Richmond Hill residents push to delay voting on Yonge and Bernard plan

'The sky’s really the limit now,' resident John Li says.

Yorkregion.com
April 9, 2020
Sheila Wang

As everything grounded to a halt amid the coronavirus crisis, Richmond Hill residents are worried the city may proceed with its decision-making on one of the city’s most contentious intensification plans --electronically without public attendance.

Resident John Li and other area residents who have played an active role in the shaping of the future of Yonge and Bernard key development area (KDA) are urging the city to postpone voting on a draft plan to a later date when the public can properly participate in the meeting.

Li told The Liberal April 7 that he learned the plan would be up for discussion at the April 22 electronic council meeting.

“For such an ultra-high-density plan that the city is proposing, it will almost certainly be passed at the pro-developer council, if there is no public involvement,” Li wrote to the city.

The city cannot confirm if the KDA plan will on the agenda of the upcoming council meeting, as of April 8.

Li, the organizer of the Yonge Bernard Residents Association (TheYRA.org), said he received a memo from the city about the proposed changes to the KDA plan.

The intensification plan for the area has gone through rounds of revisions with a focus on the height limit and density, yorkregion.com previously reported.

And yet, Li was in for another shock, he said of the memo.

“The sky’s really the limit now,” he said.

The newly proposed changes --not yet publicly available --are “the worst” Li has ever seen since he started to push back over-intensification in the community years ago.

Last year, Li took the lead to fight over-intensification in the community, which resulted in a reversal of the height limit from 37 storeys back to 15 storeys.

More than 300 people have joined the residents’ group he’s organized since then and he said thousands more people are behind him.

However, the new revision to the plan has significantly changed the height and density to “more than what the developers have asked for,” Li said.

Earlier this year, Dogliola Developments Ltd. and Campo Ridge Home Corp. proposed to build four mixed-use residential/commercial buildings (one 25-storey, one 28-storey, and two 29-storey towers), at the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Canyon Hill Avenue, The Liberal reported.

Li said he believed that the planning staff has made a “fundamental planning mistake” and they were “eager to get rid of the burden.”

In response to his request for removing the draft plan from the agenda, Li was told the city must be prepared to participate in a hearing at The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT).

The hearing for the Yonge and Bernard KDA plan was previously slated for June 22 at the LPAT, but it has since been adjourned due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

All hearing events at the LPAT that were scheduled between March 16 and June 30 have been adjourned to a future date, according to LPAT spokesperson Sarah Copeland.

A new hearing date for the Yonge and Bernard KDA plan has not yet been scheduled, she said on April 7.

“The COVID-19 pandemic offers them a great opportunity,” Li said, noting that council could easily adopt the plan without the public being able to get involved.

The public may submit comments regarding the matters related to meeting agenda via email to clerks@richmondhill.ca, the city says.

Comments will be provided to all members of council, considered as public information and noted in the public records.

“It's not going to be as impactful as face-to-face communications,” said Li, who has spoken to council as a delegate about the KDA plan multiple times in the past.