Richmond Hill mid-rise - Awaiting decision

NRU
Feb. 18, 2015
BY Edward LaRusic

Whether the Ontario Municipal Board rules that a five-storey height limit in part of Richmond Hill’s downtown core is the result of good consultation or completely arbitrary will decide the fate of a proposed eight-storey building.

Robert Salna, Robert Salna Holdings Inc. and Pennytech Inc. applied for a zoning by-law amendment to allow an eight-storey, 81 residential unit, mixed-use building with 89 parking spaces at 10217 and 10225 Yonge Street.

Salna planner Michael Manett (MPlan Inc.) told NRU that this development is a modest form of intensification along Yonge Street, an intensification corridor in the York Region official plan. He noted the application got a chilly reception from council at a February 4 public meeting.

“[Council members] thought I was insulting council and insulting the town by suggesting we have eight storeys where [the town] has a limit of five.”

The amendment seeks permission for an eight-storey building with a floor space index of 3.8, whereas the 2010 official plan — which is under appeal — only allows five storeys and a FSI of 2.0. The proposal would preserve a two-storey commercial heritage building located at 10217 Yonge Street.

Manett said that the five-storey height limit in the 2010 official plan for this area of Yonge Street, known as the Village District, is an arbitrary limit. He noted that a 2009 study by the Planning Partnership for the town’s downtown had angular plan guidelines, which Manett argues are a more appropriate way for determining the height of buildings in this area of Richmond Hill.

The official plan policies relating to height and density were appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board and hearings were completed late last year. Salna was one of the appellants and Manett gave testimony arguing against the height and density limits in the 2010 official plan.

“There was no height limit [in the Planning Partnership 2009 report] that said you can’t go higher than five. That came out of the official plan. When [staff] wrote the official plan, notwithstanding all the studies they did to show that eight-storeys was appropriate, it capped it at five,” said Manett. “My argument that I gave at the OMB is that [the town] created an artificial height limit at five storeys, and it can’t show us any example of a five-storey building in the downtown because there isn’t one that exists.”

The staff report says that Salna’s zoning by-law application is premature, as the board has not yet made a decision on the appropriateness of a five-storey height limit. At the public meeting, planning and regulatory services commissioner Ana Bassios defended the five-storey height limit saying it is the result of extensive consultation, which directed larger mid-rise buildings to the north and south of the Village District.

“[The five-storey height limit resulted from] extensive consultation — I believe that we had around 5,000 points of contact, advice and input — about what the community wanted to see. This was a specific area that was of such importance to the spirit of the town, that there was a redoubled effort and intensive consultation process by which the downtown study was done,” said Bassios at the public meeting. “The height limits and the density limits were set in order to preserve the historical character of the core with the compounding density at the north and south end.”

Bassios said until the board renders a decision, staff seeks to protect the official plan policies of a five-storey height limit and 2.0 FSI.

At the public meeting, the extensive consultation undertaken by the town concerning how the Village District would intensify was cited by several councillors as a reason to oppose this application. Traffic and lack of compatibility with the lowrise residential to the east were also raised.

Manett noted that there is an existing seven-storey building south of this site within the Village District, known as the Tridel “Renaissance of Richmond Hill” at 10101 Yonge Street, which predates the 2010 official plan. The Tridel Renaissance came about as the result of a 2005 OMB decision, which approved a settlement between the town and Tridel for a seven-storey building with an FSI of 2.8.

Manett told NRU that the only big difference between the Tridel Renaissance building and this one is that the Salna application only goes halfway into the block, but he noted the 2009 report uses more restrictive angular planes to deal with such a condition. However, councillors said that the fact that Tridel Renaissance used the entire depth back to Church Street North prevents a direct comparison.

Ward 4 councillor David West said he had serious concerns with the application.

“Commissioner Bassios said it best; this is the heart of the community from a historical perspective and it is viewed that way by residents in my ward. The heritage character of that community is very unique, it’s very important to our town. This application as it stands… we’re so far away from it being acceptable from a heritage point of view in my estimation. We’re not even in the ballpark.”

The harshest comments came from Mayor Dave Barrow, who called the Salna application “insulting.” In conversation with NRU, Barrow echoed Bassios’s comment that the city had gone through an extensive exercise to determine that five storeys was an appropriate height limit for the Village District. The insult was that after all of that effort, Salna had the gall to ask for three more storeys.

“One you get below Major Mackenzie Drive, down south of the [Village District], we had lots with five-storey buildings where we gave 15-storeys as-of-right, and then people came in and asked for 18. You think, ‘c’mon.’ There was a lot of time and effort in community involvement [in setting these height limits]. I’m afraid that an eight-storey building [in the Village District] is going to stick out. And, as we know, the maximum soon becomes the minimum. It won’t be the village, with storefronts and interaction at the street level. It will start to be another street with a bunch of eight-storey apartment buildings on it.”

Ward 2 councillor Tom Muench asked his fellow councilors to step away from their emotions in considering this application. “I would argue that the revitalization of a downtown core is worth discussion. I appreciate that we hope that we can revitalize the downtown core, but the downtown core here is in trouble,” Muench said. He added that the town needs to work together with applicants like Salna.

“To simply say ‘no’ and allow the OMB and people to fight in entrenched positions is not, in my view, city building.”