WHITCHURCH-STOUFFVILLE SUBDIVISION STORMWATER WOES

NRU
July 5, 2017
Dominik Matusik

Locating and conveying a stormwater management pond has become the lynchpin issue for a proposed subdivision on one of the last remaining developable sites in Whitchurch-Stouffville. The town wants detailed plans for stormwater management, the neighbouring community wants to keep its pond and thus its seclusion, and the developer says it can purchase a site in Pickering that will solve it all.

Fieldgate Homes proposes to build 738 units on its 36.68-ha site at 11731 Tenth Line. These are to include 662 single-detached homes, 56 townhouses, and 16 live-work townhouses that would permit ground-floor commercial use. The proposal includes relocating a heritage-listed house on-site and incorporating it into the subdivision. Fieldgate is also proposing to create a stormwater management pond on an adjacent site to the east of the subdivision, in the City of Pickering.

Ward 6 councillor Rob Hargrave told NRU, with this subdivision, his ward is now “just about finished” in terms of new development.

Whitchurch-Stouffville, one of the fastest–growing municipalities in the GTHA, is running out of land that can be developed and town development services director Mary Hall told NRU that this site is one of its last.

“It’s actually one of the few remaining lots that has development rights on it until we get our next phase of development approved,” she says.

Additional greenfield land may be freed up in the town pending the outcome of an OMB case.

Hall says that while the uses proposed by Fieldgate are permitted under the town’s official plan, there are a number of outstanding development issues that have to be addressed.

“We just held a public meeting a few weeks ago and we’re still processing the application. There were a lot of issues that came up,” she says.

One of the biggest issues, Hall says, is the proposed stormwater management pond. Fieldgate is proposing to build a new pond within the City of Pickering, just east of the subdivision, on land which Fieldgate does not currently own. Whitchurch-Stouffville staff has told Fieldgate that any pond would have to be owned by the town.

“The community did actually raise concerns about [Fieldgate wanting] to take the existing pond to the north, fill it in, make it into an open-space, walking type of system. And a lot of residents were upset about that because they specifically bought the lands adjacent to the stormwater management pond because it was a stormwater management pond, it didn’t have neighbours, and they really enjoyed what was there,” Hall said.

Fieldgate Homes vice-president Michael McLean told NRU that his firm is working to acquire the land in Pickering and is open to then conveying it to the municipality.

However, Pickering staff has indicated in a letter that the land where the stormwater pond is to be located can only support urban infrastructure if it has been determined that there are no reasonable alternatives. Thus far, this has not been determined.

Staff is anticipating a council decision by the end of the year.