{"id":22791,"date":"2019-01-24T18:22:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22791"},"modified":"2019-01-24T18:22:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:22:05","slug":"residents-could-decide-future-of-end-of-driveway-clearing-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/residents-could-decide-future-of-end-of-driveway-clearing-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents could decide future of end-of-driveway clearing program"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Residents should have the opportunity to weigh in on whether or not Aurora should proceed with a windrow clearing program, according to some Councillors, after lawmakers gave the costly proposal a mixed review last week.
\nAs The Auroran reported last week, Council is due to consider the future of a possible program that would make the snow and ice that accumulates at the end of your driveway after a snow plow passes a thing of the past \u2013 but it\u2019s a program that comes with a price.
\nAccording to Jim Tree, Aurora\u2019s acting manager of roads and water, it will cost the Town upwards of $1.5 million each year to clear the estimated 18,900 private driveways in Aurora, and this figure does not include the cost to purchase special equipment required to make it happen.
\nCouncil was divided on whether or not the program had merit, with some arguing it was too costly and others noting that, when that $1.5 million is divided between the 18,900 homes, residents might find it good value for money.
\n\u201cWhen they were looking at this in Vaughan, the cost to the municipality in 2016 was $2.65 million, and that would lead to a property tax increase of 2.8 per cent or an annual cost of $43.75 for what I think is probably the average home price in 2016,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner. \u201cIt sounds like a lot of money, and it sounds like a huge increase, but if you take it down to what it actually costs the taxpayer, if it is going to cost them an annual cost of $44, it doesn\u2019t seem very onerous.\u201d
\nWhile Councillor Michael Thompson said his breakdown showed that the $1.5 million would turn out to be in the neighbourhood of $80 a home, he was not enthusiastic about the program, citing concerns about the turnaround time between a snow event and when windrows might be clear, an issue that was identified when Vaughan took the plunge and adopted a windrow clearing program.
\n\u201cThere is a time delay and I know the few times I have been in conversations with other Councillors there that I think there is a 24 hour lag or something,\u201d he said, adding that if Aurora adopted a windrow clearing program it is important to manage residents\u2019 expectations on just what they will be getting. \u201cWe have to be cautious of setting expectations should we choose to proceed. Personally, I don\u2019t think it is worth it.\u201d
\nThis was the prevailing sentiment with the majority of Council members who spoke to the item at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting.
\nCouncillor Harold Kim, for instance, said it is \u201cpainful\u201d coming home from work at the end of the day to find \u201cthree feet of ice\u201d accumulated at the end of his driveway, but a $1.5 million price tag to reduce the pain he shares with other residents could cause \u201cmore of a headache.\u201d
\n\u201cMy concern is this would be a huge impact on seniors as far as the cost,\u201d added Councillor Rachel Gilliland. \u201cThere is a high population of seniors who are living in condos [as well] and to stipulate this added extra cost would be even more expensive. I really have concerns about this added cost.\u201d
\nBut Councillor Gaertner was of the position that a full public survey should be conducted before Council decides whether or not to put the windrow clearing idea permanently on ice.
\n\u201cIf we\u2019re going to go out to residents and say this is going to cost you an extra $50 to your tax bill if we do windrow clearing, my guess is that almost everybody would say yes,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you put this to me, I would certainly pay $50 to try and deal with the windrows. I lived on Murray Drive and that was a hard job and the population is aging.\u201d
\nMayor Tom Mrakas, however, was more cautious about a public survey.
\n\u201cI am not opposed to going out to public consultation, but my concern with that is\u2026with something like this, depending on when you do it, if you do it when it is snowing outside, most people\u2026would say, \u2018Yeah, I don\u2019t mind paying a little bit extra for [that] and come by and do this for me,\u201d he said, referring to people being asked the question after completing the arduous task of clearing their own windrow. \u201cIf you did this over the summer and say, \u2018Do you want us to raise your taxes and we\u2019ll clear the end of your driveway?\u2019 They\u2019re going to say no. I think there is an issue with when we do the public consultation.\u201d
\nCouncillor Kim had a similar view, noting, \u201cI think we should be cautious if we put this out to the public because given Aurora has a higher leaning towards seniors, and I am not saying that is a bad thing, [but] if you have put in a fair survey you\u2019re going to have a certain segment of the population that is voting a certain way and it is going to be very biased. Demographics will skew the public vote and I think we should take note of that.\u201d
\nThis is not the first time Aurora has looked at windrow clearing. Council took on a pilot project eleven years ago targeted at seniors and residents living with physical challenges. The program, said Al Downey, Director of Operations, was less than a resounding success. In the winter of 2008 and 2009, only five winter events required windrow service and, he said, it took staff five times longer to administer than to deliver the program.
\nLooking ahead, Mr. Downey outlined a number of operational concerns for Council to consider before the possibility of adopting a new program. Such a program would require two separate pieces of equipment, rather than equipping existing snow plows with windrow clearing implements because windrow clearing would make road clearing slow down to a \u201ccrawl.\u201d
\nGreen for Life, Aurora\u2019s waste management contractor, is also unwilling to have their workers go beyond the curbside to pick up trash and recycling that would be moved further towards the house to clear the way for windrow plows.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents should have the opportunity to weigh in on whether or not Aurora should proceed with a windrow clearing program, according to some Councillors, after lawmakers gave the costly proposal a mixed review last week.<\/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-22791","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\/p3D2k4-5VB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 09:42:08","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\/22791","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=22791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}