{"id":28296,"date":"2020-12-18T01:02:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T06:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28296"},"modified":"2020-12-18T01:02:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T06:02:20","slug":"growth-issues-dominate-councils-first-look-at-official-plan-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/growth-issues-dominate-councils-first-look-at-official-plan-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Growth issues dominate Council\u2019s first look at Official Plan review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora has experienced significant growth over the last 10 years, and targeting the right places for growth in the decades ahead will be a significant part of the discussion as the Town continues developing its blueprint through 2051.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week took their first sweep of findings from the initial phase of the Town\u2019s Official Plan (OP) Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once complete, the new OP will act as a guide for the community\u2019s growth and development over the next three decades and these issues were already in the forefront at last Tuesday\u2019s Public Planning meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping to kick off the discussion was Councillor Michael Thompson who said that while Aurora\u2019s current population stands at approximately 63,000 people, Provincial growth targets estimate this population to swell to over 80,000 by 2041.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As public engagement on the revised OP continues, he asked whether residents and stakeholders were asked to give the impact of this growth serious consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re doing this process of engaging residents and other stakeholders, are you identifying to them that growth will happen and asking them to identify where or what areas within Aurora they see that growth or development happening?\u201d he asked. \u201cIn reality, we don\u2019t have a lot of empty lots left to build upon and a lot of it is going to be intensification or infill. I would be curious to get the public\u2019s input on if they had to place another 16,000 residents, where they see those residents going on a map of Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the perspective of WSP\u2019s Sabrina Coletti, one of the consultants leading the public engagement process, it is \u201ccritically important to be completely honest and transparent\u201d when engaging residents about what the OP review process entails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the issues tackled with those who have provided input so far include opportunities for \u201cminor intensification\u201d within existing residential areas, intensification around Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs) \u2013 the Wellington Street GO Station, in Aurora\u2019s case \u2013 and the development of a variety of housing types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe talked about things such as live-work units and where that might be appropriate, where mixed-use buildings might be appropriate, and various other housing forms, [and] what the needs are when it comes to public realm within the MTSA to ensure more of a community is designed and created around the MTSA and how the OP can support that,\u201d said Ms. Coletti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growth was also a concern from Councillor Wendy Gaertner, who asked whether there would be any movement away from \u201ccar-centric\u201d planning towards something more inclusive, \u201ccomplete communities\u201d, as well as whether accommodations would be considered for what she described as \u201cthe missing middle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can require a certain amount of housing to be affordable, but that is just in your Major Transit Station Area,\u201d said consultant Paul Lowes. \u201cThis is a new tool that we can\u2026look at as part of the Official Plan. Other than that, it is tough to set out amounts of affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas also spoke to the issue of \u201ccomplete communities,\u201d citing a proposal for development in Aurora\u2019s northeast quadrant near Leslie and St. John\u2019s Sideroad as an example \u2013 \u201ca 15-minute community\u201d where many amenities are available within a quarter-hour radius of your home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe spoke about the public health benefits [of 15-minute communities] because I think it is important\u2026especially as we see this happening with the pandemic, people are moving away, they want more from their surrounding community, they don\u2019t just want to live in an 800 square foot box, go up, watch TV, go to sleep, go back down and get in their car and drive away, come back and do the same thing. They want to be able to be within a community and I think that speaks volumes on what a complete community is and the fact it does impact your health,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other aspect of it that I think everyone needs to remember is the other thing that impacts health of residents in our community is over-development as well. When you over-develop an area, you get the same type of impacts on your health. So, we need to be careful how we do this. I know we\u2019re going to do a great job working with the consultants, the public and come up with a vision that speaks to what Aurora is and what Aurora will be in the future. I am looking forward to continuing the work and having those discussions with the public and with the consultants and staff, and we\u2019ll have a new official plan in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Councillor Harold Kim sought assurances that whatever is ultimately brought forward by the estimated completion date of the revised OP by 2022 provides a degree of flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do we go about developing an Official Plan so it allows the flexibility that the Province originally intended and, at the same time, balances and gives municipalities a certain level of control so that we can shape the municipality and development in a way that we envision it without having to have all these [Official Plan] amendments?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consultants replied that devising an OP that will not spark amendment requests was not something they could guarantee as every landowner has the right to file an OP amendment,\u201d said Lowes. \u201cHowever, they said the best way to approach this issue is set out \u201chigh level strategic direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Aurora has experienced significant growth over the last 10 years, and targeting the right places for growth in the decades ahead will be a significant part of the discussion as the Town continues developing its blueprint through 2051. Council last week took their first sweep of findings from the initial phase of the Town\u2019s Official […]<\/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-28296","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\/p3D2k4-7mo","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 02:05:29","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\/28296","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=28296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}