{"id":21847,"date":"2018-10-10T17:02:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T21:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21847"},"modified":"2018-10-17T16:23:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:23:58","slug":"affordable-housing-stable-neighbourhoods-tackled-in-chamber-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/affordable-housing-stable-neighbourhoods-tackled-in-chamber-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable housing, stable neighbourhoods tackled in Chamber debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Affordable housing has been an issue Council has grappled with for the better part of a decade, and this municipal election campaign is no exception.
\nLocal candidates, however, had their chance to dig deeper into this issue last Wednesday evening as the Aurora Chamber of Commerce, in association with the Toronto Real Estate Board, hosted their all-candidates meeting at the Royal Venetian on Industrial Parkway South.
\nOver 150 people attended the meeting not only to meet all 16 Council candidates but hear how the four men vying to be Aurora\u2019s next mayor would tackle issues as varied as the migration of business to the Bayview Avenue corridor, to recreational marijuana sales, to the perennial issue of affordable housing.
\n\u201cHousing affordability is a major issue throughout the GTA, including Aurora,\u201d said moderator Stephen Somerville, posing a prepared question to the four candidates. \u201cHow would you help ensure that home ownership continues to be attainable for all?\u201d
\nGeoff Dawe was the first candidate to tackle what he described as a \u201cvery challenging question.\u201d
\nOne of his daughters is looking to buy a house in Aurora with her husband, he said, and she is experiencing this very issue firsthand.
\n\u201cThe issue of affordability is more at a Regional and Provincial level than at the municipal level,\u201d Mr. Dawe offered. \u201cWhat we can do and what we have done is look at the elements\u2026introduced a while ago: second suites, to legalize basement apartments, as an example. I think we also need to look at how we can change our zoning and density requirements. The reality is the bigger the house and\/or the bigger the lot, the more expensive the product. We have to look at how we can work with our zoning, with our Official Plan, to provide incentives for builders to provide that element where they are going to build a little more dense to get the cost per unit down.
\n\u201cDaniels up on John West Way did that very effectively by putting in stacked townhouses. I think those are products we probably need to look at and there are issues that come with that: increased traffic, parking and we need to see how we can work with that and how we can move that forward to provide that capability to our younger people.\u201d
\nNext up was Mr. Mrakas, who said the Town needs to work with the development community to provide a \u201cdiverse stock\u201d of housing options.
\n\u201cIf someone is coming to do development, we need to push and use the tools that are provided to us within our Official Plan to ask them and actually ensure that they provide bungalows, townhomes, single family dwelling homes, not just looking at maximizing their profits, but providing our residents and our community with what we need, not what they want. At the end of the day it is up to us and it is up to the political will of Council to ensure that we get what we want as a community.\u201d
\nMr. Abel labelled the affordable housing issue as \u201ca crisis that is recognized nationally\u201d and has impacted the ability of their children to plant firm roots in Aurora.
\n\u201cOur children migrate downtown so they can find a rental unit and job opportunities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to reverse that by creating incubator hubs like on the Hallmark land [to create] job opportunities, but we really have to put down a policy and I put forward a Notice of Motion that was adopted at Council and we are going to work with the Region, the Province and the Federal Government to come up with our own strategy and opportunity to identify\u2026when developers come with applications, we should say we\u2019re looking for 20 per cent or 10 per of affordable housing. Affordable housing is rental units and that is different than subsidized and very important for our future.\u201d
\nMr. Ballard said he has three children in their late 20s and early 30s who are in a similar situation and none of them are likely to end up living in Aurora in a home of their own.
\n\u201cWhat we really need in this Town is a good mixture of housing. We have focused on detached homes, homes on large lots. We need to look at affordable, purpose-built rental accommodation. There has been one purpose-built rental building in all of York Region in the past 20 years \u2013 212 Davis Drive \u2013 and we need that for two reasons: we need that because there are a lot of seniors who want to move from their homes into good quality rental, and for youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

STABLE NEIGHBOURHOODS<\/strong><\/p>\n

A significant focus has indeed been placed on large lots over the course of the campaign. In the case of the Stable Neighbourhoods issue, it is a matter of large lots being used to build very large homes that are out of keeping with the surrounding neighbours.
\nEach of the mayoral candidates was asked if they were in favour of \u201cprotecting neighbourhoods from incompatible developments such as Monster Homes\u201d and what \u201cconcrete steps\u201d each would do to protect neighbourhoods from incompatible development.
\nEach candidate said they were committed to protecting neighbourhoods, but their approaches differed.
\nMr. Mrakas, for instance, said he was fully in favour of protecting Stable Neighbourhoods and offered a \u201cthree-prong approach\u201d to tackling the issue.
\n\u201cThat three-prong approach is we need to put site plan controls in, which we have done, we need to have architectural guidelines. They have to be unique for each three individual areas because all areas are unique on themselves. Regency Acres is different from Aurora Heights, which is different from Town Park, so we need to put those measures in place and after the architectural guidelines,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe do need to make some changes with the zoning to make sure they align with our Official Plan. Once we do that and once we have all three measures in place, I believe that is the beginning of being able to protect our stable neighbourhood from inappropriate infill development which leads to Monster Homes. Everything has to fit within the character of the community and that is part of the architectural guidelines that will be put in place. Without that three-prong approach, it will not be achieved, I think that is what we will do to move forward and better protect our Stable Neighbourhoods.\u201d
\nUp next was Mr. Abel, who said Council has made it \u201cvery clear\u201d they want to protect stable neighbourhoods.
\n\u201cEasily we can see that people if they want to build their dream home, and we have examples, they look beautiful, they conform, and they are a treasure for the people that own it and live in it,\u201d he offered. \u201cThen we see developers coming in and maximizing these homes. We have to go to our developers and say, \u2018Put the language in that puts the ones that we accept and the ones that we don\u2019t.\u2019 That is their expertise, it is complex, but they are the ones who can do it. It is that simple. It\u2019s a common sense approach to protect our Stable Neighbourhoods.\u201d
\nOn Mr. Ballard\u2019s part, he said he is currently living in a situation where there is one \u201creally big home\u201d next door to him and two more across the street.
\n\u201cI have an opinion about infill houses and these types of homes that really do not belong in established neighbourhoods, quite frankly. I am flabbergasted and it speaks to a lack of Council leadership, just not Mayoral leadership, because I have been speaking to Councillors for a number of years now on this looming crisis and I told them time and again this is going to be if not the biggest issue in the municipal election, one of the biggest issues of the next municipal election and it is,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need a real interim control bylaw and we need to make sure our zoning bylaws align with the 2010 Official Plan which laid out very clearly how to protect established neighbourhoods.\u201d
\nMr. Dawe, on the other hand, said it\u2019s a leader\u2019s job to listen to residents and those living in stable neighbourhoods aren\u2019t unanimous in their position that tighter controls need to happen.
\n\u201cWe like to talk about leadership and one of the things a leader has to do is listen to everyone and there was a number of people who came to us privately and said, \u2018We don\u2019t want any changes. We don\u2019t want you to do that, because I don\u2019t want you to effect the value of my house,\u2019\u201d said Mr. Dawe. \u201cWe need to listen to those people as well and we need to come up with an objective, balanced approach to how we handle this. That is why I supported the site plan, that is why I support architectural guidelines, and that is why I supported the hiring of an independent consultant to get that objectivity to see how we can move forward in a way that benefits all of our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Affordable housing has been an issue Council has grappled with for the better part of a decade, and this municipal election campaign is no exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21844,"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-21847","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\/p3D2k4-5Gn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 09:00:22","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\/10\/2018-10-11-13.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21847","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=21847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}