Thank you 42. I've been reading up on the proposal - crazy # of documents. A few things I noticed about this development: 1 - the physical signs have been willfully placed face down or moved behind the bus shelter. 2 - the community notification was sent to 400m from the development. I'm 1.2k away. The transportation study clearly shows my street involved in the review - yet we were not included in the notification or consultation. The study itself was conducted during the pandemic and while the community was under lock down. There is a high school directly across the street from the development. Yet there is no mention of this in the study or the impacts of the student/pedestrian movement. So the traffic and pedestrian volumes are no where close to what they truly are. The development is sitting on the border of 2 wards - which means 2 city Councillors. I'm just starting to scratch the surface and not sure how to move forward. Do I start reaching out to the neighbours about it or work through both Councillors.
There's no conspiracy to limit the notification of the development: 400 metres from the site is much further out from it than the City normally circulates the notices, and certainly the City never, never, never ever sends notices 1.2 km away: the statutory requirement is only 120 metres, so the City is actually going above and beyond what is required here.
Regarding the traffic study: these are put together by professionals and reviewed by professionals, all of whom are aware of the situation we find ourselves in now in regards to lowered traffic counts. If there are any issues with the study, the City will pick up on it. A building proposed 1.2 km away from you, and at the meeting point of two major transit routes, is going to have negligible traffic impact on you, so reaching out to your immediate neighbours to rally support strikes me as overkill: you are a long way away from this. Meanwhile, spots like this at the meeting point of two arterial roads is exactly where the City is happy to get applications such as this. Whether this one is too dense and/or tall, or not, will get hammered out as part of the planning process.
There may be some interest in this for the Councillor whose ward this is across from (Filion), but the one who would be the lead on this is the one whose ward this is actually in, so that's James Pasternak.
In the end, remember that there are intense development pressures on the GTA, with a demand for housing that outstrips supply. We have to add housing, so the responsible thing to do is to put it where there is infrastructure in place to support it (like here), and not out in far flung suburbs that used to be productive farmland. It will be a waste of your time and the planet's resources to try to stop development here, but it may be worth your time to help shape what does get approved, if you think you might have some insight that cold make the project better.
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