Infrastructure projects are a vital part of Vaughan's post-pandemic reality

Municipalinfonet.com
July 2, 2020

The City of Vaughan recognizes the importance of protecting the health and safety of all residents, while ensuring the city continues to move forward. City-building throughout the global pandemic has not stopped --in fact, the continuation of key infrastructure development is a vital part of Vaughan’s post-COVID-19 reality. These developments will one day be the spaces where the community will gather, live, work and play long after the virus has passed.

CITY-BUILDING

To help maintain Vaughan’s economy, the City’s Development Engineering department implemented a new online portal tool that accepts, reviews and approves development applications electronically. The portal allows users to apply and pay for grading and pool permits, including posting securities online. This is a further enhancement to the Building Standards department initial launch of the online permit portal for both building industry professionals and citizens in which permits can be applied and paid for virtually, all in one place. In total, 1,040 permits valued at over $327 million were issued from January 1 to May 31, 2020. In addition, more than 19,724 inspections have also taken place over the past five months, which well-exceeds the number of inspections for 2019, 2018 and 2017 during that same period.

Since the City declared a state of emergency on March 17, the Parks Planning and Parks Delivery departments have continued to advance parks and open-space trail planning, design and construction initiatives. Improvements are currently underway on 16 Vaughan parks throughout the community.

VAUGHAN METROPOLITAN CENTRE

Vaughan’s emerging downtown core continues to attract significant investment opportunities --in fact, a recent submission was received for development of two additional residential towers in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC). To date, close to 50,470 residents in almost 25,490 residential units are moving into the VMC, achieving 212 per cent of the residential units and 202 per cent of the population targets identified for the 2031 planning horizon. VMC staff are working on 22 active development files, including three that are in the pre-application consultation phase that represent an additional 7,011 units. Based on the approved and proposed residential developments to-date, the total number of new residential units currently occupied in the VMC is 2,137 with another 4,383 new residential units currently under construction.

Work also is being completed to advance engineering projects in the area, including the construction of a new trunk sanitary sewer along Interchange Way and Exchange Avenue corridors. The upgrades are required to address wastewater capacity constraints in order to continue to support development and growth in the VMC. Construction will take place until approximately Sept. 30, 2020.