Town lands for sale like having ‘beautiful car without engine in it’

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 27, 2015
By Simon Martin  

When Mayor Virginia Hackson announced last fall that Airstate Ltd., a manufacturing company based out of Calgary, has acquired lands at the northeast corner of Green Lane and Hwy. 404, it was supposed to be the first of many companies coming to the town’s employment corridor.

Close to a year later, there remains one major hang-up: servicing.

“We have a beautiful car, but don’t have an engine in it,” Councillor James Young said.

“We might as well go out and farm (the fields) if there is no servicing.”

Town staff has been in discussion with the region about servicing the lands along the Green Lane corridor but the region has yet to put any firm timeline in place. The slow-moving negotiations are problematic for the town.

“We need to have a sense of urgency,” Councillor Tara Roy-DiClemente said.

The town can do all the work it wants courting businesses to move to East Gwillimbury but without servicing in place it’s a tough sell to get anyone to seriously consider.  

The region is in the process of updating its master servicing plan and East Gwillimbury wants that plan to prioritize servicing to the Hwy. 404 employment lands by 2018.

There is also a heightened sense of urgency because Engineered Air would like to be operational by 2018, CAO Tom Webster said.  The first phase of the move is expected to bring 200 jobs to the town.

“This has to be one of our single most priorities,” Young said.   

If the region won’t step to the plate, everything has to be considered, Young said, including borrowing against the town’s development charges.  

According to the staff report, it would take an estimated $9.2 million to service the lands.

East Gwillimbury has more than 1,000 acres designated employment land, including space on Yonge Street North, Green Lane, Hwy. 404 and the Bales Drive Industrial Park, near the intersection of Woodbine Avenue and Davis Drive.

York Region is counting on the town to be a key growth centre in both population and employment. While the region is slated to increase its number of jobs from 2011 to 2031 by 32 per cent, East Gwillimbury is aiming to increase its employment by 364 per cent.  

That’s an increase from 7,400 jobs to 34,000 in the span of 20 years.  

A seeming lack of urgency from the region to get this job growth started is concerning to Young.  

“(They are basically) saying we would like to help you, but things are tough right now,” he said.

While the town has seen a lot of job growth in the Bales Drive Industrial Park area, many of the facilities are regional headquarters that don’t pay tax dollars to the town, Webster said.

Councillor Marlene Johnston pointed out that the empty employment lands off Hwy. 11 do have servicing and the town should put a greater emphasis on attracting businesses to them.