The province wants to ‘double the density’ at two York Region transit-oriented stations. That has locals fuming

The extra density comes at the expense of space for employment and community amenities, leading area municipalities to push back on the plan.

thestar.com
Donovan Vincent
Feb. 22, 2022

The large sites in York Region where the province wants to build two massive transit hubs are situated close to the busy Yonge Street spine near Highway 7, an area featuring big box stores, restaurants, a sprawling parking lot and a wide-open field dotted with small businesses and industrial units available for lease.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford intends to build transit-oriented communities here -- one in Richmond Hill, the other nearby in Markham -- and that’s causing a storm of controversy.

The proposals, part of the Yonge North Subway Extension project, are facing fierce local opposition over the province’s bid to have more than twice the number of future residents in the area and far fewer jobs than the two municipalities planned for.

“Holy cow. They (the province) have doubled the density and cut the employment. They want to build a ton of condos here,” says local Richmond Hill resident Graham Churchill, a retired computer systems executive who has been watching development plans for the area closely for a decade.

The province envisions 60 highrise towers for the two transit-oriented communities, several rising as tall as 80 storeys.

The city of Markham has written a letter to Ford saying it rejects the province’s proposal for a transit-oriented community in that municipality and that the plan should be “immediately withdrawn.”

Transit-oriented communities (TOCs) are mixed-use locations that include residential and commercial buildings, parks, community centres and more. The province has plans to build them around new transit and subway nodes, including train stops on the future Ontario Line in Toronto.

The idea is to have complete, walkable communities where, as much as possible, residents can live, work, eat and play all in one location and get around without having to rely on a car.

“A place where people will wake up in the morning, take an elevator down, perhaps drop their off child at daycare, access a (transit) station, go to work, come back home on transit, and pick up something at the local grocery store for dinner. That is the dream of the TOC concept,” Ontario Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said in a recent interview with the Star about the York Region hubs.

However, the local municipalities say the province’s proposal doesn’t meet that objective because it proposes twice the residential space, nearly 9,000 fewer jobs and less space reserved for a park and library than they planned locally.

The municipalities want the government to rethink its proposals so that a “complete, vibrant and sustainable community” is created.

Because these transit-oriented community projects are considered a high priority by the province, the government has the power to expropriate land on which to build them and even to use Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) to override decisions of local councils.

The province has said it may resort to an MZO to get the two stops in York Region approved. MZOs can’t be appealed.

The two stops -- one to be named Bridge station, a planned hub on a 62-acre area in Markham; the other called High Tech, slated for 50 acres in Richmond Hill -- are two halves of one large future growth centre.

The two, nearly adjacent properties are east of Yonge Street, the Bridge station site located south of highways 407 and 7, and High Tech situated north.

The stations would be part of the estimated $5.6-billion capital costs for the yet-to-be built Yonge North Subway extension, an eight-kilometre line that would begin at the TTC’s Finch station and run north of Toronto’s Steeles Avenue border. The project would be built by Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx.

The province says York Region needs the hubs in the face of an anticipated boom in population growth in the coming years.

There’s a housing supply and affordability challenges in Toronto and York Region, Michael Fedchyshyn, a senior vice-president with Infrastructure Ontario, recently told a virtual open house in December held to explain the hub projects to local residents.

A rendering of the High Tech station hub that the provincial government wants to build in Richmond Hill.

“We need to increase (housing) supply,” Fedchyshyn told the meeting, adding by the time the station is completed (the province says that could be about seven to 10 years from now) Ontario will have a shortage of “one million housing units.”

But local residents, along with municipal leaders and staff in the region, are taking issue with how the province’s subway station proposals diverge from local secondary plans, urban design planning documents developed after significant input from residents.

Though the local plans cover larger areas than those proposed by the province for the hubs, the Richmond Hill Centre Secondary Plan and Markham’s Langstaff Gateway Secondary Plan call for 40,000 residents and 33,700 jobs in the area once the communities are built out.

That’s compared to the province’s hubs plans, which envision 80,400 residents and 24,900 jobs.

The proposed heights for buildings in the province’s proposals top out at 80 storeys. The highest envisioned in Richmond Hill’s secondary plan is 70 storeys, while Markham’s plan caps buildings at 50.

The parcels eyed for the hubs are primarily owned by Metrus Properties and Condor Properties.

Condor is a privately-owned Vaughan real estate development firm related to the Con-Drain group of companies operated by the wealthy De Gasperis family.

Con-Drain is a major infrastructure construction firm based in Concord, Ont., whose president and CEO is Jim De Gasperis.

Robert De Gasperis is president of Metrus, a development and property management firm that is a sister company of Con-Drain. He’s also one of the owners of valuable land the province intends to turn into a transit-oriented community at Queen and Spadina on the future Ontario Line in Toronto.

The Star reached out by email and left telephone messages with Metrus, Con-Drain and Condor for comment about the York Region hubs, but did not receive a reply.

