Port Credit Master Plan Mobility Hub A Go

NRU
Nov. 4, 2015
Geordie Gordon

With the approval of the master plan for the Port Credit GO Station Southeast Area, the Port Credit Mobility Hub is leading the way to implementation. Critical to the master planning process was prior community agreement on a development framework for the local area and subsequent Metrolinx acceptance of the policy framework.

Approved by council October 28, the master plan was triggered by the issue of an RFQ by Metrolinx and
Infrastructure Ontario for an 800-space parking structure, new GO train station and up-to-two mixed-use towers of up-to-22 storeys on the .8-ha portion of the site owned by Metrolinx. The successful proponents are FRAM Kilmer Developments Ltd., Morguard and a group known as SEED (comprising Sun Life Financial, Edenshaw Developments and EllisDon Capital).

The two-ha site is envisioned to become a mixed-use, transit-supportive hub, with a new above-ground parking structure, according to the recently released master plan prepared by IBI Group.

Mississauga Ward 1 councillor Jim Tovey told NRU that the public engagement process was critical.

“Absolutely everybody agreed that the GO station was the prime location for intensification in the entire [Port Credit] village. Everybody agreed that it should be a 22 storey building [on the site],” he said.

This agreement has led to a much more straightforward planning process on the Metrolinx site.

“My first conversation with Leslie Woo, [Metrolinx’s] head planner was, if you’re going to put out an RFQ for this, it has to be tied to our master plan...we already have community support for the master plan. If you put out an RFQ and RFP according to our master plan...it’ll be a matter of [residents] saying yeah, that fits our secondary [plan] policies,” Tovey said, “And to its credit, Metrolinx tied our district secondary plan policies and our master plan framework into their RFQ process. So we’re all happy.”

Edenshaw president and CEO David McComb agrees that the approved master plan will make development of the site easier.

“Mississauga council has recognized that [it] needed to have leadership moving this forward because of the LRT...so it was very important that they laid out the rules to begin with, or at least the ground work, through the master plan,” he told NRU.

Mississauga planner Paul Stewart told NRU that the master plan builds on prior plans including a mobility hub study completed in 2011 and the local area plan in 2013.

“What we’re trying to do is have transit underpin an environmentally responsible, inclusive and successful community. This is an area to accommodate intensification. We were clear in the local area plan that this was where we wanted the greatest height and the greatest density to happen, this is an area where we wanted to have a mixture of uses, and we wanted to preserve the opportunity for something more than just residential,” he said.

Stewart said that the need for an increased parking requirement for the GO station was acknowledged by city staff. However, staff is working with Metrolinx to determine whether the 800 spaces are absolutely necessary, and if so, if there are ways to minimize the impact of the structure.

“We really had this big challenge: Metrolinx’s research said they needed 800 parking spaces... and the master plan [details] policies and guidelines [to ensure] that when the parking structure is developed it’s more than just a utilitarian structure. We are look[ing] for ways that we could animate the space with public art,” he said.

The Port Credit mobility hub is one of 51 identified in Metrolinx’s Big Move regional transportation plan. It is the furthest along in terms of development, with several other completed mobility hub studies that establish visions for areas around the GO stations.

Stewart says that the development of the Port Credit mobility hub makes innate sense as the area has the attributes of a mobility hub being the intersection of the GO Lakeshore West line and the Hurontario-Main LRT.

“Port Credit to some extent was already a mobility hub, before we even came up with that term there’s a lot of higher density apartment buildings that date back to the ‘70s... But we’re trying to respect the [character of the] area... as well as recognizing the opportunities that we have and the obligations we have to build transit supportive density given the investment that we’re making in infrastructure,” he said.

McComb considered the Port Credit GO Mobility Hub as a template for the development of other mobility hubs in the Metrolinx plan.

“It is a benchmark for future mobility hubs... it’s a collaboration … and it’s the first of its kind,” he said.