Village Core Giveaway

Ward 4 Councillor Bill Cober voted in 2010 to support unrestricted retail development at King and Dufferin that could potentially kill the retail core of King City.

If Mayor Black hadn’t voted in favour of this particular bylaw, he would have had his way: Cleve Mortelitti said after the vote that Council, “… almost threw out the baby with the bath water”.

[It's a complicated set of issues with this application that many readers here won't want to bother with. But those that do, I provide a more detailed analysis of this bylaw further below.]

If Bill is willing to put long-standing small businesses in King City’s core at risk, what is he willing to allow on the new commercial lands across Dr. Kay Drive from Tim Horton’s, and the new commercial/industrial lands on the east side of Hwy 27?

Our tax dollars and careful preservation of what makes King special deserve more than this.

Must the whole village look and function like a sterile retail commuter depot?

Bill thinks so. He’ll deny it when you ask him – but please – look at his actions to date.  Let me take you through Bill’s participation in some recent local issues:

• He proposed nothing with Tim Horton’s to blend in better at one of the gateways to our town.  Tim Horton’s has worked in many communities to make their retail presence and operations more appealing to local tastes, including more heritage-like signage and drive-through access that is set back and hidden from street view – we have neither here.

• He’s done nothing to improve the integration and appearance of the truck depots on Lloydtown Road, one of our major town gateways.

• He did nothing, and I mean not-one-thing, to assist our concerned community representatives in making the Laurier development better integrated with our historic town.

• He’s done nothing to attract a coordinated, focused industry to Schomberg that would provide for high-wage jobs.

• He’s provided no input to the current Schomberg Community Plan update, an important document that is intended to guide development planning here but which, in my opinion, has failed in its ability to protect Schomberg from the failings such as the ones I describe here, and more.

I could go on.

Bill claims in his election materials to have “Vision”. What Vision? He explicitly voted FOR laissez faire principles to guide the future of King City’s core. I can only think he’ll apply the same approach to Schomberg and to development in general.  Thankfully, the majority of current council had the foresight to take a more controlled approach to the development and more informed heads prevailed.

There is significant value in good planning with a Vision and strategy behind it providing guiding principles.

Bill thinks differently:  He will tell you that in these tough economic times we need not hinder progress, for we need the jobs and wealth. He is quoted in the King Sentinel on the King City development application:

“Councillor Bill Cober was happy that it will bring more attention to the Township and that his colleagues should not put restraints on the project. “We are faced with economic harsh times so we should not have our noses in the air over a development, which may help the community.””

This is YOUR current Council representative talking above (in case you didn’t know).

My position: Good planning adds to the value of our community projects, doesn’t detract from them, and is an essential part of the process.

I take a “long view” on these matters as opposed to Bill Cober, who in my opinion is more opportunistic.

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DETAILS ON KING -DUFFERIN ROAD BYLAW RESTRICTION

My focus here involves an application by King North Development CR Inc. to develop the north-west corner of King and Dufferin into a very large retail/commercial development. This application represents a big potential change to King City and understandably it has received quite a bit of attention and criticism.

Bylaw 2010-95, passed by Council by a slim vote of 4 to 3 on August 23rd, was based on a Staff (Planning Dept.) recommendation to accept the findings of a known planning consultancy hired by the Township. They recommended ways of minimizing the likelihood of negative impacts to the King City “Core Area” (as defined in the King City Plan) as a result of this new, and let’s face it, very large proposed development. The lead Consultant was at Council for that meeting and at Cleve Mortelitti’s request, he summarized his findings orally.

The concern, and made very real to me based on my knowledge of Schomberg Main Street’s history with the arrival of the Brownsville Junction Plaza, is that such a large development will drain the “Core” of its retail vitality. And whereas it used to be that stores and shops formed the prominent businesses (as in Schomberg prior to the highway plaza – Tony’s Meats is a great example), today services dominate: banks, insurance companies, medical clinics, etc. Go to Kleinburg and have a good look – there are drastically fewer “stores” there today as there was 10 years ago: services predominate there now.

The Staff recommendation, based on the consultant’s findings, is to allow the retail development to proceed, but to phase-in the granting of banks and medical clinics in order for Staff to monitor what effect the other retail and service impacts will be. The limit or holding provision (H) on banks and medical offices is tied to a population threshold of 9,300. So it gives time to assess the impact to the core without setting a time limit i.e. 2 years. Could be 5 years or more or less (the trigger is population).

So these services aren’t prevented from locating there but rather delayed, and I think fairly, so that we can protect the King City “Core”. This means protecting the key (current) services and other retailers there, from the metaphorical vacuum that hit Schomberg Main Street after our plaza was built. (And by the way that was over 20 years ago and Main is still trying to recover – not very successfully as I’m sure you’ll agree). Banks and medical clinics will not “go away” in my opinion: they are hungry to secure, defend and extend their market share and they will surely be there when Staff and Council deem them not a threat to the Core.

There are a couple of additional things in the works that make this provision all the more important in this case:

Council very recently approved medical offices above the Shoppers Drug Mart and they are presently vacant.

A bank application is in process across the road from the Shoppers.

A good “core” protection tactic will see those spaces filled, to attract more walk in traffic in the area. If we let it go to Dufferin and King Road we’ll seriously hamper the core. We need the core to have a chance to gain some critical mass and to kick start more of the same along King Road and Keele.

The developer and his representative argued they shouldn’t have their hands tied on what tenants come to their plaza, especially since the Township is asking for significant improvements in the look and feel of the site. I happen to think the bylaw is a reasonable restriction, given the lessons we learned (or should have) from places like Schomberg.

This plaza, as first proposed, was a boiler-plate RioCan-type strip mall, we’ve all seen them. Is this what King City deserves considering its community values, history, and love of heritage? It’s OK for Richmond Hill, Woodbridge, Mississauga and other locations, but not in King in my opinion.  Margaret Black agreed: She ordered the proposal to be re-worked last Spring to make it, in very general terms, more appropriate for King.

Now the developer is balking at the restriction on a mere two types of businesses so we can ensure that free market forces don’t significantly damage the “core” village area.

The vote for the bylaw is interesting: In favour: Cleve Mortelliti, Jeff Laidlaw, Jane Underhill and Margaret Black. Opposed: Bill Cober, Jack Rupke and Lynda Pabst (I was surprised as well they did so, considering the clear logic and reasonableness of the restriction). If Mayor Black hadn’t voted in favour this bylaw would not have passed: Cleve Mortelitti said after the vote that Council, “… almost threw out the baby with the bath water”.

If you own, say, a framing and art gallery store in the Core, I’m sure you’d be very happy with the passing of this bylaw, for people coming to town to bank or see a doctor will continue to bring valuable walk-in business. And you can be assured the banks and medical clinics, that arguably account for most of the local traffic in the Core today, will stay there until it can be shown their ability to migrate to the plaza won’t be detrimental. Certainly not until expected population growth justifies removing the provision.