National Homes and the City are reported to have agreed on settlement terms over a Plains Rd. development - Have Citizen Concerns been Swept Aside?

News 100 redBy Pepper Parr

December 29th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The National Homes plan to build – what – on the 484 – 490 Plains Rd  site where the Bingo Hall was located, is one of two developments they have before the city.

National development Plains Rd Bingo hall

484 – 490 Plains Rd site where the Bingo Hall was located.

The Plains Road development is at Local Planning Act Tribunal (LPAT)  where things are a little confusing.

There is an LPAT Settlement meeting scheduled for January 21st where the final stage of  the agreed settlement between National Homes and Burlington was to be completed.

Jim Young 2

Jim Young

Jim Young, an Aldershot resident has been following this case closely and reports that “So far I don’t know any details nor do I suspect anybody else does.”  Young is a Participant in the case.

Young adds that Tom Muir has been trying to argue a case that he as a “Participant” should be allowed to present an opposition to the settlement agreement.  The National Homes lawyer, Ira Kagan, is advising Muir that presenting evidence is unlikely on two grounds.

1. Only parties get to present evidence or mount a case and there are only two parties… The City and National Homes.  Participants like Tom or I can submit an opinion but cannot give evidence or present “Expert Testimony”

2. Since the city and Nat Homes have reached a settlement neither of them will need to present any testimony.

The appeal will open, there will be little or no discussion as there is agreement and LPAT will happily accept the settlement and move on.

Young concludes that: “At the end of the day what is agreed will be the outcome.”

“If we as citizens feel strongly enough opposed to it our fight must be with the city who we elect and who agreed to the settlement… not the developer over whom we have no control.”

Muir with pen in hand

Tom Muir: He can be acerbic and difficult at times – but he usually has facts at his fingertips. He did not get a Christmas basket from National Homes. Most of the members of Council did.

Muir takes the position “that some redevelopment of this site can occur, and is permitted by the existing OP, and while not planning policy relevant to this proposal, the proposed revisions to the OP and By-laws also permit some development”

“My concern is that this proposal is asking for variances that go far beyond these stated permissions and represent an over-intensification and over-development of this site. The key question is, when is enough enough? Unfortunately, there is so much scope of redundant, discretionary and arbitrary interpretation of the policy framework used to evaluate proposals, that almost anything can be supported and justified by assertions, based almost exclusively on intensification.”

Muir differentiates between “evidence-based policy-making” , and “policy-based evidence making. This looks to be the latter – decide what you want first, and then pick the evidence. Oftentimes, sections of the Policy Framework said to be used, are selectively chosen and focused to assertions that support the recommendation to approve.

“As a result, the viability of existing business and commercial economic development is being sacrificed by planning justifications such as this one. What I continue to find disturbing is the continued de-commercialization of Aldershot. In this respect, the impacts of the loss of commercial at this site are completely ignored in the planning justification coverage of the Provincial Planning Statement as part of the policy framework.”

The Provincial Policy Statement states that Planning authorities shall promote live/work, economic development and competitiveness by:

a) providing for an appropriate mix and range of employment and institutional uses to meet long-term needs;

b) providing opportunities for a diversified economic base, including maintaining a range and choice of suitable sites for employment uses which support a wide range of economic activities and ancillary uses, and take into account the needs of existing and future businesses.

“I do not see these directions being followed in the proposal by National Homes focused on population intensification. In this regard, the proposal includes 10,748 square feet of commercial, whereas there is almost 50,000 square feet existing, and this commercial is fully serviced, providing maximum potential of uses, with commercial venting, full transport loading facilities and size, adjacent, or nearby, more than sufficient parking, and so on”, said Muir.

“There are no specifications as to what quality of commercial potential is proposed. Moreover, this seems to be inadequate replacement commercial space, and appears to resemble what the development business calls “throwaway commercial”, provided to get the real goal of intensified residential. Concern about the rent for new commercial space.  A public meeting was told that: There is an option for existing tenants to move into new space and that the market will dictate size of units. New development will be set at market prices.”

Muir points out that existing prices are well below market rates and said: ” I have talked to existing business and they say that the rents will double and become unaffordable.

The proposal asks for very significant amendments to the Official Plan and By-Laws asking for increased height, increased density and increased floor area ratio, reduced minimum setbacks, reduced amenity area, and reduced parking standards. The Planning Justification for the proposal only mentions the floor area ratio (from 1.5 to 2.14); net residential density (from 51 to 185 units/ha, to 216); and height (from 2 to 6 stories, to 8) but claims that except for these variances the proposal conforms.

Muir making a point

Tom Muir: It should be about good planning.

There is increasingly a departure from the reality of multiple car ownership per unit. I agree that not every unit will have 2 or more cars, but it’s just fantasy to say and assume that all units will have mostly 1 car, and thus dismiss the parking issue that is a reality. At the present time, residents in the Jazz building across the street are reported by residents and business nearby to be parking in the proposal site at all times of days and overnight. As well, parents of children at the school across the street also use the site to park as they pick up and drop off their kids. All those thousands of unaccounted for vehicles are not going to disappear because the planners refuse to recognize they exist.

“This is not “good planning”, but is making convenient and false assumptions to facilitate what the planners want to do. It’s the residents that are being subjected to the consequences.”

 

 

 

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