Details

Last month, in a gushing public tribute from a long-serving Newmarket councillor, we learned that Bob Forrest is a gentleman whose word is his bond. He is “absolutely transparent”. 

So, as he takes centre stage on Monday evening, I know that Bob will be completely straight with us.

And I hope he will bring along a scale model of his proposed Clock Tower development so we can have a better understanding of how all the pieces fit together.

In Bob’s presentation on Monday (agenda item 19a) he will say he wants to separate fact from fiction (slide 23). He will say it is a fact that three and six storeys are permitted on Park Avenue. He is proposing seven. Bob is being economical with the truth.

The importance of zoning: how Bob gets to 7 storeys

The proposed development, above ground, falls entirely within the zoning classification Historic Downtown Urban Centre Zone (UC-D1) and goes right up to Bob’s property line. The underground garage extends beyond the property line into land owned by the Town of Newmarket and into another zoning classification – the Downtown Urban Centre Zone (UC-D2).

The Town’s Zoning By-law 2010-40 specifies a maximum height for new developments of three storeys (or 9 metres) in UC-D1 and six stories (or 18 metres) in UC-D2.

Bob uses the fact that he will be taking ownership of Town land in UC-D2 to justify his claim that six storeys are allowed for his Clock Tower development. It is a three card trick in all but name. (Bob told his colleages last year that he believed he could get approval for a seventh storey if the building were rental.)

Town makes its land available to Bob: but we don’t know the terms

Bob wants to enter into a strata ownership agreement with the Town which would allow for the underground parking area to extend beyond the site boundary. Town land would, therefore, be conveyed to Bob by way of stratified title. Crucially, the Town refuses to publish the details of the agreement-in-principle it entered into with Bob in 2013 telling me property matters must remain confidential.

I may be wrong about all this. In which case I shall be eating a lot of humble pie on Monday evening. But the upside is this. Even if I am wrong, honest Bob will have to tell us what he provisionally agreed with the Town on the land swaps way back in 2013.

Fact vs Fiction

Bob will tell us the objectives of his presentation are to (a) review the current Clock Tower proposal (b) address heritage considerations (c) distinguish fact from fiction and (d) answer questions.

On Thursday (5 May) I asked the Town’s planning people if they would comment on Bob’s presentation, giving us their professional planning view on whether Bob is correct on all the matters he states as fact on his slides. No. That would be a step too far. I am told we must wait for the forthcoming comprehensive report to a future Committee of the Whole and Council.

So, on Monday night folks, we, the public, are on our own. The Town will not be providing a commentary on Bob’s presentation nor offer any validation of the points he makes. Doesn’t really surprise me. After all, in a very real sense, Bob and the Town are partners. And the Mayor is the project's handmaiden.

Bob pours a quart into a pint pot

Bob uses his slide 6 to compare his proposal to the Town’s By-law. In an oversight, Bob forgets to mention that By-law 2010-40 specifies a maximum Floor Space Index (FSI) of 1.0 and his project comes in at 2.9. This is critically important. The FSI is the ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the piece of land upon which it is built. Put simply, Bob is trying to pour a quart into a pint pot.

Bob’s own Planning Justification Report tells us the Historic Downtown Centre Zone (UC-D1) permits up to 80 residential units per net hectare and up to and including a 1.0 FSI. Yet the cheeky Bob wants a residential density of 430 units per net hectare and an FSI of 2.9.

Bob’s report justifies this by saying:

“While the proposed density exceeds the Official Plan policy requirements in Table 1, it must be recognized that the Proposal does not have the benefit of additional land for surface parking and landscaping.”

“The units per hectare value appears much higher due to the building footprint mirroring the property line and as such this condition must be taken into consideration when considering the appropriateness of the density.” (my emphasis)

Whoa!

Who says we must take this into consideration? The site, quite simply, cannot carry this scale of development.

Bob drafts the Town’s Zonong By-law Amendment

The ever helpful Bob has conveniently drafted a Zoning By-law Amendment for the Town of Newmarket. (You can read it at Appendix B in Bob’s Planning Justification Report).

Bob wants an FSI of 3.0!

And he wants the maximum building height to go from 9 metres or three storeys to 21.5 metres or 7 storeys.

Old buildings. I just love ‘em

Bob cherishes heritage buildings and tells us:

“the retention of historic buildings is important to us, and to the Town of Newmarket”. (Slide 12)

Bob loves these old buildings so much he plans to knock them down! The facades will be the only bits left to remind us of what was once there. The historic commercial buildings at 184,188 and 194 Main Street South will be a heap of rubble behind the smiley facades.

Four more parking spaces

Bob tells us there will be four more parking spaces than are currently available – after years of construction and mayhem.

