{"id":37388,"date":"2025-12-18T16:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=37388"},"modified":"2025-12-18T16:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:24:18","slug":"townhouses-slated-for-portion-of-addison-hall-business-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/townhouses-slated-for-portion-of-addison-hall-business-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Townhouses slated for portion of Addison Hall Business Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 200 townhouse units will be coming to the Leslie Street corridor following Council\u2019s approval of a new residential development in a corner of the Addison Hall Business Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week signed off on an Official Plan Amendment that will see a portion of the business park area, across from William Graham Drive, converted from employment lands to make way for 201 townhouse units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCouncil approved an Official Plan amendment and Zoning Bylaw amendment for 25 and 55 Addison Hall Circle to facilitate the development of 201 townhouse dwelling units,\u201d said the Town in a statement following the final Council meeting of 2025. \u201cThe proposed development conforms to the provincial, regional, and municipal policies. By converting these lands for residential use, the Town can better meet the need for housing with minimal impact to employment lands required to meet the Town\u2019s job density target.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Addison Hall Business Park was designated in 2014 for 32 blocks of \u201cprestige employment lands\u201d and the report before Council notes the portion of the property in question \u2013 25 and 55 Addison Hall Circle \u2013 encompasses a total area of 10.92 acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlanning staff are of the opinion that the proposed land use change is in keeping with the general direction of the Town\u2019s Official Plan and more specifically the employment land conversion policies,\u201d said staff in their report. \u201cThe conversion of employment land is appropriate because these properties have remained unsold and underutilized for the past 10 years. This indicates there is a limited market demand for industrial or commercial units within these blocks of the employment area. By converting these lands for residential use, the municipalities can better meet the need for housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report notes the applicant has stated that the housing in question can be built in a shorter timeframe than industrial and business units and the conversion of this portion to residential use will not negatively impact the surrounding business park area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Council members expressed some reluctance of converting lands designated for employment for residential use \u2013 land Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo described as \u201csacrosanct\u201d \u2013 the conversion ultimately won the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u2026 95 per cent content with going from Business Park to Residential. I\u2019m satisfied we have enough employment lands. I\u2019m not convinced that no one else will show up and want to do the same thing and we may not be able to accommodate, but I\u2019m stuck a little bit on this concept of allowing one application to move forward as opposed to others,\u201d said Councillor Gallo on the various residential applications that are moving their way through Town Hall but are on hold following future water and wastewater allocation from the Region of York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, told Council that Aurora has a \u201csmall reserve\u201d of allocation that would provide for this townhouse development and the applicant was \u201canxious to get moving\u201d and be out to market as soon as this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis developer, Treasure Hill, we know they are anxious and they can deliver,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other four \u2013 two of them are relatively small applications, one was George Street, four-storey building, 33 units that Council approved just last month\u2026 they haven\u2019t come to us with their timings to move forward. The other two, the larger ones, are Phase 2 of Smart Centres, the former Canadian Tire site. Phase One, they have allocation, about 500 units, so they\u2019re not pushing for Phase 2 allocation because they haven\u2019t moved forward yet on Phase 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other big one that has a hold on it is the northeast corner of Industrial Parkway and Wellington, the old Metropolitan Square site. It\u2019s four buildings, twelve storeys, a total of 950 units\u2026. However, they have allocation for approximately 224 units from their original eight-storey proposal\u2026. In that instance, we don\u2019t have a site plan yet for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This information satisfied many questions asked by Ward 4 Councillor Michael Thompson who said Council often talks \u201cabout the fact that we have a lot of units approved, but nobody\u2019s building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to see more building. We didn\u2019t see a lot of building this year. That\u2019s created some problems for us with regards to finances and Development Charges and fees and so forth,\u201d he said. \u201cHere we have somebody that sounds like they\u2019re ready to move forward and build. I personally don\u2019t see a reason to delay that based on the fact it sounds like it won\u2019t preclude or prevent other developers who have similar situations from moving forward and plans if they so choose. I personally don\u2019t see any reason to further delay this and hopefully they\u2019ll get shovels in the ground sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

More than 200 townhouse units will be coming to the Leslie Street corridor following Council\u2019s approval of a new residential development in a corner of the Addison Hall Business Park. Council last week signed off on an Official Plan Amendment that will see a portion of the business park area, across from William Graham Drive, […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-37388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9J2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-21 22:42:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37388","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=37388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37389,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37388\/revisions\/37389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}