{"id":26496,"date":"2020-05-07T18:19:17","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T22:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26496"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:19:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T22:19:22","slug":"wellington-street-rental-development-could-be-appealed-after-council-indecision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wellington-street-rental-development-could-be-appealed-after-council-indecision\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Street rental development could be appealed after Council indecision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The future of an infill development of stacked townhouses\nadjacent to two existing apartment buildings on Wellington Street West could be\ndecided by Ontario\u2019s Local Planning Appeals Tribunal after Council reached a\ndeadlock last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early March, Starlight Investments came forward to\nCouncil requesting amendments to Aurora\u2019s zoning bylaws to pave the way for 60\nnew rental units at 145 and 147 Wellington Street, pitching their development\nas a step in the right direction for affordable housing in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development cleared the first hurdle at the Council\u2019s\nlast General Committee meeting before the COVID-19 pandemic, but was\nsubsequently put on ice after Council resumed remote meetings in April. The\ndelay at that point came after nearby residents questioned how the infill\ndevelopment would impact parking for existing residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was once again the case when local lawmakers met\nlast Tuesday and these lingering questions left Council unable to reach a\nmajority consensus on whether to approve or deny the application. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such resident, Mitch McGuire, expressed his views in\na virtual delegation to Council. Here, Mr. McGuire said the proposed parking\nspot to unit ratio was far short of what it needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no way there is enough parking,\u201d said Mr.\nMcGuire, citing the 265 spots proposed by Starlight. \u201cIn December of 2018, [the\nproperty owners] instituted paid parking for visitors, so all the visitors had\nto pay for parking at a rate of $1.50 per half hour or less to a daily maximum\nof six. They did eventually pull out the parking meters at the beginning of the\nyear and put in new rules in February. We\u2019re only allowed the same visitor ten\ntimes and anything over 10 times will be rejected, so they won\u2019t be allowed to\npark and could be tagged and towed. That is just not right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resident\u2019s comments struck a chord with a number of\nCouncillors, including Councillors John Gallo and Wendy Gartner, who counted\nthe parking situation as one of the several reasons they could not support the\napplication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Councillor Gallo, a sticking point was the number of\nnew units proposed by the developers, which, he said, had gone up by three\nunits since Council last took a pass at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gaertner also looked at the matter from the\nperspective of affordable housing, stating that while current rental rates\noffered on site would be considered affordable, rents increase as the property\nowners refurbish existing units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have decided, all of us, that 1.5 was the correct\nstandard to provide residents\u2026a quality of living or what they needed,\u201d said\nCouncillor Gaertner of the parking spot formula. \u201cIt went down to 1.3 because\nthis developer added subsidized rental units. They agreed to do it for 20\nyears, so they got the 1.3 standard. We\u2019ve never reduced our parking standard\nbelow the 1.5, so I do not understand how it is possible that we will allow\nthis developer to provide this decreased number of spaces. On top of that, we\nhave so few affordable units in Aurora. We have two other apartment buildings.\nThese affordable units will not be affordable when the new tenants move in, so\nwe will be losing, at the end of the day, 204 affordable units.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the application, Councillor Rachel Gilliland\nsaid the 1.5 standard is \u201cgreat\u201d but studies provided by Council have shown\nwhat the applicants proposed was adequate and approving it would be \u201cfollowing\nthe experts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf some of the residents were\nlosing their parking spots, perhaps I would feel a different tune, but in this\nparticular instance, I feel if everybody is given their spots and the units\nthat are going to be developed also have one, I feel like there is a bit of\nwin-win,\u201d she said. \u201cI understand they are doing a lot of renovations and they\nare cleaning up the place and making it look really great, so I think this is a\ngreat advantage to the community \u2013 but I don\u2019t really want to sway in that\ndirection too much because, at the end of the day, it becomes about the\nparking. Going forward [with the information I have today] I am okay with what\nis being presented by the developer, but in the sense that they are over\ncompliant, in which the professional experts have brought to us today and the\noriginal residents aren\u2019t losing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of a similar viewpoint was\nCouncillor Harold Kim who said his \u201cdefault\u201d was always in favour of more\nparking, but the developers did address many of the other concerns previously\naddressed by Council, including preserving existing on-site amenities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have already identified\nthat existing tenants are not going to be losing any of the parking spots, that\nstays the same. There is full disclosure, as was already mentioned\u2026with the new\ntenants and the future townhouse development that they are only going to have\none, Mr. McGuire had concerns over the future tenants, but the future tenants\nknow what they are getting into, [but] I don\u2019t think that should be a concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe merits of the plan, I\nthink, are fine. I\u2019m ready to go ahead with the staff recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Councillor Gallo strongly\ndisagreed with these assessments and said he was \u201cshocked\u201d at what he was\nhearing around the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur standards in many of your minds, from what I\u2019ve\nheard, are trumped by a consultant that is paid for by a developer and nobody\nseems to have a problem with that. Nobody seems to have a problem with a\nmultitude of residents bringing forward concerns that report was not accurate.\nIt wouldn\u2019t have taken much for our own staff to go there and verify\nthemselves,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the Public Planning meeting, we told [residents] that\nwe\u2019re going to make sure the developer goes back and revisits this. We promised\nthat. They have come back and added three units and only one parking spot. How\ncan we tell those residents that we\u2019re doing a good job? I just don\u2019t\nunderstand it. It is not too late to change your minds. If you\u2019re convinced of\nthis, you\u2019re convinced of this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas nevertheless reiterated his previously\nexpressed view that Council should sign off on the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy us denying this at this time and going to LPAT (Local\nPlanning Appeals Tribunal), where we know that they\u2019re going to approve it and\nwe\u2019ll lose the concessions that have been given to the Town and spending money\nat a time when we really shouldn\u2019t be spending money when we know we\u2019re just\ngoing to throw it out, we might as well write a cheque to LPAT right now and\ngive it to them. We can do a lot more with that money in this difficult time\nthan to just give it away to LPAT. That\u2019s a disservice to the residents of this\ncommunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know exactly what is going to happen at LPAT and\nanyone who tries to tell anyone otherwise, that, \u2018no, we\u2019re going to win at\nLPAT,\u2019 if you want to throw away $75,000 – $150,000 for a hearing, by all means\ngo ahead, but that\u2019s a disservice to the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After several motions failed to gain a majority Council vote, Council ultimately voted to simply receive the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The future of an infill development of stacked townhouses adjacent to two existing apartment buildings on Wellington Street West could be decided by Ontario\u2019s Local Planning Appeals Tribunal after Council reached a deadlock last week. In early March, Starlight Investments came forward to Council requesting amendments to Aurora\u2019s zoning bylaws to pave the way for […]<\/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-26496","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\/p3D2k4-6Tm","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:56:01","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\/26496","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=26496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}