Planning for 6,000 new home: MILTON’S ELEVEN

NRU
July 23, 2014
Edward LaRusic

Accommodating growth is taking on a whole new meaning in Milton as the town processes 11 subdivision applications for the Boyne Survey Secondary Plan area at the same time. If all works   according to plan, this will get the infrastructure in place to accommodate 6,000 new homes, with more applications anticipated in the coming weeks.

On Monday, Milton council held a public meeting to consider plans of subdivision from 11 developers, which are seeking to develop on lands in the Boyne Survey Secondary Plan area. This is located between Louis St. Laurent Avenue to the north, Tremaine Road to the west, Britannia Road to the south and James Snow Parkway to the east. (See sidebar for the list of developers.)

Ward 8 councillor Zeeshan Hamid told NRU that he’s not sure the town has ever looked at 11 subdivision applications at the same time before.

“Based on the number of people per home we have on average, we’re looking at [adding] 24,000 to 25,000 people. Working at that in one go is very, very interesting.”

Milton planning and development director Barbara Koopmans told NRU that the Boyne Survey Secondary Plan area is one of three residential growth areas in Milton that will help accommodate population increases to 2021.

“It is going to accommodate the bulk of residential development until the Sustainable Halton lands become available for development.”

Koopmans said that Milton is expected to add about 97,000 residents, growing to 238,000 by 2031 under the provincial growth plan. She said that these 11 applications are a result of “pent up demand” created by the developers waiting for the secondary plan to be approved and the region to allocate water servicing to the area. The Boyne Survey Secondary Plan was approved by Milton council on June 14, 2010.

“The region recently [approved its] development charges by-law and the front-ending agreements [for the infrastructure] went forward. So the infrastructure to service this new development is now proceeding. [But] all this development will not happen at once, it will be phased [based on] releases of allocation to those developers who subscribe to the regional program… you will not see 6,000 building permits in one year.”

Koopmans noted that some of the developers are anticipating registration next year and with the public meetings completed they can proceed through to draft approval.

Ten of the 11 development applications have received their regional servicing allocation, she noted. 1045502-1048605 Ontario Limited (Fieldgate) has not.

“It will not be proceeding to draft approval…it’s just included to help us give context to the rest of the applications.”

There are still some potential concerns to work out. Ward 7 councillor Rick Di Lorenzo told NRU that the city did a better job at negotiating with developers for parkland in the previous Bristol Survey planning district and Sherwood Survey planning district.

“In this new survey, in my opinion, when we look at where the parks are going to be and the houses are going to be, there will be pockets of houses where it won’t be a nice comfortable walk to a playground. That’s to me, a bit disconcerting, because it almost looks like you have second class residents.”

Hamid said the major challenge he sees is with infrastructure, particular schools.

“It’s a very large area, and [the residential] is not concentrated in one subdivision, so it becomes challenging to bus kids around until you have the population necessary to build all the schools.”

But he said that within these eleven new subdivision applications, they’ve figured out the plans for two new elementary schools and two new secondary schools.

“By being able to plan the subdivisions this way, we’re able to plan all the school sites up front, and work with the province on funding.”

Hamid added that transit is another component which has been addressed in advance of the development this time, something that was lacking in prior subdivision approvals.

“One of the things you see [in this plan] is that at every major intersection we have major nodes that are going to be higher density and along collector roads where transit buses will run, those are the ones where medium density homes— townhomes, condos—so we can put as many people as possible as close to transit as possible.

These 11 subdivision applications are the first, but they certainly won’t be the last. Hamid said that more are expected to come forward at the next council meeting August 11, which he says will help plug the remaining “holes” in the Boyne Survey area.

Milton has received plans of subdivision for the Boyne Survey Secondary Plan area from the following developers:
• 1045502-1048605 Ontario Limited (Fieldgate)
• 691548 Ontario Inc. (Country Homes)
• David Cruise & Alison Griffiths (Branthaven Caivan Inc.)
• Gulfbeck Developments Inc.
• Main Sail Estates Inc.
• Mattamy (Milton West) Limited (Framguard)
• Mattamy (Willmott) Limited
• Milton Main Street Homes Ltd.
• Pony Pines Development Inc. (Great Gulf Homes)
• Primont Homes (Milton) Inc.
• Shadybrook Development Inc. and Stevenson Land Development Inc.