Vaughan seeks feedback on new policies, guidelines for infill developments

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 31, 2016
Adam Martin-Robbins  

The city is poised to adopt new policies for new townhouses and other so-called infill developments in established areas of Vaughan, where homes sit on large lots, and it wants to hear from you.

A public meeting takes place Tuesday, Nov. 1 at city hall starting at 7 p.m. to gather input on proposed amendments to Vaughan’s official plan stemming from a comprehensive study dubbed the Community Area Policy Review for Low-Rise Residential Designations.

The study proposes several amendments to the city’s official plan as well as new urban design guidelines.

Among the proposed official plan policy changes and recommended new design guidelines are:

• Unless they already exist in a neighbourhood, new townhouse developments should only be permitted along major thoroughfares, also known as arterial roads, such as Islington Avenue, Keele Street or Pine Valley Drive.  
• Townhouses should have front doors facing a public street, not private laneways or the rear yards of another block of houses.
• The scale and massing of townhouse developments shall respect the scale and massing of adjacent development and any applicable urban design guidelines.
• New lots should be equal to or exceed the frontages of the adjacent nearby and facing adjoining lots.
• The area of new lots should be consistent with the size of adjacent and nearby adjoining lots.
• Existing healthy, mature trees should be retained and protected.

The new guidelines and policy changes were drafted following public outcry last fall about a surge in what many have deemed “inappropriate” townhouse developments and, in some cases, clusters of semi-detached homes, in older areas of the city where some residents have lived for decades such as Kleinburg, Concord and the historic “downtown core “of Maple.

To date, residents have generally been pleased with the proposed official plan policy changes and new guidelines.

Local developers have been keeping a close eye on the study’s recommendations too.  

A spokesman for the York chapter of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) said previously the proposed guidelines and policy changes are welcomed because they provide “greater clarity” around intensification opportunities.