borgo100
Active Member
alright so i didn't know where else to put this thread, but i think it doesn't matter since we all hate Vaughan.
Vaughan paves way for new subdivision
Rezoning would alter Hwy. 427 extension plans, cost taxpayers millions
Phinjo Gombu
URBAN AFFAIRS REPORTER
Vaughan city council is plowing ahead with rezoning a swath of rural land for a massive development, a move that could cost local taxpayers millions of dollars.
Despite provincial and neighbourhood concerns, the rezoning is expected to pass at a Tuesday council meeting, paving the way for developer Silvio DeGasperis to build 3,000 homes in an area currently protected from development.
Several provincial ministries are concerned about the proposal, according to a city staff report, because it's in an area being studied for a Highway 427 extension and affects future east-west highway options under consideration at Queen's Park.
The 427 route is likely to be adjusted, but to do so could force local and regional taxpayers to shell out millions for road realignments needed to accommodate DeGasperis's plans.
The 300-member Nashville Ratepayers Association is asking why the city is essentially trying to beat the province to the punch by rushing to approve it. They believe the 185-hectare project, to house 8,600 people, represents more intensification than the area can handle.
Association president Paul Mantella recently asked councillors why the application is being heard now, before the province presents to the public the 427 design it prefers.
Vaughan councillors didn't answer the question at a committee meeting but instead spoke glowingly of the development and voted unanimously to amend the city's official plan to allow it.
The complicated tale of Vaughan's backing for DeGasperis goes back to last May, when the province announced its preferred route for the 427 extension as part of an extensive environmental assessment.
The route was a big problem for the developer, who stands to make tens of millions from the project, because it cut straight through his property. That would make it "sterile" for development, his own planning consultant, Don Given, acknowledged to the Star.
To say DeGasperis was unhappy would be to put it mildly.
Since then, intense behind-the-scenes lobbying by DeGasperis, York and Peel Region politicians and Canadian Pacific – which also had concerns because the route conflicted with its plans for a marshalling yard – persuaded the province to modify the route.
DeGasperis, a large developer, made headlines two years ago when he lost a very public legal battle with the province to develop parts of the agricultural preserve in Pickering. The fight cost him about $5 million – and, to add injury to insult, he was ordered to pay the province $720,000 in legal costs.
He remains critical of the legislation that created the Greenbelt.
His Vaughan-based TACC group of companies has extensive land holdings across the GTA and he co-chaired Vaughan Mayor Linda Jackson's mayor's gala last year.
Councillor Peter Meffe, who dismissed the zoning change as a normal planning approval, told the Star he prefers it over a potential east-west highway, which he said would bring unpopular industrial uses and heavy truck traffic to west Vaughan's residential areas.
The province's plan "falls smack in the middle of Vaughan's Official Plan and proper development," Meffe said.
Last fall Given told a public meeting the company was seeking an amendment to Vaughan's Official Plan to put pressure on the province to change its route.
"We've asked the city to entertain an amendment that would allow the city to ... to help determine the alignment of Highway 427," he said. "We think the 427 discussions that are going through the environmental assessment process are not balanced."
In October, the province blinked. It moved the highway route about 300 metres west – mostly missing DeGasperis's property.
A ministry of transportation spokesperson called the compromise "virtually a done deal."
But the move has created a host of potentially expensive problems that will land on Vaughan and York Region. The minutes of an October stakeholder meeting obtained by the Star show expensive local road alignments may be necessary to accommodate the highway shift.
DeGasperis himself acknowledges taxpayers will be on the hook for a significant chunk of it. He figures it will come down to "50 per cent the region, 50 per cent the landowner." Meffe says as far as he is concerned the development industry will pay, not taxpayers.
One problem is Huntington Rd., which runs along the west edge of the property and can't join the terminus of Highway 427 for technical reasons. Critics fear that a dead-end road will channel truck traffic through the Nashville community to the north. Solutions for realigning it suggested by the region and DeGasperis are difficult and costly.
When Vaughan council last discussed the plan, there was no public discussion of these and other unresolved problems involving streets and a rail crossing. The staff report said they would be addressed later.
DeGasperis says he considers the issues "a very small detail" compared with the fight to get the highway route shifted. And that's something he's already achieved.
