A little meddling may be necessary for a vibrant Vaughan

Land opened up for development by Vaughan council, Sony Rai writes

Yorkregion.com
June 14, 2018
Sony Rai

Recent articles about the Kirby GO Station portray its approval as a sinister plot by a meddling provincial cabinet minister looking to reward his riding with transit infrastructure in the middle of an empty farm field. The reality of Kirby Station's creation is an entirely different conundrum.

In 2010, then Vaughan council approved development on whitebelt lands in an area of the city known as Block 27. Whitebelt lands are undeveloped lands existing within municipal boundaries that are not approved for development. That approval needs to meet criteria set out by the provincial growth plan.

The decision to approve development in Vaughan’s whitebelt was controversial at the time and was opposed by many Vaughan residents, primarily because it proposed the development of more than 9,600 housing units consisting of 6,260 single and semi-detached homes and 3,370 townhomes at the northern edge of the city. Vaughan residents understood this development, if approved, would become a sprawling, car-dependent community exacerbating already traffic-congested roads.

Prior to this decision, a citizen-organized campaign was underway to have this boundary expansion either cancelled or delayed. Vaughan was well positioned to meet its provincially mandated growth requirements. Both the Spadina subway expansion and Highway 7 bus rapid transit were already stimulating new, high density developments years before either public transit infrastructure project would be complete.

In 2014, Vaughan Coun. Marylyn Iafrete, whose Maple-Klienburg Ward contains the urban boundary expansion, began a petition to introduce a new GO station within the newly approved expansion area. The introduction of a GO stop would mean what was originally planned as a car-dependent community would become a dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented development. This is the vision that was subsequently created in the new secondary plan for the area around the proposed station.

These facts are important in light of the recent Metrolinx report that ranked proposed region express rail stations, including Kirby Station. That report ranked Kirby low as a potential station and recommended not moving forward with its development in the near future. Perhaps, in the future, the densities for both housing and employment will reach the levels adequate for Metrolinx approval. Metrolinx fails to address the obvious; how do you create transit-oriented developments without the transit there to begin with?

Densities set out in the provincial growth plan for developments within the whitebelt are too low to support transit such as rail. A vision for a different type of suburban community, such as that proposed for Kirby, quickly falls apart without a GO station, as density this far out in the 905 would not be achievable otherwise.

Unfortunately, Block 27 was opened up for development by a misguided Vaughan council. We’re now left with a choice of having a sprawling car-dependent community or we can build the type of transit-oriented development that experts keep insisting Metrolinx should focus on. Until this happens, a little meddling may be necessary to help create a more vibrant suburb.

Sony Rai is a Sustainable Vaughan director and can be reached at 416-505-9113