{"id":24014,"date":"2019-06-20T18:02:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24014"},"modified":"2019-06-28T11:29:56","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:29:56","slug":"new-stable-neighbourhood-rules-will-protect-communities-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-stable-neighbourhood-rules-will-protect-communities-council\/","title":{"rendered":"New Stable Neighbourhood rules will protect communities: Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

New zoning standards will see real\nresults in protecting Aurora\u2019s so-called Stable Neighbourhoods from\nincompatible new builds, according to Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some area residents, and even some\nCouncil members, say the new changes do not go far enough and fall far short of\nwhat local advocates have been fighting for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Tuesday, Council approved a number\nof changes to existing zoning bylaws as they pertain to the long-established\ncommunities of Regency Acres and Aurora Heights, along with neighbourhoods\nsurrounding Town Park and on Temperance Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new bylaw, which will be formally\nenacted at a future Council meeting will see the maximum height of new builds\npegged at nine metres, or 9.9 metres to the peak of the roof, whichever is\nless. The maximum height for a detached garage is set at 3.5 metres (or 4.5\nmetres to the peak of the roof, whichever is less), a maximum lot coverage of\n35 per cent or 235 square metres for a dwelling with an incorporated garage,\nwhichever is less, while a dwelling with a detached garage would be limited to\n40 per cent lot coverage or 215 square metres, whichever is less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross Floor Area of a new build, a topic\nwhich garnered the most concern from area residents, will be set at 370 square\nmetres, or 3,983 square feet.
\nResidents made one last bid for change at the meeting, with Sandra Sangster,\nspeaking on behalf of the Town Park, Regency Acres and Aurora Heights\nRatepayers Associations once again citing discrepancies with the numbers\ncrunched by consultants retained by the Town recommend zoning bylaw changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Including just 75 homes on Temperance\nStreet, among a total of 2,111 dwellings examined during the study, skewed the\nresults. If they were taken out of the equation, the correct Gross Floor Area\n(GFA) should be 3,767 square feet versus the recommended 3,983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Auroran reported last week, the\nRatepayers came to Council pitching a compromise on the GFA, but this was\nultimately rejected by Council, who decided to go with the consultant\u2019s numbers\n– much to the chagrin of Councillor Wendy Gaertner who said it didn\u2019t make\nsense to give an area as small as Temperance the same weight as the other, much\nlarger neighbourhoods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow can we give 75 homes this type of\nimportance,\u201d she asked. \u201cThis bylaw that Council is about to pass will have\neffects on hundreds and thousands of residents. As was said last week at the\ntable, we have to uphold our OP and we have to respect the intent of\ncompatible. Residents wanting to protect their quality of life have been coming\nhere for many months. For all of those meetings, they asked for decreases in\nthe height, decreases in the size. They were just asking for protections they\nfelt were suitable for their neighbourhoods. None of that is going to be\nreflected in our bylaw. It seems to me they are now asking for one very small\naccommodation to use the weighted averages, so that a neighbourhood of 75 homes\nwill not have the same statistical impact as a neighbourhood of 800. It makes\nsense to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is justifiable. Please don’t deny\nthem this small compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This view was supported by Councillor\nSandra Humfryes who said it was just a \u201csmall compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a small adjustment and it absolutely makes\nstatistical sense in terms of what we saw presented this evening,\u201d she said.\n\u201cOverall, it helps residents just make more sense of what is before them and I am\njust looking forward to moving forward tonight. Hopefully this will pass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor John Gallo was on a similar wavelength. The consultant, he\nsaid, did his job in coming up with the numbers, but the \u201conus\u201d was on Council\nto look at the neighbourhoods in more detail and determine some of the\noutliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Councillors disagreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First to speak against Councillor Gaertner\u2019s amendment was Councillor\nRachel Gilliland, who said the decision was down to the numbers supplied by the\nconsultant and the numbers supplied by the residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing back and forth with some of the inconsistent numbers, I just feel\nwe’re not really going to find that magic sweet spot, that magic number that is\ngoing to be exact for everybody to agree with,\u201d she said, speaking against\nCouncillor Gaertner\u2019s motion to adjust the GFA. \u201cI just feel that this motion\nis really not accurate to what we’re trying to achieve today. I think we have a\nreport in front of us today and that is something we should consider.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These views were echoed by Councillor Michael Thompson who said there\nhave been \u201ca lot of different viewpoints\u201d presented on this issue\u201d with some\nwanting to see further reductions, some less restrictions and some in favour of\nthe status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe community is divided in their opinions,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a\nmajority view, there is a minority view, but regardless whatever Council\ndecides on the number I would agree that it is a compromise. It may not satisfy\neverybody within the community, but we will have accomplished something. When\nthis issue first started, there was great concern about some of the homes that\nwere 5,000, 6,000 square feet. This, as Councillor Gilliland mentioned, the\nzoning bylaw was initially put forward… to reduce it by 33 per cent. That is\nsomething. I understand there are concerns about the methodology around the weighted\naverage versus another approach…For me, I am comfortable in the number we\nhave been presented.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Harold Kim approached matters from a broader perspective.\nWhile many of the residents in Council Chambers over the last few weeks were\nfighting for a reduction in the GFA, there were many other voices to consider,\nhe contended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not a matter of whether you agree or not, but there is another\nhalf of residents in stable neighbourhoods who aren’t here tonight and they\nhave their perspectives as well,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are residents on all sides. I\ndon’t want there to be any feeling out there that Council’s siding with one\nside or the other. I think we have come up with a number that an external\nconsultant has come out with and I am fine with that.\u201d <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some residents, Council members cast doubt on whether changes will make a real difference in Regency Acres, Aurora Heights and around Town Park.<\/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-24014","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\/p3D2k4-6fk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 08:58:31","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\/24014","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=24014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}