Bob has been busy “collaborating with near neighbours” including Trinity United Church and Newmarket Public Library (slide 21). Trinity told the Heritage Advisory Committee it wanted to be indemnified to the tune of $10 million against any damage caused by Bob’s construction work. I don’t know what guarantees he has given.

Significantly, Bob does not mention the shadows that will fall across Trinity United Church. His Planning Justification report on page 15, risking an avenging bolt of lightning, concludes

“there is no significant impact from the proposed development on the enjoyment of surrounding land uses.”

We must all pray he is right. But the congregation will wish to see the evidence.

Bob's Tenants evicted. Retail units on Main boarded up for 18 months.

Bob tells us in his website that he is an honourable man, of conviction and tenacity. I wonder how his former business tenants on Main Street South view him?

They will, no doubt, have their own stories to tell. The leases all had demolition clauses which allowed Bob to terminate with six months notice. The business tenants met Bob a  number of times as he was putting his plans together. He offered to extend the leases to nine months and then on a month by month basis. Bob told them this arrangement was conditional on them withdrawing all objections to his development proposals.

At the end of the day, they were all evicted before Bob had any Town approvals to redevelop the site.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Details

Maddie Di Muccio’s defamation action against Regional Councillor John Taylor will be held in the Small Claims Court at Newmarket at 10am on Friday 28 October 2016.

I had hoped the increasingly fragile Di Muccio, a former Newmarket councillor, would put the past behind her. But no. The circus act continues even though there is no prospect whatsoever that Di Muccio will get the scalp she treasures above all others.

It is not going to work out that way.

She has already lost an action for alleged discrimination against her by the Town of Newmarket.

In the action against Taylor, Di Muccio amended her original claim and now alleges, in addition to defamation, he committed “misfeasance and malfeasance” in public office. She says he was responsible for intentionally inflicting mental suffering on her. She says he continues to defame her character “even as a private citizen”. She wants her pound of flesh from Taylor in the shape of $5,000 in damages to compensate for her hurt feelings

Di Muccio is consumed by bitterness, unwilling and unable to move on, using surrogates to malign Taylor for every imagined injustice in Newmarket.

I look on from afar and it is pitiful to watch.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Details

On 21 October 2013, Newmarket’s Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, signed By-law 2013-51, bringing into force the Lower Main Street South Heritage Conservation District which specifies a 3 storey height cap on any new developments.

On 11 April 2016, Van Bynen told the Era newspaper that the seven storey Clock Tower development

“is a great example of the intensification we need.”

and

“There may need to be some fine tuning on how we get there.”

but

“This is the kind of invigoration Main needs if it truly intends on being sustainable in the longer term.”

According to Van Bynen, these robust and forthright statements should not be taken as support for the proposed Clock Tower development. Oh no!

Van Bynen supports the concept and principle of the Clock Tower project

On 18 April 2016 at the Town’s Committee of the Whole, Van Bynen said:

“I don’t think our community is so naïve as to think that, by making general statements about a concept and a principle, is evidence of having a pre-determined position.”

However, by supporting the concept and the principle of the Clock Tower project Van Bynen is abandoning any pretence that he supports his own Heritage Conservation District By-law. The two are mutually exclusive.

The Heritage Impact Assessment that Forrest himself commissioned (from Goldsmith Borgal and Company Ltd, Architects) makes it crystal clear that the proposed development does not meet the Heritage Conservation District Plan in terms of height restrictions but

“could be mitigated in order to allow the Town to meet a number of other planning goals in the Historic Downtown Core”.

Forrest’s Heritage Impact Assessment goes on:

“In this current development proposal, the new commercial/residential building seeks to balance the complementary interests of increasing density, while preserving heritage character as best as possible. The proscribed goal of maintaining two-to-three-storey buildings throughout the HCD boundaries is weighed against the goals of increased density, sustainability, financial viability and vibrancy in the historic Downtown.” (My emphasis)

The Town has commissioned a peer review of the Forrest Heritage Impact Assessment which will be carried out by ERA Architects in Toronto. It will come to the same inescapable conclusion – that the Clock Tower development falls squarely outside the terms of the Heritage Conservation District Plan. They too will almost certainly comment at length on the mitigation measures promised by Forrest and will probably welcome the retention of facades, even though the accompanying historic buildings will end their days facing the wrecking ball.

Demolition and Destruction

But let us be clear about one thing. The slippery Van Bynen is throwing overboard all talk of heritage conservation and he is embracing “revitalization” with a vengeance, even if that means the demolition and destruction of heritage properties and the obliteration of renowned panoramas and vistas.

But it doesn’t stop there.  The prolonged construction period for such a huge undertaking could force many Main Street businesses to the wall. Forrest’s development doesn’t meet the Town’s parking standards by a mile. It would cast a shadow on Trinity United Church and its famed stained glass windows. And the excavation of Market Square for the three level underground garage could change the flow of the underground water courses, exposing other fragile heritage structures to damage. This point was made forcefully by the Newmarket Heritage Advisory Committee whose report to the Committee of the Whole

“adamantly recommends that the Council of the Town of Newmarket rejects this proposal”.

