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Last night’s candidates Q&A, hosted by the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce, is great free entertainment but it is also revealing. Everyone is on their best behaviour – including the moderator, Steve Hinder, who is enthusiastically in favour of the proposed Clock Tower development but doesn’t let his bias show and handles things well. 

Given their views on the Clock Tower, Ian Johnston and Tom Pearson can be immediately discounted. They are not serious contenders.

Tracee Chambers is against. She believes the Heritage By-law should be respected. She wants a master plan for the old downtown.

Ron Eibel is against. He insists on a strict three storey height cap.

Peter Geibel is against. He wants to move Forrest’s condo from Main Street to the tennis courts. Intensification is needed but it should go where it belongs.

Ian Johnston is for. He is all over the place before concluding that Forrest’s Clock Tower is needed.

Tom Pearson is for. He says it is not going away. He says anyone who believes that is dreaming in technicolour.

Bob Kwapis is against 7 storeys but, other than that, it is open for discussion.

Darryl Wolk is against. He is very firm on the three storey limit. He says the By-law must be respected.

Apart from the two outliers, Johnston and Pearson, the former often incoherent and the latter credulous, a clear majority of the candidates reject Mayor Tony Van Bynen’s view that the Clock Tower “is a great example of the intensification we need”.

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Details

The drawings and elevations of the proposed development at the old school site are now available. You can check them out here.

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In my commentary on Bob Forrest’s “Project Landscape” I talked about the zoning magic that apparently allows the Clock Tower development to rise to seven storeys.

It is all smoke and mirrors.

All Bob Forrest’s buildings are within UC-D1 which restricts any new developments to three storeys. However, the property line at 190 Main Street South (owned by Forrest) extends into the Market Square parking lot and into the UC-D2 zone allowing Forrest to claim in his Planning Justification Report that

“a portion of the property (ie the land that he owns) and the lands to the west zoned UC-D2 permit six storeys as of right.”

In fact, a tiny portion of the land he owns falls into UC-D2. He could not build anything on such a postage stamp sized piece of land.

Instead he uses it in a land swap to get the land he needs for his underground car park which is owned by the Town.

The map below shows the zone boundaries delineated by a heavy black line while the darker purple lines are property lines.

Forrest explains all this in his “Project Landscape” in his answer to Q16:

“Market Square is a public parking lot, located west and south of the proposed building. Part of the lot is on land that is owned by the applicant (Bob Forrest). The applicant proposes to convey surface rights to its portion of Market Square to the municipality while retaining below grade rights for its underground parking structure. In return, the applicant is seeking underground rights to a small area of Market Square which belongs to the Town. This constitutes the so-called “Land Swap”.”

Forrest says he will exchange the surface rights to his little portion of Market Square if he gets underground rights

“to a small area of Market Square which belongs to the Town”. (My underlining)

In fact, the exchange is not remotely equivalent.

The land swap is a seriously bad deal.

The drawings below (parking levels 1 and 2) show Forrest’s property line and the huge amount of underground parking space that comes from the Town. (And, of course, there are no public spaces. The spaces are all reserved for Clock Tower residents and their visitors.) The drawing for parking level 3 does not show the property line and is not reproduced here.

The bottom line is this:

The Clock Tower development cannot proceed without the land swap.

And the land swap gives nothing to the Town – except surface rights to a small portion of Market Square.

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Update on 4 October 2016: I should have mentioned that a closed session of the Committee of the Whole in June 2013 gave "approval in principle" to the land swap. This is, of course, not binding.

Underground Parking at the Clock Tower. Level 1 (note the property line. Everything to its right is land owned by Forrest and, to the left, owned by the Town)

Underground Parking at the Clock Tower. Level 2. (Again, note the property line)

 

Details

The drawings and elevations of the proposed development at the old school site are now available. You can check them out here.

Comment will follow.

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Details

To Café Hesed on Main Street South for my chat with Ward 5 hopeful, Bob Kwapis.

If we take the number of lawn signs as any guide, he is unquestionably the front runner.

