to work with staff in preparation for the site plan agreement, finalization of the zoning bylaw, finalization of the affordable unit agreement, continuation of the LEED Silver certification and, most importantly, commencement of site plan remediation.\u201d
\nBut the affordable unit agreement between the developer and the Region of York spurred most of the Council members\u2019 comments. When asked by Councillor Michael Thompson how the public would benefit through bonusing, Ms. Sciberras underscored the affordable housing agreement.
\n\u201cAt the beginning of the process, we went to the Region and met [with Housing Services] and worked with them to find out what their program was and worked out the parameters with them,\u201d she continued. \u201cI think the planning department here at worked with the Town\u2019s appraiser in order to determine value to establish the number of units.\u201d
\nThis wasn\u2019t enough for some Councillors, however, who said that just 10 affordable housing units at the time of the build, units which could be potentially phased out to become mainstream condos after 15 years was not the deal the Town was looking for.
\n\u201cLooking at other municipalities and what they\u2019re trying to do when it comes to affordable housing and rental units, looking at the fact we\u2019re going from five storeys to eight storeys, and we all know that, for the most part, this Council and previous Councils have held a firm line at a seven-storey building, I just don\u2019t think there needs to be a higher standard for that public benefit,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cFor me, the 10 units don\u2019t meet that standard. I would like to see a minimum of 10 per cent, or 22 units.\u201d
\nCouncillor Wendy Gaertner said she echoed these comments.
\n\u201cI am not sure why the Region does it that way, but 15 years is not an acceptable amount of time for me,\u201d she said. \u201cThis building, hopefully, will stand for many, many years, so to have 15 years of affordable housing is not acceptable to me.\u201d
\nCouncillor Jeff Thom also agreed, noting \u201cthe Town and the community needs to get something more out of it\u201d than just five per cent of the building dedicated to affordable housing which expires after 15 years.
\n\u201cIs it architecturally pleasing to look at? Yeah, but there is just one problem: it is eight storeys,\u201d added Councillor Tom Mrakas. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t meet our height restrictions; it goes above and beyond. It doesn\u2019t even go above just with the bonusing of one [storey]; it is asking for three extra stories. I might remind everyone that it isn\u2019t just three extra storeys, it is three extra storeys for each building. In essence, it is six extra storeys.
\n\u201cAt the end of the day, we do have a height restriction and right now currently what sits there is one storey commercial. Five storeys is intensification, so by going to what our plans are within our Official Plan is intensifying the area, we all agree it is an area to allow for intensification. Five storeys allows for that, so I think we need to uphold our Official Plan and our height restriction and move forward in that direction.
\n\u201cAt the end of the day I don\u2019t see a clear benefit to the community. There is none. Allowing 10 units for rental, affordable housing that is going to disappear after 15 years, are the two storeys going to disappear after 15 years? No. It is up to us to make sure we uphold that line and we uphold our Official Plan.\u201d
\nCouncil reaffirmed its decision to send the matter back to staff to address their concerns in a future report.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a destination for craftsman for decades, but the northeast corner of Wellington Street and Industrial Parkway North, currently home to Royal Wood Working, could soon be transformed into a residential complex with two eight storey towers.<\/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-21795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Fx","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 10:29:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21795","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=21795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}