On Feb. 4, there was a public hearing to receive comments on a high-density application for two 17-storey towers at 9000 Bathurst St. The meeting was well attended. Afterwards, I received many inquiries as to why council did not reject the proposal immediately, and I would like to clarify what elected officials can and can not do.
Under the Planning Act, the city is required to follow a process when dealing with any application. Public hearing meetings are the first step to this process. We heard from the community on issues that you felt would impact your neighbourhood, and those issues were noted by council, planning staff and by the applicant’s planner.
The next step requires staff to prepare a technical report to determine that the application meets appropriate planning merits.
I support the recommendation to form a task force because this will allow residents, the applicant and planning staff to work together to study issues and have the application align more with the current official plan and zoning bylaw. The report will need to address all concerns prior to coming to a future committee of the whole meeting.
At that point, council may vote to accept or reject the staff recommendation in the report. This is a very open and transparent process that takes place with all applications.
Council cannot simply reject an application outright without a technical report.
For more information, please contact my office at 905-832-8585, ext. 8342, or email me at Sandra.Racco@vaughan.ca. Please contact my office to receive e-newsletter updates.
