Gateway to employment - urban boundary concerns

NRU
March 29, 2017
By Andrew Cohrs

Forced by the proposed creation of a GTA West Corridor to replace employment land lost to the potential transportation corridor, Halton Hills is considering expanding its urban area to include 75 ha of rural land for employment uses. However, residents are concerned: some worry about the impact of being adjacent to new industrial businesses while others want to be included in the urban area.

When land in Halton, Peel and York was frozen for the duration of the GTA West Corridor environmental assessment, it included land in Halton Hills designated for employment uses. As a result, the municipality has decided to bring 75 ha of rural land into the urban area and include it in its Gateway Employment Area, located between Milton and Brampton, north of Highway 401. At the same time, a secondary plan is needed to establish the Gateway Employment Area.

Planning policy manager Steve Burke told NRU that getting these policies in place needs to be expedited to make way for the industrial and commercial expansion expected before 2021.

“Typically, the way things work is you do an urban boundary expansion exercise through a municipal comprehensive review, you bring lands into the urban area and then you do a secondary plan for them. What we are trying to do is a process that puts the two together because we would like to plan for all the lands, including the area [proposed to be brought into the urban area].”

The Gateway Employment Area includes existing clusters of residential properties, a golf course and farmland, in addition to some commercial and light industrial uses along Steeles Avenue. Burke says that future employment uses continue the uses currently south of Steeles and will include businesses such as light manufacturing, warehouse distribution and office uses, but not heavy industry.

On Monday, the community affairs committee recommended approval of a land use concept for the rural lands to be incorporated into the urban area, which, among other things, excluded some residential properties along Sixth Line. Since the municipality is only permitted by the region to add 75 ha, including the residential properties along Sixth Line was deemed to be too much so they will remain rural.

Ward 2 councillor Ted Brown told NRU that the Sixth Line residents wanted to be included in the employment area since they would then be entitled to municipal water servicing and their property values would potentially increase. He says that the land use concept makes sense, but he cannot help but believe that the residents whose properties are being excluded from the employment area are getting an unfair deal as they will eventually be living next to employment uses, without water servicing and with lower property values.

While acknowledging residents’ concerns, lead consultant Lorelei Jones (Macaulay Shiomi Howson) told NRU that large contiguous blocks of land are most desirable for employment uses and that the residential lots are fragmented by both property lines and the natural features.

“We were taking into consideration the existing ownership pattern, the natural heritage system and we were also looking at it from a practical point of view. Those [residential] lands are the furthest away from the Trafalgar Road and 401 interchange, which is going to be important to employment uses. ... When you factor in all those considerations that was what was driving the recommendation... [since] we had more lands than we were going to be allowed to include in the urban area.”

Brown also notes that urban residents along Hornby Road will be surrounded by employment uses, causing potential conflicts with noise, traffic or dust. Burke and Jones say that appropriate mitigation measures such as setback distances, berms, fencing, landscaping and limiting outdoor storage will assist with reducing these impacts.

In addition to the official plan amendment required to adopt the Gateway Employment Area Secondary Plan, both local and regional official plan amendments will be required to bring the additional 75 ha into the urban area.

Council will consider the preferred land use concept at its meeting on April 10. The Gateway Employment Area Secondary Plan is expected to be completed in late 2017 or early 2018.