Plans to redevelop the Hollingsworth Arena site have disappeared in a puff of smoke.  

FivefortheDrive today tweets that the swashbuckling developer, Sandro Sementilli, has defaulted on his mortgage on 693 Davis Drive, posting an image of the repossession notice at the property.   

The developer's San Michael Homes website has vanished into thin air.

A report to Newmarket's Committee of the Whole on 18 October 2016 on Hollingsworth was unexpectedly pulled from the agenda. (See item 4)

The Town's Chief Administrative Officer, Bob Shelton, told councillors there had been changes to the agenda:

“Item 4 regarding San Michael Homes and (the) Hollingsworth property has been withdrawn and will come forward along with the signed letter of intent when that is ready. It should come together.”

Given what we now know, a signed letter of intent isn't going to be coming any time soon.

I blogged about the Hollingsworth saga over a year ago. The presentation and the artwork from the developer's architect Harry Kohn clearly showed two towers. 

But when Mr Sementilli made his unforgettable partnership pitch to councillors on 20 October 2015 he only ever mentioned one tower.

I remarked at the time that, curiously, no-one picked him up on this.

Newmarket's Mayor Tony Van Bynen told the ERA newspaper that

“Yes, this project is not without risk … but we would be doing our residents a disservice if we did not explore these opportunities to the fullest.”

Perhaps we shall all be told in due course how and why it all went pear-shaped.

It would be nice to know.

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Bob Forrest has until Thursday 5 January 2017 to file an appeal to the OMB against Newmarket Council's decision to refuse his seven storey Clock Tower development on Main Street.

On 5 December 2016 councillors threw out Forrest's proposal on the grounds the

"development of the subject lands as proposed would adversely impact the character of the established neighbourhood and adjacent properties within the Heritage Conservation District".

The Mayor, Tony Van Trappist, voted against Forrest's original application and for the staff's so-called compromise. He was in a minority of one.

The Mayor, reading from a prepared script, told the Committee of the Whole on 28 November 2016:

"I appreciate the concerns that many people have expressed about the scale and the impact of this development in our Heritage Conservation District and I believe that staff has proposed a significantly reduced option from what was originally proposed. And whether we agree with the recommendations or not this is a very comprehensive report that has been thoroughly examined."

"All of the elements, too, have been considered including an extensive heritage impact assessment from a qualified heritage specialist, Goldsmith Borgal and Co. And it was peer reviewed independently by heritage architects. It is their opinion that the revisions proposed would meet the intentions of the Heritage Conservation District and I agree."

The role of the "heritage experts" will now, inevitably, come under scrutiny.

Van Bynen leans on the opinions and recommendations of professional experts like a crutch, unwilling or unable to exercise his own critical faculties.

His role in the Clock Tower drama has yet to be written. Was he a spectator to events - as is so often the case - or was he the guiding hand?

Forrest already has an appeal lodged with the OMB where it has been sleeping for over three years. Forrest appealed By-law 2013-51 (establishing the Heritage Conservation District) arguing his properties should be exempt.

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What is this all about and why is it important? Live video streaming of York Region meetings could be more than a year away because there is no funding for it in next year's Budget. The current chair, Wayne Emmerson, doesn't like the cameras so he sabotaged moves to get live streaming up and running sooner rather than later. So there will be no news clips on television in 2017 from the Council Chamber informing us what the region is up to. Screens across all media platforms will be blank. And in 2018, for the first time ever, there will be a hugely important region-wide election for the regional chair. Now read on...

This morning York Regional Council approved a Budget which includes total operational spending of $2,097 million in 2017. Capital spending is budgeted to be $942 million next year with projected capital spending of $6.1 billion out to 2026.

By any measure, York Region is a behemoth when it comes to spending.

So it is more than unfortunate there is no video record of who said what. There is a live audio feed - a rather quaint innovation which, for Committees, is barely three months old. When the meeting is over the plug is pulled and what was said disappears into the ether forever.

But that is going to change. The Region has decided in principle to video stream. The question is when?

Sleeping on the job

We need live video streaming now - and a searchable archive to see who sleeps on the job, contributing nothing to the debates.

