Proposed 3,000 unit development at Yonge and Green Lane envisions on-site sewage treatment

East Gwillimbury looking at sewage treatment option as means to decommission Holland Landing Lagoons

Yorkregion.com
Aug. 17, 2022
Simon Martin

How do you build a 3,000-unit development when the town has no way to provide sewage for the development? That’s the conundrum Redwood Properties found itself in East Gwillimbury.

With the Upper York Sewage Solution plant mired in years of bureaucratic stasis, East Gwillimbury has little to no sewage capacity to allocate for future development at the moment.

So with conventional methods all but dried up, Redwood is now proposing a plan for a 3,000-unit development just north of Yonge and Green Lane, where it handles sewage on site through Newterra modular treatment solutions water, sewage, wastewater, and groundwater remediation.

“It is a fascinating technology being used across the province and around the world,” said Richard Aubry from Redwood Properties.

The treatment facility looks like shipping container of a sort. There is a no discharge and Aubry said the water is allowed to go in the natural water system due to how clean it is. Redwood is looking to create a closed system where it reuses the water. Decentralized modular MBR (membrane bioreactor) facilities are scalable, allowing treatment infrastructure to be added in stages as capacity requirements grow.

Located north of the Lowe’s Plaza on Yonge Street, the 150-acre site can house 2,940 units and 6,200 residents at full buildout with ample commercial space.

“I’m very excited about this development; the complete community, the servicing on site, the variety of housing options,” Ward 1 Coun. Loralea Carruthers said.

“This is probably one of the more audacious projects presented during this term of council,” Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said. With the province leaving the town in a lurch with the Upper York Sewage Solutions delay, innovative ideas like this are necessary, he added.

While the Redwood Properties development is just a proposal in its early stages, the key will be if for the region and province to approve the servicing method. The preliminary Phase 1 of the development would have just under 500 units with nine-storey and seven-storey condos and 75 townhouses.

The town also has an interest in the technology as an interim solution to allow it to decommission the Holland Landing Lagoons. Chief Administrative Officer Tom Webster said the town staff met with the UYSS advisory panel.

“We put the technology on the table. We indicated our council was very interested in it,” he said. “We still want to get the larger municipal servicing solution approved, but as interim solution primarily focused on the lagoon decommissioning.”

The lagoons entered service in 1974 and have long been planned to be decommissioned. But the delay in the UYSS has left them operating much longer than originally intended. The long-held belief from residents and council was the lagoons would be decommissioned as soon as the York Durham Sewage System extension was completed in 2016.

But that wasn’t the case. The region said it needed to keep the lagoons operational until the UYSS came online, so it can transfer the certificate of approval from the lagoons to the new sewage plant.

Webster said York Region was initially not open to the introduction of this type of system, but given the delay things appear to be changing. “The discussions at the chair level and the senior staff level have been very positive,” Webster said.

The development industry is also very interested in this type of servicing but Webster said council should be careful. “We can’t have 27 types of these plants popping up in the community. I don’t think that would be healthy,” he said.

What makes Redwood’s proposal unique is as a long-term solution for the development where it stands alone and doesn’t depend on municipal servicing. Redwood said clean water effluent is ready for most reuse applications with no further treatment. The servicing can operate close to housing with no odour or noise issues.