{"id":24034,"date":"2019-06-20T18:31:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24034"},"modified":"2019-06-20T18:31:44","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:31:44","slug":"royal-road-residents-get-partial-exemption-from-new-stable-neighbourhood-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/royal-road-residents-get-partial-exemption-from-new-stable-neighbourhood-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Road residents get partial exemption from new Stable Neighbourhood rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Residents of Royal\nRoad living between Edward Street and Cameron Avenue will be exempt from new\nrules governing Aurora\u2019s Stable Neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exemption was made\nat last week\u2019s Council meeting, which saw a series of changes made to the kinds\nof new builds that will be allowed in Regency Acres, Aurora Heights, and the\ncommunity surrounding Town Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Requests for the\nexemption came at the previous week\u2019s General Committee meeting where resident\nSina Daniell made her case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the unusually\nwide properties of the nineteen lots in question, this section of the\nneighbourhood was an anomaly, she said, and should be looked at separately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur unique and\nspecial pocket of Royal Road\u2026consists of 19 homes, all with consecutive lot\nfrontages of 78, 80, 90 and up to 100 feet,\u201d said Ms. Daniell. \u201cI am asking to\nbe exempted from the proposed zoning bylaw changes as we are the outliers. We\nwill not have the vertical massing issues for the very simple reasons that all\nof the 19 consecutive lots have large lot frontages. The proposed unprecedented\nand unreasonable changes to our pocket were either an oversight or a mistake\nwhich needs to be corrected immediately. We do not have issues and will never\nhave issues based on the current zoning bylaw, which bylaw we relied upon when\npurchasing our large frontage homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis proposed zoning\nbylaw is capping our maximum footprint to 2,540 square feet, inclusive of\ngarage. A reasonable person cannot argue that the maximum footprint on two\ncompletely different lot frontages be exactly the same. All of the homes in our\npocket have 50 \u2013 100 per cent wider lot frontages and are not consistent with\nthe other lots in the study. By reducing the coverage and also capping it, is\nin fact reducing our coverage by 35 per cent, compared to what we are allowed\ntoday. In addition, you are taking away our rights to a three-car garage on\nsuch large frontages. Where else in the GTA are residents with comparable lot\nfrontages prohibited from having a three-car garage? I could not find one. This\nis extreme and excessive and takes away our rights and enjoyment of our\nproperties. It also takes away the possibility of building a decent-sized\nbungalow, which is discriminatory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also speaking in\nfavour of an exemption was fellow Royal Road resident Neil Asselin, who said\nalthough he lives on the other side of Royal Road, he saw Ms. Daniell\u2019s\nconcerns as an example on how the Stable Neighbourhood Study before Council\n\u201cfailed to capture the nuance of the Town Park neighbourhood [and] the\ndifferent architectural styles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council members did\nnot formally pass a resolution addressing the Royal Road residents\u2019 concerns at\nthe Committee level, but it proved a factor the following week when the new\nrules were up for final ratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motion to exempt\nthe specified section of Royal Road was made by Councillor Sandra Humfryes, who\nagreed the area was an unusual situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a number of\nlots that aren\u2019t quite similar in terms of the large, large size,\u201d she said.\n\u201cThey should be removed from the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Humfryes\nechoed the comments made by Mayor Tom Mrakas last week where he said he was\nworried an exemption might lead to exceptionally large homes in the area, but\nsaid the exemption fit in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand there\nmight be a need on this street and I can\u2019t disagree, but Councillor Thompson\nmade a recommendation last week to have a more comprehensive study after all\nthis [to look at possible exemptions] and just have a more comprehensive\nexamination of all the neighbourhoods,\u201d said Councillor Harold Kim, adding if\nRoyal Road was used as a \u201cbenchmark\u201d he was not in favour of the amendment\nbecause there was no rush in this situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we can take a\nlittle bit of time [for] a more detailed examination to see if there are other\nstreets that might require an exemption,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Council pushed\nthrough the exemption for Royal Road, they opted to go down this path of\nwaiting for a more comprehensive evaluation when faced with a similar request\nfor homes on Metcalfe Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homeowners on Metcalfe\nStreet living close to the GO Station were asking for an exemption of their\nown, said Councillor Humfryes, as their proximity to both the GO Station and\nnearby industry put them just outside of what would be considered a stable\nneighbourhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Waters, Planner\nfor the Town of Aurora, said there was some \u201cvalidity\u201d to removing the\nproperties from the Stable Neighbourhoods study, but said the properties in\nquestion are being examined by the Region of York as part of their MTSA (Major\nTransit Station Area) study and there might be more questions down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is important to wait and see what happens\nwith the Regional Planning or the MTSA to see where the boundary is and if they\ninclude it,\u201d said Mr. Waters. \u201cAt this point, they can decide whether they move\nforward or not with any kind of redevelopment scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents of Royal Road living between Edward Street and Cameron Avenue will be exempt from new rules governing 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_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-24034","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\/p3D2k4-6fE","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 11:22:02","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\/24034","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=24034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}