As it happens, a report on video streaming for Council and Committee meetings is on the agenda today but it pulls its punches. We are told amendments to the Municipal Act currently before the legislative assembly may

"permit Council members to participate electronically in public meetings"

and

"if the amendment is enacted, additional renovations to the Council Chamber might be required to allow for electronic participation. There is the potential to reduce overall renovation costs for the Council Chamber f the video streaming and electronic participation renovations are completed at the same time."

You wanted a cadillac

Wayne Emmerson, the Regional Chair, didn't get to where he is today by relying on fancy technology. Or a pretty face.  He did it the hard way. Making deals and stitching things up. 

He tells his startled colleagues that the cost of installing video streaming would be in the order of $500,000. I hear a collective sharp intake of breath.

And, he says triumphantly, there is nothing in the Budget!

"But you wanted a cadillac..."

He says video streaming is a big deal. It's like putting on a show! The old lights in the Council Chamber would have to be ripped out and new brighter ones installed so viewers at home could enjoy watching their councillors in high definition. (I made the last bit up.)

Quality is an issue

Dino Basso, the Commissioner for Corporate Services, says these are only preliminary estimates but he reminds members they wanted a good viewing experience and that requires proper state-of-the-art lighting.

"There are cheaper versions but the quality may not be as good."

Basso, now increasingly assertive, tells them:

"Let's do it once and let's do it properly."

Newmarket's John Taylor who has been pressing for live streaming for a while seems to be caught off guard.

"The cost here seem immense compared with other municipalities."

He wants to know how the $500,000 splits between operating and capital expenditure.

All eyes turn to Bill Hughes, the regional treasurer, who knows where every cent goes. But in this case, unusually, he is foxed. There is more work to be done. He needs more information.

The ever-accommodating Taylor says he is prepared to be patient. Markham's Nirmala Armstrong is also surprised at the cost but she too will wait. Richmond Hill's Vito Spatafora - never one to rush into things - says they should do nothing until the legislation is passed that mandates the direct election of the regional chair.**

This leisurely timetable suits Wayne Emmerson who is now smiling.

He reassures them video streaming will happen.

"If it's in 2018 that's fine."

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*  Bill 68 will also force York Region to bring in a Code of Conduct for members. At present it chooses not to have one on the grounds that it would duplicate the Codes of Conduct in its constituent municipalities. As I tap this out I am thinking of Vaughan's Michael Di Biase.

** The Province is now legislating to force the Region to have a directly elected Chair from 2018 (the position has always been indirectly elected by Council members) and the present incumbent, Wayne Emmerson, has already declared his candidacy.

The Building Ontario Up for Everyone Act (Budget Measures) 2016 says:

The (Municipal) Act is amended by adding the following section:

Head of regional council

   218.1  (1)  On the day the new council of a regional municipality is organized following the regular election in 2018, the head of council of a regional municipality shall be elected by general vote in accordance with the Municipal Elections Act, 1996.

Another report on video streaming is expected to go before York Regional Council by March next year.


Sean Stephens, with the exotic rainbow coloured hair, is the owner of Treefrog, the website design company based on Davis Drive. He is, on his own admission, very successful.   

So when he told Newmarket Council earlier this month that he was supporting the Clock Tower development I was all ears.

Stephens, clearly exasperated, said he employed lots of talented, highly educated young people but they had one huge insurmountable problem - they couldn't find a suitable place to live in Newmarket. There was next to no rental and buying a place close to work presented its own challenges.

Rising land values

One of the reasons for this shortage is the strike by developers who already have planning approvals for condos under their belt but are sitting tight, refusing to build. As York Region treasurer, Bill Hughes, told members of the Regional Council a few weeks ago, land around here is appreciating in value so rapidly there is an incentive for owners to sit on it and do nothing.

Take the case of Peter Czapka to which I first drew attention over three years ago. He is the owner of land at the intersection of Davis and George (shown below right) where planning approval for a 280 unit 20 storey condo was given in 2009 and work still hasn't begun. Over $200m in public money has been spent on this corridor which is earmarked for intensification yet this key strategic site is left undeveloped.

Around the corner at 22 George Street, full planning approval was granted over 20 years ago for a 12 storey condo but that too still hasn't materialised.

Sunset Clause

What is needed is a sunset clause where planning approvals expire after, say, five years if they are not acted upon. 

No-one talks about this scandal of inactivity. I've never heard our Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, an intensification junkie, even mention it. Perhaps he thinks it's a bit like swearing in Church. It is not something one does.