Matti Siemiatycki, a professor in geography and planning at the University of Toronto, says the conflict in York Region is similar to what’s happening or will take place in the future with planned transit-oriented hubs in Toronto and other parts of the 905.

“What you’re seeing in York Region (similar to the planned First Parliament and East Harbour Ontario Line hubs in Toronto) is this tension playing out with the province. The language is transit-oriented communities, but what they (the province) are really focused on is development and density,” Siemiatycki says.

“The provincial government is intent on maximizing land value in order to pay for very expensive infrastructure being developed and getting as many units built as possible because we’re in a housing crisis,” the professor went on to say.

Siemiatycki added he thinks the impulse to get housing built quickly is right, “but the key is thinking about the communities aspect of this as well, and recognizing that you need a diversity of unit sizes and unit types and spaces and community amenities that are going to encourage families to live at higher density, to encourage seniors to want to live at higher density.”

The York Region case is also interesting because “this is the voter base for this government. This government gets elected in the 905 region. That’s where elections are won and lost in this province ... It will be interesting as (the province) pushes for this degree of intensification and how that plays out politically as well as a planning issue,” the professor said, adding there are TOCs slated for other parts of the 905 including Mississauga and Brampton.

Graham Churchill, the Richmond Hill resident, says he doesn’t oppose growth, just growth that in his view doesn’t make sense.

Why, he asks, is the province envisioning so many fewer jobs for the two hubs than the local municipalities are planning for?

“Because developers would rather build condos, because they’re more profitable,” Churchill theorizes.

A rendering looking north that shows future plans for the Bridge Station transit-oriented community in Markham.

During the Star’s interview with Surma the infrastructure minister was asked whether the increased densities at the two sites were a way for the government to please developers.

During the Star’s interview with Surma, the infrastructure minister was asked whether the increased densities at the two sites were a way for the government to please developers.

“This government is always a leader in expanding transit in Toronto, GTA and Ontario. We work hard to secure partnerships with Toronto and York Region and federal dollars to build these projects ... we have one vision. One transit plan we are all working towards,” the minister said.

The densities were arrived at, Surma went on to say, as a result of memorandums of understanding established with Toronto and York Region that “outline the guiding principles to build complete communities and offset the costs of transit construction.”

She added her government’s proposals for the sites are “reflective” of the local secondary plans.

But last month, the city of Markham passed a resolution telling the province it doesn’t support the proposal for the Bridge Station hub due to the “imbalance” of residential and employment targets.

The city wants the province’s hubs to better align with Markham’s secondary plan, so that a “complete, vibrant and sustainable community” is created.

Among other asks, Markham wants 15 acres of park space to be built in an early phase of the Bridge hub construction. But a private firm’s planning report for the landowner calls for 12 acres by the end of construction.

The city wants 72,000 square feet set aside for a new library and community centre. The planning report for the developer calls for far less space -- 32,300 square feet for those services.

The city is demanding that the Bridge hub development meet the 35 per cent target for affordable housing, including purpose-built rentals, a target set out in the Markham secondary plan.

Infrastructure Ontario says affordable housing at the hub is “a conversation that’s underway,” but can’t say at this time how many such units there will be or rental costs. Affordable units are a “shared priority” of governments involved with the project, the ministry says.

Markham has requested a 90-day extension for the city, Richmond Hill and York Region for more time to work through the “complicated details” of the two hub proposals.

Representatives for the regional municipality say a key concern is that the balance between residential and permanent jobs in the province’s proposal is weighted too much in favour of residential units.

“Rather than the concern for the number of towers, we are looking more to the overall scale and density of the proposed development,” Paul Freeman, chief planner for York Region, told the Star.

“TOC areas should definitely be dense, but this high level of density will have to be livable as well and not be a predominantly residential area. A balance is needed to create a destination,” Freeman says.

“This (proposal) is weighted much more to residential,” he says.

“The main concern is you end up getting more of an origin place for trips, rather than a destination. What we want to do is make sure we get a destination for this place as a centre,” Freeman says.

Freeman wrote a letter to the provincial transportation and infrastructure ministries saying “key areas of concern remain” including the densities and magnitude of population growth in the province’s proposal, the importance of a “more appropriate mix” of residential and non-residential uses and the provision of adequate spaces for libraries and community centres.

Jack Heath, regional councillor for Markham, says the province’s TOC proposals for the area are “predicated” on everyone taking the subway, but he believes that won’t happen.

“Probably 40 per cent (of residents) will be driving to work. They’re going down Yonge or Bayview, but there’s no room on Yonge or Bayview for any more cars,” he says.

In a statement to the Star, York Regional chairman Wayne Emmerson said the concern for densities relates to the “preparation of infrastructure needed to ensure the quality” of the transit-oriented communities live up to what the region anticipates and has planned for.

He went on to say that, “York Region will continue to work closely with the province and is committed to seeing through the completion of the TOCs.”