{"id":23783,"date":"2019-05-09T19:13:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23783"},"modified":"2019-05-09T19:13:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:13:19","slug":"an-open-letter-to-mayor-council-from-town-park-ratepayers-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/an-open-letter-to-mayor-council-from-town-park-ratepayers-member\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Mayor & Council from Town Park Ratepayers member"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Firstly, I am writing\nto thank Councillors Gaertner and Gallo for their integrity in voting against\nthe flawed and biased consultant report on Protecting Stable Neighbourhoods\n(SN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel extreme\ndisappointment and frustration with regard to the position of the mayor and all\nthe other Councillors who supported this report.  The report would be\nbetter named \u201cDestabilizing older neighbourhoods\u201d or \u201cSelling out older neighbourhoods\nto the highest bidder\u201d or \u201cSupporting the contractors\u2019 and businesses\u2019 bottom\nline\u201d reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I am aware\nthat some compromise is necessary to appease the developers, I can\u2019t believe\nthat anyone would agree that a 4,000 square foot home is compatible with homes\nthat are 1,000-1,500 square feet and meet with the intent of the Official Plan\n(OP) with regard to protecting older neighbourhoods from incompatible and\ninappropriate building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the largest\noriginal homes on my block has a footprint of 1,100 square feet, so that would\nmean, using the consultant recommendations, if a home is built in the\nneighbourhood its footprint would be almost 2 \u00bd times the footprint of the\nadjacent homes. Trying to tell people that this is protecting Stable\nNeighbourhoods is an insult and an attempt to make fools of those who expected\nsupport from the Council and Mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have heard and\nwitnessed many stories about new development contractors and developers and\ntheir treatment of the existing neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the stories,\nthey are only interested in how fast and how much money they can make. The\nstories range from demolishing the interior of a home and burning the\ndebris in the discarded bathtub in the backyard, to using a chain saw to saw\noff the roots of 6-8 50-year-old trees in a neighbour\u2019s yard and thereby\nkilling the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not stories\nof caring contractors and it appears that the council and mayor think these\npeople deserve more respect and consideration that the hundreds of existing residents\nin the SNs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of many of\nthe present Council and Mayor running their campaign on protecting SNs, when\nthey started investigating the Stable Neighbourhoods after the last election,\nit has become obvious that they have an agenda and want this settled as soon as\npossible and not in favour of the people who live in the SNs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There seems to be the\nability of the council and mayor to ignore the OP and their responsibility to\nensure that they follow the policies within the OP with regard to SNs. It is\nthe same way we were treated in Old SE Aurora when we tried to make it a\nheritage district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wellington Street was\nadded to the Old SE area map knowing that those same business owners on\nWellington, who had fought against the NE Heritage district would do whatever\nit took to stop being part of the SE Heritage District, including lying to\nresidents and fear mongering to get the people in the community to fight tooth\nand nail to stop any plan to make the SE a Heritage District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then when the Heritage\nAdvisory Committee took my recommendation to Council that Wellington Street be\nremoved from the map to appease those who were most against the Heritage\nDistrict, Council totally ignored this as a compromise and stopped the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a different\nissue, but our present mayor and council have used the same plan. Make it the\nresponsibility of the neighbours to fight for something that was\/is the\ncouncil\u2019s responsibility to follow the OP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it might be\ncalled bait and switch. It would have been fairer for the council and mayor to\nbe honest and let people know up front that they are only going to support the\ndevelopers and contractors so don\u2019t bother with fighting for what was evidently\npromised to those of us in the old SNs. If you aren\u2019t going to follow the OP\nwhy have it or why not just change it so you can do whatever you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some flaws
