{"id":32926,"date":"2023-04-20T17:19:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T21:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32926"},"modified":"2023-04-27T19:28:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T23:28:29","slug":"calls-for-new-highway-interchange-at-st-johns-sideroad-renewed-at-public-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/calls-for-new-highway-interchange-at-st-johns-sideroad-renewed-at-public-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for new highway interchange at St. John\u2019s Sideroad renewed at Public Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Discussions over plans for a new multi-unit industrial building neat St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Leslie Street has resulted in renewed calls from Aurora Council for a new highway interchange where St. John\u2019s meets Highway 404.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council members called upon the upper levels of government to take another look at plans and timing for an interchange at last week\u2019s Public Planning meeting where local lawmakers reviewed the 24,955.89 square metre proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of the meeting was a request for a zoning bylaw amendment to permit new uses on the site, including possible banquet halls, clinics, commercial schools, dry cleaners, self-storage facilities, laundromats, motor vehicle shops, recreation centres and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although some Councillors, such as Ward 3\u2019s Wendy Gaertner argued that many of these types of businesses should not be permitted in \u201cprestige\u201d business lands, much of the debate centred on the site\u2019s proximity to St. John\u2019s and Highway 404 and whether the building plans had anticipated a future interchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe concept that is for review currently right now contemplates the full build out of the site,\u201d said Aiden Pereira of KLM Planning Partners. \u201cTo date, we have received comments from the MTO. They haven\u2019t explicitly expressed any interest in terms of a proposed interchange at the 404 at St. John\u2019s Sideroad. They have requested that a 14-metre setback be accommodated on that side, which we have accounted for. We\u2019re just waiting on more detailed comments from the Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, said that the applicant had been requested to provide a \u201cdetailed functional design for a future southbound ramp\u201d and that Council has submitted \u201cat least half a dozen\u201d resolutions to the Region to make this ramp a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have it in their current 10-year plan, but it is definitely something they want to protect for, and so do we,\u201d said Ramunno, noting that at a future date an eastern portion of the land will be identified for protection anticipating the future interchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is just a question of when that happens,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe conceptual plan in front of Council is just a conceptual plan; there\u2019s no formal site plan application yet, but again, there is still some work to be done here with respect to satisfying the Region\u2019s requirement with respect to identifying the actual design of that southbound ramp and particularly how much land needs to be protected and set aside to secure for that future ramp. Timing is still up in the air, but I think the Region and this Council, I am sure, is going to want to protect that future interchange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to the plans before Council, Ward 4 Councillor Michael Thompson said the interchange was the \u201ccrucial point\u201d of the application as it is infrastructure that is going to be needed for Aurora in years to come, \u201cespecially as we continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnybody that takes the 404 on a daily basis knows the Wellington intersection is a bit of a bottleneck as it is now and it will only get worse,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cWe have been advocating for that interchange year after year and personally I would rather see it sooner rather than later, but a little bit of it is out of our hands. My comment is, I just want to make sure that whatever we choose to do here, it does not in any way impede the ability for us to continue to advocate and eventually develop and build that interchange because it\u2019s necessary for all Aurorans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward 2 Councillor Rachel Gilliland said she too shared these concerns, as did Ward 6 Councillor Harold Kim who said he wanted the ramp area \u201cdelineated\u201d before approval.<\/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":"

Discussions over plans for a new multi-unit industrial building neat St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Leslie Street has resulted in renewed calls from Aurora Council for a new highway interchange where St. John\u2019s meets Highway 404. Council members called upon the upper levels of government to take another look at plans and timing for an interchange […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32926","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\/p3D2k4-8z4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 05:06:59","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\/32926","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=32926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}