{"id":32290,"date":"2022-12-02T11:09:53","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32290"},"modified":"2022-12-02T11:09:55","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:09:55","slug":"potential-high-rise-on-wellington-street-sparks-council-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/potential-high-rise-on-wellington-street-sparks-council-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Potential high-rise on Wellington Street sparks Council action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Any plans for a 12+ storey high rise on Wellington Street East have been temporarily frozen by Council pending \u201cfulsome examination\u201d of the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contention is a move by the Province of Ontario to amend the Regional Official Plan to set a \u201cminimum 12-storey building height\u201d for a development project on the southwest corner of Wellington Street East at Leslie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The changes, Council contends, were handed down from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing without any consultation with the lower levels of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council responded at a Special Council meeting held Tuesday, November 22, by passing an Interim Control Bylaw (ICBL) that would \u201ctemporarily prohibit\u201d development on the parcel of land until the Town can have a \u201cmore fulsome examination of the appropriate use, density, and height for the land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these issues were on the table this past spring when Council rejected a proposal for the same quadrant \u2013 but, at that time, it was a plan for a seven-storey block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convening last week, Council members questioned how the Minister made his decision to change the targets for one specific block in Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it came to us, this Council stood strong and opposed that application,\u201d said Councillor John Gallo of the original seven-storey proposal. \u201cNow what we have is a Minister that feels they know better than us around the table, the staff, public\u2026and has circumvented the entire process and has given them the green light, and you can bet that they\u2019re going to appeal whatever we\u2019re doing tonight. This to me just stinks and I don\u2019t know how this developer is managing to get such a smooth, clear path to this development, but they\u2019ve managed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not going to sit back and watch it happen and not have the public understand the entire process this took and how off the rails this took, and the impact that if this moves forward will have on the community,\u201d Councillor Gallo concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Michael Thompson said he shared in the \u201cdisappointment\u201d, \u201coutrage\u201d, and was a \u201clittle bit flabbergasted by the process in which this comes to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking in support of the motion for the ICBL, he said he wanted Council\u2019s opposition reflected in writing to the Minister, Premier Doug Ford, and MPP Michael Parsa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was no communication, no collaboration, no consideration\u2026to say this was even on the radar,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cWhen we look at the various levels of government, we always talk about the fact we need to work in concert with one another to help resolve and move forward on issues and this was not the case. I think a letter needs to be sent officially from the Town and all of Council expressing exactly what we\u2019re saying here tonight, demanding an explanation. We need to understand how this came about and why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council duly agreed to send the letter on the issue, which Councillor Ron Weese described as an \u201coutrageous overreach on behalf of the province.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a view shared by Mayor Tom Mrakas who said it \u201cboggles the mind\u201d why the Minister would \u201ccherry pick\u201d a property that is outside the Town\u2019s designated Major Transit Station Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy this one? What\u2019s the reasoning? What\u2019s the logic behind this? It makes absolutely no sense, it\u2019s absolutely unacceptable for the Minister of Municipal Affairs to be dealing as a Town planner instead of doing his job as the Minister,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cThey need to be dealing at a macro level while we deal at a micro level. I am hopeful that maybe we will get an answer and hear what their rationale was for this. To this day we have not received anything, no explanation, but we need to do what we can do, use the tools that are afforded to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe (ICBL) is one tool that is available for us to implement this Interim Control Bylaw to freeze any development on this parcel of land while we study this and find out just what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Town Planner Marco Ramunno noted that since Council rejected the original proposal of seven storeys earlier this year, that plan was duly appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, with the first case management conference on the file scheduled for this Thursday, December 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Any plans for a 12+ storey high rise on Wellington Street East have been temporarily frozen by Council pending \u201cfulsome examination\u201d of the issue. In contention is a move by the Province of Ontario to amend the Regional Official Plan to set a \u201cminimum 12-storey building height\u201d for a development project on the southwest corner […]<\/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-32290","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\/p3D2k4-8oO","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 23:00:52","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\/32290","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=32290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}