\nin the Consultant Report<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem\/bias\ntowards this larger footprint max recommendation seems to be a result several\nsteps in the calculation methodology:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the existing\naverage footprints of the four neighborhoods, (Town Park actually has the\nsmallest), and coming up with a single average to be applied to all;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears they\nincluded all the footprints and GFA of the recent large homes in the averaging.\nWhy would you include in establishing the existing averaging oversized\nfootprints of recent houses the problem you are trying to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of most\nsignificance, they then come up with two types of 50% increases in existing to\ndetermine future maximum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again I don\u2019t see how\ncreating a maximum footprint by adding 50% increases over averages of four\nneighbourhoods fits with the intent of the Design Policies in the Official Plan\nwith focus on compatibility with: the size and configuration of nearby lots;\nthe building type of nearby residential properties; the heights and scale of\nnearby residential properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there are a\nhundred houses my size in a neighbourhood and all of the 100 houses have a\n1,000 Gross Floor Area (GFA) but one house is 5,000 square feet then the\nexisting average GFA of all 101 houses in the neighbourhood would be 1,040 sq.\nfeet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s fine but\n\u201c…To establish the \u201c50% of range\u201d maximum GFA and Building Footprint for new\ndwellings, the midway point between the \u2018average\u2019 GFA and building footprint\nand the highest values was identified…\u201d Therefore, in the 101 home\nneighbourhood even though the average is 1,040 sq. ft. they would take the\nmidpoint to the highest value, the single 5,000 sq. ft. house, (again probably\na recent build the problem being addressed) and end up with a recommendation\nfor a Maximum GFA for new houses in the neighbourhood of 3,000 sq. ft. allowing\nnew homes to be three times the size of any of the other 100 homes in the\nneighbourhood which doesn\u2019t seem right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three Ratepayers\nAssociations have asked planning for the actual numbers with regard to building\nsizes to try to better understand how the consultant determined his figures\nbecause the ratepayers did not have access to the consultant at any time during\nhis consultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original motion\nto protect the stable neighbourhoods made by Wendy Gaertner October 24, 2017,\nwas \u201cBe it resolved that Council and Staff do a study of the By-laws governing\ndevelopment of stable neighbourhoods to ensure that the intent of our planning\npolicy is being realized and reflected through these By-laws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the purpose of\nthe Official Plan is to promote responsible growth management Section 3.0 and\nthe fundamental principle related to protecting stable neighbourhoods is to\nensure that the stability and vibrancy of these existing homes in the stable\nneighbourhoods are protected from the negative impacts of potential\nincompatible development and growth pressures, then any infill that occurs must\nbe compatible with the established community character (OP Section 2.1 vi).\nThat refers to the original homes and not the new builds that occurred as a\nresult of Council not doing timely due diligence with regard to the directions\nin the Official Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the Development\nPolicies (OP 8.3.1), it states that \u201cnew development and site alteration\nabutting existing residential development shall be sympathetic to the form and\ncharacter of the existing development and shall be compatible with regard to\nbuilding scale and urban design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What part of this\ndoesn\u2019t Council understand? Why are we having to fight for what has already\nbeen stated in the official plan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that in order\nto do what the OP states that the zoning requirements have to be changed as\nthey presently don\u2019t reflect the OP directions. Since the zoning of older\nneighbourhoods has been amalgamated with other newer areas where homes have\nbeen larger, the intent was to put the stable neighbourhoods in a different\nzoning area with different zoning rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said we know the\npresent zoning by laws for stable neighbourhoods go against the intent and\nspirit of OP clause 2.1a vi and OP 8.1.3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consultant\nindicates that the new builds were included in the data to make the study\n\u201cinclusive\u201d but this is not the objective of the study and the purpose of the\nconsultation was to look at keeping the study areas separate and unique. He\nalso indicated that he did not do studies on each distinct area as he was told\nthat budget limitations given by council did not allow him to do that. So, if\nhe did study each area I\u2019m sure he would have ended up with completely\ndifferent results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, council\nshould not have accepted his report as his GFA decision is based on flawed\nmethodology and totally opposed to the purpose and intent of the OP policies\nfor SNs. Recommendations of GFA, max building footprint and 35% all contravene\nthe OP and should not be ratified by council in its current form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenore Pressley<\/strong>
Aurora<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firstly, I am writing to thank Councillors Gaertner and Gallo for their integrity in voting against the flawed and biased consultant report on Protecting Stable Neighbourhoods (SN). I feel extreme disappointment and frustration with regard to the position of the mayor and all the other Councillors who supported this report.  The report would be better […]<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6bB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 19:47:07","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\/23783","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=23783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}