Bob is already there when I arrive on the dot at 9am, eyes fixed on his smart phone. I am here to find out - if I can – what distinguishes Bob from the other six candidates in the race. He tells me we met briefly about five years ago when he was handing out lawn signs urging drivers to slow down.

This is the cue for a long discussion on traffic safety - his signature policy. He tells me how he successfully got trucks off residential streets in Ward 5 when Davis Drive was being reconstructed. He is obviously deeply concerned about traffic safety. What was the trigger for his interest?

He lives on Parkview Crescent and says it is impossible to get out onto Queen Street. He tells me he was shocked when a neighbour’s dog was run over and killed.  It could have been a child. (He lives close to a school.)

Angry drivers

Bob tells me he is driving along Millard – which he describes as a landing strip - at the regulation 40km when an impatient driver zooms past, yelling and giving him the finger. Bob laughs but, as he knows, speeding is no laughing matter.

Bob smiles a lot, frequently calling me by my first name. He has an easy manner and I come to the view early on that, if he is elected to Newmarket Council on 17 October, he would fit in nicely.

He wouldn’t be a shock to the system. It would quietly embrace him.

It is not that he doesn’t have views of his own, he does. But he is essentially pragmatic.

Flexibility important

Now we are on to the Clock Tower and I ask if he has ever met Bob Forrest. No. But they have talked on the phone. So, what does Bob K think about the present 7 storey planning application, would he vote for it? No. But he thinks there should be some flexibility in applying the current by-law with its three storey height cap. He says that’s why there is such a thing as by-law amendments.

But isn’t the system completely fraudulent when a heritage by-law, enacted less than three years ago, can be set aside? Why can’t the Town enforce its own by-laws? He says flexibility is important and if a developer comes forward with a great proposal for a building over three storeys then the Council should consider it and decide on a case by case basis.

But wouldn’t this open the floodgates to further applications breaching the height cap? No. The Council would still have to go through the by-law amendment process which is quite rigorous.

Groundhog day

But the proposal on the table is for seven storeys and, if elected, that is what he will be voting on. If the Clock Tower application is rejected what does Bob Forrest do? He can sell up or he can put in another revised application. But if Forrest tries again with a very different proposal it will count as a new application with another Statutory Public meeting and all the usual delays. It is groundhog day again! Can this be allowed to go on forever?

And what about the old buildings, boarded-up and neglected? Won’t they simply decay if left empty for years and years?

Bob tells me Forrest has the right to submit a planning application which the Council mustn’t rush. It mustn’t be open ended but it’s gotta be thorough. You’ve got to take the time to get it right.

Parking Standards

Now I ask Bob if parking is a problem downtown. Not all the time but when there is a big event it can be a headache to find a spot. So what does he thinks of Bob Forrest’s proposal to have 199 parking spaces at the Clock Tower when the Town’s own engineers want 299? He wouldn’t be as rigid and uncompromising as the Town’s engineers. A little bit of flexibility is needed taking into account the nature of the development and the number of one bedroom units.

Now I am suggesting that Main Street South doesn’t need the Clock Tower development to be vibrant. It is doing very well at the moment. He says there is not enough variety and cites seven hairdressers (or is it nine?) to make his point. He wants more boutique shops. What about grocers and corner shops? With rents moving upwards is that even remotely feasible? Bob tells me if the market is there it will happen. Hmmm. I dunno. Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

Now we are talking about his lawn signs which are absolutely everywhere in Ward 5. How on earth was it possible to get them up in so many locations over an 8 hour period? I am impressed. It was quite the operation. He says he had lots of help from his family. Bob says he is giving it 100%. No half measures. Does this explain the robo-calls? He corrects me - voice messaging.

Bob says he has now knocked on every door in Ward 5 (echoes of Darryl Wolk who makes the same claim) but if he doesn’t catch people at home then he needs to reach them in other ways.

As we get up to leave I ask him if he is nervous about tomorrow night – the candidates Q&A.

No.

He is looking forward to all the questions.

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