{"id":3980,"date":"2013-09-25T14:57:55","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T18:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=3980"},"modified":"2013-10-02T12:51:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:51:42","slug":"bylaw-would-have-negative-impact-on-homeowners-say-councillors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/bylaw-would-have-negative-impact-on-homeowners-say-councillors\/","title":{"rendered":"Bylaw would have negative impact on homeowners, say Councillors"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A proposed new bylaw calling on residents to put more work into Town-owned boulevards outside their homes was nipped in the bud last week after concerns it could negatively impact seniors and other homeowners.<\/p>\n

Had the bylaw gone ahead, it would change Aurora\u2019s Clean Yards policy to require \u201cprivate property owners to maintain and care for boulevards adjacent to their own property\u201d and penalties for non-compliance.<\/p>\n

According to a report before Council by Techa van Leeuwen, Aurora\u2019s Director of Parks and Recreation, the Town already has policies related to keeping yards safe and waste-free, but the new policy would take things a step further. <\/p>\n

\u201cOccasionally property owners allow their properties to fall into non-compliance, including the boulevards abutting their property or the property owner will maintain their own property and not the boulevards,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn amendment to the Clean Yards bylaw would give the Town the authority to issue notices and further contract the work to be done at the private property owner\u2019s expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

She acknowledged, however, that the proposal would provide some \u201cchallenges\u201d to property owners, including to owners of townhouses who might not keep a lawnmower or when their own properties are separated from the boulevards by fences.<\/p>\n

It was these, and other challenges, that caused Councillors not to act on it last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems to have a significantly negative impact on seniors,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cOften they are already paying someone to cut their grass and do some maintenance and now we\u2019re sort of asking them to do even more and take care of municipal lands. This might impact them financially.\u201d
\nHe also said he was unclear whether this policy was the result of any public consultation. Ms. Van Leeuwen said, however, that there was no public consultation leading up to this but there would be a \u201ccommunications strategy\u201d going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d do a soft launch with the bylaw and implement a warning system where there are contraveners of the bylaw,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The Councillor nevertheless maintained that this was going \u201czero to 60\u201d in one step and the education campaign, if anything did come from this, would need to come first. <\/p>\n

For Councillor Evelyn Buck, taxpayers should be kept in mind in that their tax dollars are already going towards the maintenance of public land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boulevards belong to the Town,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat right do we have to put citizens under a bylaw that they have to maintain property? There are already paying in their taxes for these services. You have some people who take great pride in maintaining the boulevard in front of their property and you can always tell because there is never a weed in site and it is immaculate. There are other properties that are not. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome are long past an age where they can haul a lawnmower out to the boulevard. Henderson Drive has boulevards behind their properties. Are those homeowners supposed to come out and maintain those boulevards? I don\u2019t think so \u2013 unless you want a revolution on your hands, this might be a good way to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Councillors, however, were more sympathetic towards the proposal. Councillor Chris Ballard, for instance, said similar policies are understood in Aurora when it comes to clearing snow off sidewalks in front of homes and this policy would not be exceedingly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, I believe at the end of the day people who don\u2019t maintain the boulevards are obviously not that concerned about the curb appeal of their house,\u201d he said. \u201cAnyone who wants to maintain the value of their house makes sure the boulevards are cut and generally don\u2019t have too many weeds there. What\u2019s next? Are we going to be asking people to trim the trees that the Town owns? This is a proposed bylaw in search of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

A further argument in favour of the bylaw change, according to Ms. Van Leeuwen\u2019s report, was Aurora\u2019s current service levels do not provide for this kind of boulevard maintenance. As Aurora is set to review the findings of the service level review to determine how much bang Aurorans want and expect from their tax buck when it comes to municipal services, Councillor Wendy Gaertner suggested this bylaw was premature. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re having a service level review very shortly,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is problematic and it would be interesting to know how much you believe [boulevard maintenance] is costing us. Maybe that should be part of the service level review.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Parks Manager Jim Tree the suggestion stems from \u201cthe odd non-compliant property.\u201d The Town receives, on average, six to eight complaints, over boulevard maintenance during the summer months, often over weeds.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A proposed new bylaw calling on residents to put more work into Town-owned boulevards outside their homes was nipped…<\/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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-12c","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 14:44:53","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\/3980","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=3980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}