Vaughan's infill implications: surge in townhouse applications has residents concerned

Yorkregion.com
April 13, 2016
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Concerns about the increasing number of condo towers rising skyward in Vaughan have been widely reported.

But there’s another trend unfolding in some older, established neighbourhoods that’s a source of growing consternation among many longtime residents.

During the last couple of years, the city has witnessed a surge in applications for townhouse developments - and, in some cases, for clusters of semi-detached homes - along streets predominantly lined with single, detached homes on large lots.

“At the end of the day, what’s going on is the cost for ground-related housing continues to rise in Vaughan and townhouses are a very marketable product in Vaughan right now. So in what would be an area that is currently characterized by single-family homes, we’re seeing people come forward with applications for townhouses,” John MacKenzie, Vaughan’s deputy city manager of planning and growth management said in an interview last fall.

The issue arose because of what some frustrated residents call a “loophole” in Vaughan’s official plan, adopted in 2010.

That plan permits semi-detached homes and townhouses to be built in areas currently dominated by single, detached homes subject to “compatibility criteria.”

“The compatibility policies say you have to think about character, design, setbacks all these things that make sense,” MacKenzie explained. “The rationale was to support opportunities for modest intensification, but the compatibility measures and the compatibility policies are there to give the municipality some teeth in making sure it’s respectful.”

Many affected residents say that’s not happening.

As a result, hundreds of longtime residents from all corners of Vaughan have flocked to city hall to oppose these types of developments in their neighbourhooods.

In response to the outcry, the city, last October, decided to review its policies around new infill developments, as well as monster homes, in established communities.

“There’s obviously growing concern in the city about this type of development, so the more we can clarify things through policy and if there has to be some refinements to our existing policy so everyone’s at the same level of understanding and everyone understands what’s permitted where - that, to me, is a win,” MacKenzie said at the time.

The city is now seeking community input urban design guidelines and a number of proposed changes to the official plan, including that new development in established areas be designed in a way “specifically respecting and reinforcing the following elements: the orientation of buildings; the heights and scale of immediately surrounding residential properties; … the presence of mature trees and general landscape character of the streetscape.”

To garner feedback, city planners are hosting three public meetings during the coming weeks.

The first of those meetings takes place at city hall April 19 starting at 7 p.m.

That meeting could see a flood of residents show up, given it’s being held in an area - the heart of the old village of Maple - where this issue has been acutely felt.

There’s been such a flurry of applications for townhouse developments along Keele Street that in September 2014 city council passed a bylaw to freeze development, for one year, along a two-kilometre stretch from Church Street to Fieldgate Drive.

The goal was to give city planners time to complete a policy review that would offer guidelines on how to “protect established neighbourhoods” and offer suggestions to ensure any future developments would be compatible with the area.

The city hired a consultant and spent $50,000 to help with the review.

Initial findings determined the development proposals for townhomes in Maple weren’t compliant with the city’s official plan, or the Maple Heritage District Conservation Plan (MHDCP), developed in 2007.

“Each proposal represents significant intensification that does not respect and reinforce the village character of Maple described in the MHDCP or the character of the larger existing neighbourhoods on either side of Keele St.,” the report found, adding that the proposals were “four to 10 times denser than the oldest neighbourhoods in the area.”

But when staff came back nine months later to ask for an extension to finish the report during the summer, Woodbridge West Councillor Tony Carella tabled a motion (seconded by Woodbridge East Councillor Rosanna DeFrancesca) to terminate both the development freeze and the study, which was months away from completion.

Carella says he’s concerned that if the city implements restrictive policies that obstruct developers looking to build townhouses along major roadways - such as Keele Street, Islington Avenue and Kipling Avenue - that could lead to even greater intensification, if the matter winds up before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).

“If the official plan says low-rise residential - singles, semis and towns - are appropriate on both sides of Keele Street and we’re going to make it difficult for people to do towns, even though our policy and provincial policy says that’s what’s appropriate there, then my fear is someone’s going to come back and say, ‘Well, you’re not going to let me do towns. I have to go and get an official plan amendment just to get towns. What the hell, I might as well do mid-rise,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

“So we run the risk here of getting something worse than what we (residents) don’t want, but happens to be what’s allowed in our official plan. ... With every one of these applications, we’re going to end up at the OMB and the OMB has to not just have regard to provincial policy, but be consistent with provincial policy. (Keele Street) is a regional road, serviced by public transit that leads to a 400-series highway. If intensification is not permitted there, where is it permitted?”

Many residents who live in the Maple core disagree.

They showed up en masse at a meeting in September 2015, where input was being sought on two townhouse developments, to express their frustration with what’s happening in their community and with Carella.

“This type of development would be a colossal mistake and would leave you with a legacy as the council that ruined the village of Maple,” Jana Manolakos, who grew up in the area, said at that meeting. “I don’t want that to happen and I’m sure you don’t.”

Sandra Ortino encouraged her neighbours to make their feelings known at the ballot box in the next municipal election.

“We’re killing our Keele Street. ... Let’s not vote them back in, if they vote this through,” she said. “That’s what I think we should do.”

Dozens of angry residents from an established neighbourhood in Concord, where a developer was vying to build six homes on a pair of lots currently occupied by two homes, attended the same meeting and expressed similar concerns.

It was in response to the outcry that council decided to undertake the current policy review and look at producing guidelines for new infill developments in established communities across the entire city.