East Gwillimbury council sounds alarm over pace of growth

YorkRegion.com
June 10, 2015
By Simon Martin

Everywhere you look in East Gwillimbury new home sales centres are popping up. There are seven in Sharon, two in Queensville and one set to open in Holland Landing. Leslie Street has become a quasi real estate strip.

According to a town staff report, since December, when sales programs in Sharon began, approximately 900 houses have been sold. Of those 900 homes, 500 are within the Sharon community and 400 are in Queensville.

CAO Tom Webster told council the incredible demand for ground-based inventory is driving unprecedented sales in East Gwillimbury and Aurora.

At the current pace, the total number of homes sold could well be more than 1,500 by the end of the year, Webster said.

This unbelievable sales pace has East Gwillimbury council a little worried.

“We all campaigned on controlled growth,” Councillor Tara Roy-DiClemente said.

It’s a far cry from the Harvest Hills development, where approximately 600 homes were sold over the course of six years, Councillor Marlene Johnston added.

The glut of development is associated with the imminent completion of the York Durham Sewage Solution that will provide 7,000 units of sewage allocation.

If the sales activity is left unchecked, Webster said allocation might dry up in less than five years time.

When Roy-DiClemente first requested sales numbers in April, she also wanted to know closing dates so the town could plan accordingly.

“How many building permits are we going to issue a month?” she said.

Council will have a special workshop on the subject in July to discuss how and when all these new homes will come online.

As council looks at ways to try to control growth, the region’s chief planner, Valerie Shuttleworth, explained to council that the region needs to grow more. East Gwillimbury has already been slated to grow to a population of 86,500 by 2031. Shuttleworth was unveiling the region’s growth scenarios for 2041. The three scenarios being discussed had East Gwillimbury’s growth targeted at 135,000, 113,400 and 108,700.

With a backdrop of rapid growth already transforming the town, council was not very receptive, especially because the Upper York Sewage Solution delay will make it difficult to even meet its 2031 target.

“You don’t even have the dollars invested to accommodate the growth we have now,” Councillor James Young said. “It’s not that I don’t trust York Region, but their track record is not good.”

Young wasn’t the only one to get a little testy.

“For us to even consider to add even more people, it just doesn’t make sense,” Roy-DiClemente said. “We can’t hit our 2031 numbers. Why would we add even more to that?”