I raised this issue with Regional Councillor John Taylor years ago and, to be fair, he was supportive. But his representations disappeared into the big void which is the Region's professional bureaucracy.

Taylor took the matter up at the Region in January 2014 when members were considering the Region's submission to the Province on proposed amendments to the Planning Act and Development Charges Act.

In a memo to all Members of the Regional Council on 21 May 2015, the Council's Chief Planner, Valerie Shuttleworth, said the proposed submission prepared by Staff

"did not address the following 2014 request"     (ie the one from Taylor)

that

"the Province also consider possible legislative changes to the Planning Act that would allow approval authorities to place time limits on zoning approvals, similar to those lapsing provisions already available on plans of subdivision"

The Province, for its own reasons, decided not to act but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why.  

The stars are in alignment

Any changes would not be retroactive but it would stop people doing in the future what people like Peter Czapka, quite lawfully, are doing today - assembling land banks where land with planning approval for development can be sterilised for years.

And servicing allocations, which should go to developments in the corridors, are diverted elsewhere - often to quiet, stable residential neighbourhoods whose residents are told they must get used to intensification.

Why on earth can't we change this?

The Province wants to direct development to the corridors where it has invested millions. The Town wants to see things happen in Davis and Yonge. And our MPP, Chris Ballard, is the Minister of Housing who wants more housing choices.

The stars are now in alignment.

When will someone take the initiative?

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On Monday 5 December 2016 Tom Vegh told residents in Ward 1 that he was ready for a bigger challenge.  

In his Community e-letter he tells them he wants to be an MPP and he is up to it:

"If I am successful in the nomination and am given the opportunity to be your Newmarket-Aurora PC candidate, I promise to represent your interests at Queen's Park with the same vigor (sic) and professionalism as I have as your Ward 1 Newmarket councillor."

This kind of sweeping statement can be a hostage to fortune.

Take the case of Silken Laumann, in his Ward, where a developer wants to build 28 Townhouses on protected meadowland, home to all sorts of vulnerable creatures. First he was against the proposal, saying the developer needed Town-owned land to proceed (where have we heard that one before?) and then he ended up voting for it despite admitting it was too close to the railway. (The houses, when built, would require round-the-clock air conditioning as the windows would have to be sealed shut because of the noise from passing trains.)

 The matter went to the OMB but Vegh, who was present throughout, chose to remain silent. I was there to defend the habitat of two threatened species of grassland birds - the Bobolink and the Eastern Meadowlark.

I also pointed to the real possibility that a new GO Rail Station would be built in close proximity. (This, of course, is now happening.)

As I was stabbing my finger in a very agitated way at a big map of the area, I looked up and saw Tom Vegh with a huge smirk on his face.

Admittedly, it wasn't my finest hour. It was a stumbling performance but I was outraged by what I was hearing. The Town's solicitor, Esther Armchuck, had just told the adjudicator the development on protected meadowland represented "good planning". There is absolutely no way any of the senior staff at the Town Hall would choose to live in that ear-splitting location, a stone's throw from the rail tracks.

Vegh's smirk was unfortunate because, until then, I had always had a soft spot for him.

I saw Vegh as the victim of reprehensible conduct by Maddie Di Muccio's husband, John Blommesteyn. A few years ago, he (Blommesteyn) had been secretly buying up Tom Vegh domain names.

At the time, Vegh tweeted:

Maddie Di Muccio is the only elected official in Canada to take another official’s domain name and re-direct it to her website.

And, he asked, why does she want seven Tom Vegh domain names?  

It was a good question.  

Di Muccio responded with a venomous attack on the innocent Tom Vegh. She called him a

"bumbling jerk"

who is

"less than a man".

This woman does not take prisoners.  

To have Maddie Di Muccio and Tom Vegh fighting for the PC nomination adds a certain piquancy to what otherwise could be a dull and run-of-the-mill process.

On 1 September 2012 - when her husband was secretly buying up Tom Vegh domain names and gaming the search engines to direct traffic to her website - Di Muccio was lecturing us on what makes a good politician:

"I believe the ingredients that make up a good politician are very simple: a strong work ethic, common sense, vision and a high moral fibre. On the other hand, the recipe for scandal has just one ingredient: a weak sense of knowing what is right from wrong. When a politician lacks moral fibre, the public has the right to know about it."

To be honest. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

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