Monster home, townhouses in Brampton, neighbours not amused

[James]

In my honest opinion, Brampton councillor Vicky Dhillon, is leading what seems to be a bully crusade to prevent any new growth, change or development to the neighborhood. I don't believe he has a strong argument but he has been able to gather enough support from the large Punjabi community in Springdale to make this more of an issue than it should have ever ought to be.

What's wrong with mixed housing in a community? Is Springdale exclusively for multi-generation Punjabi families only? Is Dhillon in support of the monster Brampton home posted earlier in this thread? Should all new homes be like that monster home to satisfy Dhillon and his supporters? Are younger families regardless of background not allowed to move into Springdale?

 

[fedplanner]

Haha, yeah, after I read that article, I immediately thought about this incident. You can't please everybody all the time.

Strange. In my side of the world this would be called NIMBYism. It would play out in a community filled with older white folks living in single-family homes. They would protest a nearby townhome development because they fear a couple minorities may be able to afford it, which they believe will result in the armageddon of their neighborhood. Of course they never publicly admit this fear and fabricate a bunch of reasons why the development is bad planning and should be killed.

In this case racism is probably not the issue. I'm not sure if it's a classic case of NIMBYism either. If the developer proposed tightly packed McMasions instead, would Mr. Vicky Dhillon and the community celebrate the addition of the large homes? Is it a fear that stacked townhomes may change the character of their single-family neighborhood? There is demand for stacked townhomes and the developer is responding to that demand. If there was no demand except for the large single family homes for the Punjabi community, then that's probably would get built.

My guess is the community fears this townhome development will attract singles or couples without kids, which may not jive with the existing family and extended family character of the neighborhood.

 

[fedplanner]

What's wrong with mixed housing in a community? Is Springdale exclusively for multi-generation Punjabi families only? Is Dhillon in support of the monster Brampton home posted earlier in this thread? Should all new homes be like that monster home to satisfy Dhillon and his supporters? Are younger families regardless of background not allowed to move into Springdale?

Whoops, I missed this reply. I agree with what you're alluding too.

 

[Memph]

My guess is the community fears this townhome development will attract singles or couples without kids, which may not jive with the existing family and extended family character of the neighborhood.

I guess I don't understand why this is a problem. It's basically a case of small middle class households being introduced to a community of large middle class households. What's wrong with that? It's not as if it's a case of small working class/poor households being introduced into a middle class area. (I don't think it's fair to shut out poor people either, but I could see why you would want to do that if you're trying to protect your own interests)

 

[RC8]

Both cases are ridiculous and offensive, and show exactly why I would never live in Brampton.

One man legally builds a big house... neighbours are horrified and make him stop and change laws so that it never happens again.

A developer tries to build townhouses with parkland and other public amenities... neighbours are horrified because of traffic and because the units are too small for the painfully irrelevant lifestyle of Sikhs who won't live in them.

Suburbs like Brampton create this insane paranoia where emotion takes over and reason goes out the window. Much like the fellas who desperately tried to save their derelict strip-mall in Etobicoke. There is this strong notion of entitlement that boggles my mind - seeing as these are heavily subsidised places that took their current form without any sort of public consultation to begin with.

 

[Peepers]

^+1 !

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

TOcondogarden:

I am making these statements as someone who disagree with Councillor Dhillon's stance.

Very interesting articles. To me a SFD = SINGLE family dwelling. Not built for two entire families. And definately not for three or four whole families. Extended family means mom and dad live with the kids (who typically own the house) and their grandkids. Or some similar combination thereof.

Are we *really* going to make that judgement on that basis of what the definition of a "family" is? Where did it say single nuclear family?

I worked in Brampton 15 years ago doing enumeration, when Springdale was first exploding in growth, and I often had to write down the names of 20+ people living in one house. I generally don't pre-judge people and I consider myself mostly open-minded. But I do take issue with the fact that they are paying ONE property tax bill. The most people I recorded was 26 people in about a 3500 sq ft home. I understand that people need to do certain things to get ahead in this world...but I do not think that paying one property tax bill for 26 people is fair by any stretch of the imagination.

Property tax is determined on the basis of the assessed value of the property and its' use. Health safety and code related issues aside, if the property isn't being used for rental (read: commercial) purposes, what fairness argument can you make if the deviation doesn't contravene the forementioned issues?

This is way beyond tolerance. This is the definition of stupidity (on behalf of people who don't say anything for fear that they will be considered racist). It's not racist. It's unfair when people do not pay their fair share. Plain and simple. So 15 years later...are things any different? And people wonder why we are in debt..

Property tax is levied at the property, not individual level. Fairness has nothing to do with it.

AoD

 

[Memph]

Looking at census stats, it looks like the average would be more around 5-8 people per house among Punjabi families. So if you have 7 people living in a $600,000 house, that's $86,000 per person. Should they be paying more property taxes per person than a smaller household living in a much cheaper ($150-$200k) 2-3 bedroom apartment near Bramalea Mall?

 

[RC8]

The real problem is that municipalities can't hold on to a portion of income tax.

If 5-8 people want to live in a house voluntarily and are deemed to not represent a threat to each other and their neighbours, then they are well within their right to.

Each of those 5-8 people are less poor for it, and are less likely to get involved in crime or require social assistance. They are also more likely to have a disposable income they can spend within the economy of their local community. This is a non-issue.

So long as the city offers opportunities for families downtown, for singles in the suburbs, and everything in between, we'll be OK.