Trust me says Van Bynen

And, to cap it all, Van Bynen, is prepared to make Town land available, without which this whole monstrous project cannot proceed.

Van Bynen has the nerve to ask us to trust him. He tells the Era:

“Let’s give Council the opportunity to take an objective review of what’s available. Let’s review within the context of what the objective of revitalizing Main was all about. The fact is, there’s been modification talks about the desire for the developer to find something that will work. We’ve learned through Glenway that polarity doesn’t help anybody.”

Personally, I don’t trust Van Bynen to take an objective review of what is available. It is as plain as a pikestaff that he has made his mind up.

That is the long and short of it.

And that’s why he should not be chairing the Statutory public Meeting on Monday 9 May 2016.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Details

This poster below is one of a series that will going up in Main Street over the coming days to warn the public what to expect if Bob Forrest gets planning approval for his monstrous seven storey rental building, dumped in the heart of a heritage conservation district zoned for three storeys max.

The photo at the top of the poster shows what Forrest's 7 storey building will look like. It is, of course, an artist's impression and it gilds the lily. The photo directly below it shows a new six storey building currently under construction near Younge and Wellington in Aurora. It is not an artist's impression. It is a photo. It is the real deal.

Concerned residents are pressing for a scale model of the proposed development to be made available at the public meeting on 9 May 2016 which will accurately show the height and the massing of this huge monolith. The artist's impression of the Main Street perspective, prepared for Forrest, carries a health warning in the top right hand side in tiny print:

"This drawing is not to be scaled."

This means it cannot be relied upon to guide construction. It is simply one item in a parcel of drawings and artist's impressions submitted to the Town with the sole purpose of getting planning approval.

Sceptical residents are not going to be beguiled by artist's impressions that warp perspective and massage downwards the huge, over-bearing scale of Forrest's project.

It is time for Forrest to go back to the drawing board.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Details

The Town of Newmarket has zillions of By-laws. And a report published last week tells us the Town is planning to beef up enforcement of some of them.

Woe betide anyone who flagrantly disobeys a By-law. Selling burgers from an unlicensed food truck? Making too much noise? Not keeping your property up to scratch? There will be a municipal enforcement officer knocking on your door before you can say “Tony Van Bynen”.

Sweet irony

It is a sweet irony that the Town is ratcheting up enforcement of some By-laws while it considers trashing By-law 2013-51 which regulates building height and other matters within the downtown Heritage Conservation District. The Mayor has already made his position clear on the seven storey Clock Tower development in an area where a three storey height cap ostensibly applies.

The Heritage Conservation District is zoned Urban Centre D1 or (UC-D1). The Zoning By-law 2010-40, consolidated in December 2013, stipulates a minimum building height of 2 storeys and a maximum of 3 storeys or 9 metres.

The Town’s Director of Planning, Rick Nethery, told me in May 2013 that:

“The By-law adopting a Heritage Conservation District is required to fully implement the (Heritage Conservation) District Plan and have it be in full force and effect. While we utilize the (Heritage Conservation District) Plan to assist in evaluating proposals, the passing of an adopting By-law gives the (Heritage Conservation District) Plan its Official status.”

That seems clear enough. But no. Nethery goes on:

“Proposals that do not necessarily conform to all aspects of a Heritage Conservation District Plan, whether it is in full force or not, can continue to be approved by Council if deemed appropriate.”

So no matter what the By-law says a majority of councillors can trump it. If it takes their fancy, they can vote for Forrest’s zoning By-law amendment.

Phoney rules and processes

This is what is so utterly fraudulent about our broken planning system and its phoney rules and processes. They are infinitely flexible and, as such, they are hardly worth the paper they are written on.

I told the Mayor at the Committee of the Whole on 18 April 2016, if he doesn’t like By-law 2013-51 he should repeal it and bring in another version more to his liking.

Why doesn’t he mandate a maximum height of 7 storeys in the Heritage Conservation District and allow the demolition of historic commercial buildings on condition the facades are retained? That would be the honest approach for a retired banker. Instead we all have to navigate our way through a hall of mirrors where things are not as they appear to be.

Public Love-in

As it is, the fate of the Clock Tower development is all going to come down to the crude counting of heads. We know that Tom Hempen will be abstaining in any vote because he owns a retail business on Main Street. That leaves 8 members of Council and one of them, Tony Van Bynen, has already shown his hand. Dave Kerwin’s public love-in with Bob Forrest at the same April 18 meeting also raises very serious concerns.

What about the others? Who knows?

They are, each one of them, a law unto themselves.

Quite literally.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

  • You are here:  
  • Home