{"id":23264,"date":"2019-03-15T18:48:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23264"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:49:03","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:49:03","slug":"public-input-sought-on-stable-neighbourhoods-before-march-27-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/public-input-sought-on-stable-neighbourhoods-before-march-27-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Public input sought on Stable Neighbourhoods before March 27 meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

You can now have your say on how the Town can best\nprotect Aurora\u2019s stable neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the public can now take their thoughts online\nto weigh in on \u201cfuture development in areas designated as stable\nneighbourhoods\u201d around Aurora, which include the neighbourhoods around Town\nPark, Regency Acres, and Aurora Heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Input received online through Place Speak\n(placespeak.com\/stableneighbourhoods), along with suggestions on the future\ndirection of stable neighbourhoods and how Council can best protect and\nsafeguard against developments that do not fit into the neighbourhoods in\nquestion, will be compiled ahead of the March 27 Public Planning meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This meeting will be dedicated to new zoning bylaws,\ncurrently being drafted, that are intended to bring zoning related to Stable\nNeighbourhoods in line with provisions in the Town\u2019s Official Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe meeting is scheduled for March 27 and I believe one\nof the recommendations in the Consultant Report [commissioned by Council to\ncome up with independent recommendations on changes to zoning bylaws] was to\nlook at height as well as maximum gross floor area, as well as provide some guidelines,\u201d\nsaid Town Planner Lawrence Kuk at last week\u2019s Council meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While further legislation on infill developments within\nthe Town\u2019s three designated stable neighbourhoods is still some three weeks\naway, Council touched upon things to come last week while approving an\nexemption to the Interim Control Bylaw put in place to regulate construction\nwithin these neighbourhoods until more concrete recommendations came forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exemption pertains to a redevelopment application for\n29 Church Street, across the street from the Aurora Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owners of the property propose to demolish the\nexisting home and rebuild a two-storey detached for their retirement; a home\nwhich must also meet the needs of their daughter who requires a wheelchair\naccessible home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family bought the home in question in 2018, intending\nto build a home for their retirement but they said they were \u201ccaught by\nsurprise\u201d when the Town enacted the Interim Control Bylaw, after the building\nwas \u201cde-listed\u201d by Council last July, with the proviso that all future building\nelevations were subject to a review by Aurora\u2019s Design Panel Review and\napproval of Planning Staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking against granting the exemption last week, which\nwould allow the family to advance their plans to review by the Committee of\nAdjustment, Councillor Wendy Gaertner said timing was everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so close to finally deciding something at Council\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[on Stable Neighbourhoods]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and because this is such an important location\u2026I am\nhoping Council will agree not to make an exception and wait a month before we\nsee what\u2019s coming forward to the Public Planning meeting.\u201d\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor John Gallo, who supported the exemption at the\nCommittee level in February, added he had changed his mind, echoing the\nsentiments of Councillor Gaertner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2026took a bit of a deeper look at it, and I wasn\u2019t really\nsure exactly when we would be coming back to make some decisions on Stable\nNeighbourhoods and bylaws,\u201d said Councillor Gallo. \u201cI think because of that\u2026I\nwould hate to move something forward that in a few weeks time would be contrary\nto a decision [we] may make. While I don\u2019t like delaying and I know [the family\nhas been to Council] I also don\u2019t know that we would even be passing a bylaw in\nMarch. Those are all the variables. To me, it just seems so close and it is\nworth waiting to see the results of that before we move ahead with this. I\nwouldn\u2019t feel great if this didn\u2019t end up complying with the potentially new\nbylaws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillors Gaertner and Gallo, however, were the only\ntwo Council members who voted against allowing plans to move forward to the\nnext stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the five Council members who voted in favour of the\nexemption, the plans presented were modest and not a \u201cmonster home\u201d the Interim\nControl Bylaw was designed to block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand there is another month to go, but that can\nlead to two months, two-and-a-half months, who knows, but I am not really quite\ncertain what we\u2019re scared of with this particular outlier, as I like to call\nit,\u201d said Councillor Rachel Gilliland. \u201cThey are going to comply with the\nnine-metre height. Yes, they are across from the Cultural Centre, but the scale\nof it, I believe, would not be out of place when they are adjacent to a rather\nlarge facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel this property is an outlier [in the sense\nthat]\u2026it is not typical of what we\u2019re trying to achieve as far as the Monster\nHomes and the incompatibility of the neighbourhood. I feel this is unfortunate\ntiming for them and an example that perhaps is not the best one to be making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar view was offered by Councillor Michael Thompson\nwho said Council has already delayed the family\u2019s plans once. They have, he\nargued, shown a willingness to make alterations to their plans in order to\ncomply with regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir intention is to stay and live there and I support\ntheir request,\u201d he said. \u201cAll we are allowing them to do is move forward in the\nprocess. As the report indicates [it still has to go through] the Committee of\nAdjustment, there\u2019s still Site Plan and a whole number of steps. All we\u2019re\nsaying is we\u2019re allowing them the opportunity to move forward in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mayor Tom Mrakas: \u201cThis is going to need a variance\nregardless, whenever we change our bylaws. We\u2019re allowing this to move forward\nin the process. We\u2019re not approving the development. We\u2019re not approving the\nhouse to be built. All we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re allowing it to go to the Committee\nof Adjustment and I think at that time the Committee will make their decision\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[on whether]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it meets the criteria. I believe this is the kind of thing you\nshould exempt from the Interim Control Bylaw.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can now have your say on how the Town can best protect Aurora\u2019s stable neighbourhoods.<\/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-23264","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\/p3D2k4-63e","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 11:46:27","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\/23264","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=23264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}