 

[diminutive]

Suburbs like Brampton create this insane paranoia where emotion takes over and reason goes out the window. Much like the fellas who desperately tried to save their derelict strip-mall in Etobicoke. There is this strong notion of entitlement that boggles my mind - seeing as these are heavily subsidised places that took their current form without any sort of public consultation to begin with.

I'm not sure it's unique to the suburbs. Essentially every NIMBY group, including 'urban' NIMBYs like the Ossington or Beaches groups, feel a sense of entitlement to dicate what other people should do. Is a Brampton group flailing its arms saying townhouses are a unsuitable to their family structure really any different than group complaining that condos aren't suitable for the Beaches' 'traditional' family character?

I mean, ultimately NIMBYs are NIMBYs. Doesn't really matter whether its windmills or townhomes. I'm just happy we have the OMB, and that (some) politicians internalize these constraints.

 

[RC8]

The beaches illustrate that it is a suburban phenomenon. The beaches are a suburb... a nice one, with a functioning main street, but a suburb nonetheless.

People in Brampton oppose townhomes, people in the beaches oppose mid-rise condos, and people downtown oppose supertalls. This shows that the degree of tolerance to other built forms increases as density does.

NIMBYs are NIMBYs, you are right, but the degree of paranoia and entitlement that you see in the suburbs when other people legally do things that don't affect them in any way is insane. In Mississauga I once started playing with a toy xylophone someone had abandoned on a sidewalk. A person came out and told me to go away or he'd call the police. Variants of that experience have happened to me a number of times - always in the suburbs, and never in the city, where I've lived 90% of my life.

 

[diminutive]

NIMBYs are NIMBYs, you are right, but the degree of paranoia and entitlement that you see in the suburbs when other people legally do things that don't affect them in any way is insane. In Mississauga I once started playing with a toy xylophone someone had abandoned on a sidewalk. A person came out and told me to go away or he'd call the police. Variants of that experience have happened to me a number of times - always in the suburbs, and never in the city, where I've lived 90% of my life.

Downtown is chock full of examples of residents complaining about 100% legal activities. The Annex and frat houses? Parkdale and new restaurants? The Junction and that GE nuclear facility? Harborfront and YTZ? The Beaches and out of the cold programs? I don't think it's related to built form so much as an oversaturation of the over-entitled sort, which probably explains why areas like the Annex, the Beaches and Guildwood see lots of NIMBYish protests while Regent Park, St. James Town or Malvern don't.

The beaches illustrate that it is a suburban phenomenon. The beaches are a suburb... a nice one, with a functioning main street, but a suburb nonetheless.

I'm not disagreeing that the Beaches could be seen as suburban, but that's a bit of a slippery slope since most 'downtown' neighbourhoods have exactly the same builtform (moderate density homes surrounding commercial main street). For whatever reason I think it's standard practice nowadays to term this kind of inner-city suburbs or streetcar suburbs as 'downtown.'

To summarize, the sense entitlement you talk about is usually a byproduct of specific socioeconomic privileges and not built form. Maybe Torontonians don't usually consider these Sikh communities in Brampton privileged, but they seem very important to the local political dynamic which people like Dhillon benefit from. They certainly feel privileged enough to speek definitively for 'the Sikh community' even though I'm sure tons of Sikhs would probably like the idea of townhomes.

 

[adma]

Much like the fellas who desperately tried to save their derelict strip-mall in Etobicoke.

If you're talking about Humbertown: it may be dated, it may represent obsolete planning values, but I wouldn't say "derelict" is the word. Humbertown ain't Honeydale, y'know.

 

[ShonTron]

Both cases are ridiculous and offensive, and show exactly why I would never live in Brampton.

One man legally builds a big house... neighbours are horrified and make him stop and change laws so that it never happens again.

A developer tries to build townhouses with parkland and other public amenities... neighbours are horrified because of traffic and because the units are too small for the painfully irrelevant lifestyle of Sikhs who won't live in them.

Suburbs like Brampton create this insane paranoia where emotion takes over and reason goes out the window. Much like the fellas who desperately tried to save their derelict strip-mall in Etobicoke. There is this strong notion of entitlement that boggles my mind - seeing as these are heavily subsidised places that took their current form without any sort of public consultation to begin with.

I'm in agreement with the residents in the first case - the owner of the land in a very established suburban neighbourhood builds a new, massive structure without the proper city approvals in place, going far beyone the simp;e ouse expansion that all parties agreed to. Calling it a legal construction is a little dishonest - at most the owner can claim is that the city made an error at one point with plans that were not made in good faith.

I am in agreement with John Sprovieri that the compromise for the construction of the stacked townhouses is fair and reasonable, especially with civic facilities, including a new, much needed library branch as part of the deal, and that Vicky Dhillon is playing fast and loose with ethnic politics and the expense of what northeast Brampton actually needs.

 

[RC8]

I'm in agreement with the residents in the first case - the owner of the land in a very established suburban neighbourhood builds a new, massive structure without the proper city approvals in place, going far beyone the simp;e ouse expansion that all parties agreed to. Calling it a legal construction is a little dishonest - at most the owner can claim is that the city made an error at one point with plans that were not made in good faith.

Everything points to the city actually giving him the 'go ahead' for his plans thus far (re: monster home). We'll find out the details eventually, but if what he did was legal (as it appears it was) then the city should make sure it doesn't happen again, but it shouldn't demand he demolishes the thing.

If the city made an error it's the city that should pay the consequences.