By Pepper Parr
September 25th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
At a ward level meeting Councillor Paul Sharman explained to the decent sized audience that “Through its Housing Pledge, the City of Burlington has made a commitment to advance 29,000 Housing Units by 2031. He added that Burlington is expected to grow to 265,000 people by 2051
The green and the blue lines tell us that the population of the city is getting older – the younger demographic is stable. This creates a real problem for the city administration.
The City’s Official Plan directs a significant amount of growth to Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs)
The elephant in the room was the Branthaven Oval Court subdivision. It is huge and people in the community are not impressed.
They spoke quite passionately about the traffic problems that have now and can’t understand why the city is even thinking about adding more housing – this time in a very density xxx
Councillor Sharman, along with the three people from the Planning department – Jamie Tellier, Director of Community Planning,Alison Enns, Manager, Policy & Community Initiatives and Kyle PLas, Manager, Development & Design explained that at this point the city does not have an application from the developer. All the public has seen is what was shown at a community meeting when the developer laid out what their thinking was at this point.
Application for Draft Plan of Subdivision to accommodate seven (7) mixed use blocks varying in size from 4,028 m2 to 8,913 m2 and one creek block of 3,438 m2.
Later the size of the development changed to a mixed-use development consisting of high-density residential, office, community and commercial uses. A total of eight (8) towers are proposed, ranging in height from 11 to 30 storeys with 1,996 residential units and approximately 12,500 m2 of retail, office, daycare and library uses. The proposed development is intended to be completed in phases.
Assuming two people per unit – and that is a low number – there will be something in the order of 4000 people living in an areas that was a mix of commercial, light industrial on the north side of Fairview and residential on the south side of Fairview.
The Appleby GO station is a block or two away – perhaps too far for people to walk to – shuttle transit would be needed. Sherwood Forest Park is very close by. The developer will have a strong story to tell – which suggests that in the fullness of time – the development will see shovels in the ground.
The people who were at the meeting could see their community undergoing a significant change – they were asking publicly is this was the time to sell their homes and look for a different place to love and raise their children.
Situations like this are going to take place in almost every ward in the city. The development hot spots shown in the map below are around the three GO stations. There isn’t much in the way of green-space where the traditional single detached homes were built that makes Burlington what it is today and has been for a decade and a half.
The yellow highlighted areas are where the city expects to see the high rise housing. The red circles are locations where development could also take place.
While not relevant to the ward 5 meeting – the King Road development in Aldershot and the plans to redevelop the Waterfront Hotel site are also at different stages.
There is a lot of concern over the immense growth that has taken place in the size of the full time staff at city hall. Every department is undergoing changes – Planning needs people to administer the development applications that are much much bigger than anything the city had had to handle in the past. Creating Parks and recreation services requires more people (and more in the way of imagination and innovation) to meet the needs of the additional 65,000 people that are going to call Burlington home in the next ten years.
A rendering of the two 30 and 35 storey towers the developer wants to put in place of the current Waterfront hotel.
The Preferred concept has gone through several versions – a decision on what could be developed is being made at the Land Tribunal.
Getting people used to the changes that are going to take place will not be easy. It will take many more events like the one Councillor Sharman held in his ward; probably semi-annual updates.
Sharman and Councillor Kearns have been doing a decent job of working with their communities. Kearns has told people that she will not run as Councillor in the 2026 election – she has hinted that she might run for Mayor.
Ward 1 has a Councillor Kelvin Galbraith has significant conflicts of interest which is not a crime – he has property in the ward that will be developed making it difficult for him to represent the interests of the community which may not align with his personal interests.
It is hard to say what ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan will do going forward. He is the city representative on the Federation Canadian Municipalities, the national voice of municipal government . That responsibility has him missing many council meetings. He no longer lives in the ward he represents.
A, B, C, D and E are expected to be consolidated and developed. Galbraith owns A, C and D. He has a Memorandum agreement with the owner of E. B is a garage at the corner of Plains Road and Waterdown Road – a ten minute walk to the GO station
Galbraith and Nisan took part in a video related to the King Road development that left many wandering just who the Councillors were working for – click HERE and figure out just who they represent.
CAO Hassaan Basit – at the six month point in the job. How is he doing so far – hard to tell – he has made a lot of changes at the senior staff level.
Add to all this the growth of the size of the city budget and the tax increases – you get an almost toxic mix of problems to be tackled.
The City has a relatively new Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Hassaan Basit, Significant changes in the structure of the senior staff levels have been made. These things take time to come together and create a team that meets the daily challenges.
All part of the change taking place – and all part of the anxiety and concern families deal with as the wonder what home is going to look like in a decade.
It’s not so much that Hassaan Basit has made changes at senior staff levels as that many of the senior staff left or were fired before he was appointed.
He has been busy filling the vacant positions.
Branthaven (the Oval Court applicant) is currently finishing its townhouse complex at the corner of Taywood and Turnberry. Still a “final few” of the original offering available with many of the completed units offered for rent. Some of these or others have been offered for sale as well as existing homes for sale across the street.
The community made 58 delegations at the Committee of Adjustment asking that the number of units and density conform to the zoning guidelines and that the 18 variances be denied. The Committee of Adjustment voted against the application but Council voted “in camera” in a 4 – 3 decision to overturn the Committee of Adjustment.
Perhaps the community knows what type of development will be in demand and developers and elected officials could listen to feedback? Or, is this the path to affordable housing?
So the Committee of Adjustment actually listened to citizens and turned down a developer’s requests for variances? Nearly unheard of in Burlington! Then Council hid away and voted to overturn the COA decision? What kind of oversight and governance of development are we headed for in Burlington? Makes me cringe.