{"id":32981,"date":"2023-04-27T19:48:01","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T23:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32981"},"modified":"2023-04-27T19:48:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T23:48:02","slug":"councillor-shocked-at-proposed-changes-to-northeast-business-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/councillor-shocked-at-proposed-changes-to-northeast-business-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillor \u201cshocked\u201d at proposed changes to northeast business park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lands on the east side of Leslie Street near St. John\u2019s Sideroad have been designated as \u201cprestige\u201d business lands for years, but a potential Official Plan (OP) amendment could lead to a \u201cshocking\u201d loss of this status, says Ward 3 Councillor Wendy Gaertner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At issue are plans for a multi-unit industrial building, which, if brought to fruition will be 24,955.89 square metres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amendment request would 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

These uses, says Councillor Gaertner, would dilute that \u2013 adding that the relevant section of the Official Plan (OPA 73) describes the business park as \u201ca crucial component of Aurora\u2019s long-term economic strategy\u201d with assurances that \u201cemployment lands are used to their highest and fullest potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is business lands that are supposed to be used to its highest and best value and to provide employment land, and it even says in the statement that using it like that is crucial to Aurora\u2019s economic development,\u201d says Councillor Gaertner. \u201cIt\u2019s so completely against the land-use planning and against the economic development statement, and now that is hopefully going to be near the 404 interchange, it has the prestige value of signage along the 404. Honestly, I don\u2019t understand why we would accept that proposal because it is just so contrary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought everyone [on Council] would see [the proposal] and say, \u2018Oh, no, we can\u2019t do this.\u2019 John Gallo (Ward 5 Councillor) and I were involved in the planning of the 2C areas\u2026 everybody keeps saying we\u2019re going to uphold our Official Plan and when it is that black and white \u2013 I just can\u2019t finish that sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the matter comes back to the table, Councillor Gaertner says she will speak to her fellow Councillors to see her perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to do my best,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These same sentiments were expressed by Councillor Gaertner at this month\u2019s Public Planning meeting where she said the Province \u201cwould like us (Aurora Council) to keep prestige employment land, especially because of its proximity to the 404.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a very important piece of land for us to keep as prestige employment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going away if somebody doesn\u2019t want to develop it as prestige employment at the moment, it is not going to go away or diminish in costs and price to whoever owns it. The OPA specifically says that this land, we\u2019re to ensure this employment land is used to the highest and fullest potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe business park part of the employment land is considered a crucial component of the Town\u2019s long-term economic development strategy. As a business park, we don\u2019t have many lands left and I think if you look at just south of Wellington, we have changed a lot of them from business park. Those were supposed to be business park lands and we have allowed developers to change them. This is not the time or the land to change the zoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Mayor Tom Mrakas said despite the proposed changes it would still be a business park, a position reiterated by Director of Planning Marco Ramunno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe plan identifies this area as business park and within that business park designation it also does allow for some ancillary type of retail commercial uses up to 20 per cent and that has been consistently implemented to the Addison Hall business park to the south and the lands to the west of this subject property,\u201d said Ramunno. \u201cThe application to rezone it and bring it in line with the Business Park designation is to zone it as employment-business park and our zoning bylaw identifies a long list of business park-type of uses which are generically employment-type uses, warehousing, offices, a long list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we come back with our comprehensive report and the recommendation, we will identify for Council\u2019s consideration whether we feel any of these additional uses they\u2019re asking for are appropriate or not, but that will come forward in a future report. I think the confusion here is the applicant is asking for some additional uses that are currently not listed in our employment nosiness park zone and\u2026 they want to add for some flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the explanation, Ward 2 Councillor Rachel Gilliland said Council needs to be \u201cmindful of the types of businesses we are going to elect to put there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI agree that it is prime real estate and we want to be very specific on the kinds of industry,\u201d she said. \u201cManufacturing is very important, yes there is a great Economic Development and Strategic Plan we\u2019re working towards\u2026 the applicant hopefully hearing some of the comments\u2026 it is very important we have a vision attracting this type of industry and I really encourage you to look at our Economic Development plan and strategic vision and that would fall in line with that.\u201d<\/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":"

Lands on the east side of Leslie Street near St. John\u2019s Sideroad have been designated as \u201cprestige\u201d business lands for years, but a potential Official Plan (OP) amendment could lead to a \u201cshocking\u201d loss of this status, says Ward 3 Councillor Wendy Gaertner. At issue are plans for a multi-unit industrial building, which, if brought […]<\/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-32981","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\/p3D2k4-8zX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 13:46:27","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\/32981","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=32981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}