{"id":35929,"date":"2025-03-06T16:55:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T21:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35929"},"modified":"2025-03-13T11:30:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T15:30:03","slug":"mayor-vetoes-council-decision-on-transitional-and-emergency-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-vetoes-council-decision-on-transitional-and-emergency-facility\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor vetoes Council decision on transitional and emergency facility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas has vetoed a Council decision made February 25 to invite the Region of York to revive its proposal to build a men\u2019s transitional and emergency housing facility in Aurora\u2019s south end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council approved a motion brought forward by Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo at last week\u2019s meeting. The motion called on the Region of York to resubmit their zoning bylaw amendment which would have begun the process of reconsidering their proposal for 14452 Yonge Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting saw several community members make delegations both in favour and against Councillor Gallo\u2019s motion, with local lawmakers ultimately approving it on a vote of 4 \u2013 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voting in favour of the motion were Councillor Gallo, Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese, Ward 2 Councillor Rachel Gilliland, and Ward 3 Councillor Wendy Gaertner. Voting in opposition to the motion were Mayor Mrakas, Ward 4 Councillor Michael Thompson, and Ward 6 Councillor Harold Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mayor announced his intention to veto Council\u2019s decision the following afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter consideration, as head of Council I have vetoed the motion passed at Aurora Town Council on Tuesday, February 25, 2025, that requests the Regional Municipality of York to resubmit the Zoning by-law Amendment application for a Men\u2019s Emergency and Transitional Facility located at 14452 Yonge Street,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas in a social media post Wednesday afternoon, which included the formal veto motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs Head of Council, it is my opinion that any alternative use of the property at 14452 Yonge Street, beyond what was identified in the York Region June 13, 2019 report, could compromise its strategic purpose and may interfere with the delivery of infrastructure to support housing,\u201d said the Mayor in the veto motion itself. \u201cThis site is critical for current and future infrastructure needs, including essential municipal services that may be expanded to support housing growth and that may be necessary for future development in southwest Aurora and the Yonge Street corridor, both key growth areas in the Town\u2019s updated Official Plan and both which would assist the Town in meeting its provincial housing targets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Auroran understands Council has the option to override the veto by passing a motion within 21 days. A successful attempt to do so would require a 2\/3 majority Council vote, or a minimum of five votes. Councillors who voted in favour of Gallo\u2019s motion are hoping a meeting to potentially override the veto could take place as early as March 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to give it a shot,\u201d says Councillor Gallo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the veto decision, the group Aurora Cares \u2013 Housing For All, a volunteer group of residents who have advocated for the housing build at the property in question, expressed their disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAurora Cares, Housing for All was proud to see the empathy and compassion our community voiced during the discussion on homelessness at the Council Meeting on Tuesday, February 26,\u201d said the group in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe supported Council in their efforts to invite York Region to the table and have a discussion about deeply affordable housing in our community. We are unclear why Mayor Mrakas\u2014who sits on York Regional Council and is a Director for Housing York Inc.\u2014would use the most aggressive tool in his box to block the exact discussions these powers are designed to promote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the dust settled on the veto decision, Councillors who voted in favour of the motion said a discussion needs to be had on the use of Strong Mayor powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the crux of the issue,\u201d said Gallo. \u201cThe resolution put forward and asked by the majority of Council was simply to request the Region to come back and have [the Yonge Street site] as an option. There was no approvals of any sort in the resolution. His use of Strong Mayor powers to stop a discussion is egregious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor Gilliland: \u201cStrong Mayor power simply does not work in small settings such as ours. Big cities, perhaps, but in small Councils and small towns of 50,000+ it just doesn\u2019t work. It is an antidemocratic piece of legislation, it is flawed, it\u2019s too broad, there are way too many grey areas that are up for interpretation. It needs to be sharply defined as something that is more in keeping with specific to advancing housing or they just simply need to rescind this legislation all together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An opportunity to have a discussion on Strong Mayor power could be in the offing as a re-elected Progressive Conservative government returns to Queen\u2019s Park. Although the powers were bestowed on communities like Aurora by PC Premier Doug Ford, Weese said \u201cmaybe there will be a new Minister of Housing, maybe there will be a change in the way the government is looking at Strong Mayor powers after the last two years of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll wait and see,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no legitimate reason to use a veto in this instance and is actually contrary to the provincial priorities and purpose of these powers which was to build more housing, not reject it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Mayor Tom Mrakas has vetoed a Council decision made February 25 to invite the Region of York to revive its proposal to build a men\u2019s transitional and emergency housing facility in Aurora\u2019s south end. Council approved a motion brought forward by Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo at last week\u2019s meeting. The motion called on the […]<\/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-35929","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\/p3D2k4-9lv","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 18:58:55","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\/35929","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=35929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35930,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35929\/revisions\/35930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}