Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra issued two new zoning orders on Friday to allow a pair of condo developments in Vaughan containing over 2,750 new units to proceed.
Orders Calandra issued on Friday could help accelerate the projects that would each build up previously developed properties within walking distance from the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre transit station.
Minister’s zoning orders (MZOs) are a provincial tool typically used to fast-track developments, including by overruling local land-use rules. Premier Doug Ford’s government has used MZOs prolifically, issuing more than all previous provincial governments combined. Late last year, in the wake of the Greenbelt scandal, Calandra announced his ministry would consider their use through a new process that’d stress municipalities’ insistence upon them.
Both MZOs Calandra issued on Friday came after Vaughan’s council voted last December to ask the province to issue similar, but now defunct, types of orders for the projects.
The larger of the two projects that’s proposed would include up to four mixed-use buildings — two apiece at 32 and 35 stories tall — with up to 1,488 residential units on top of ground floor commercial spaces.
During the 30-day consultation over the MZO held via the province’s environmental registry this spring, the Housing Ministry received over 300 submissions. The ministry’s summary said “key concerns” voiced during the consultation period were over potential added congestion and density and the need for infrastructure and amenity improvements.
The project the other new MZO is set to allow is also proposed to feature four buildings. Three are mixed-use towers of 12, 50 and 60 storeys with 1,269 residential units and some office and retail space. The fourth is an eight-storey hotel. The project’s developer also plans to build a small public park. Only seven submissions were made to the 30-day consultation over a possible MZO for it.
Also on Friday, Calandra shut down a request for an MZO from the Township of Perth South. The council for the town, located just west of Stratford, hoped an MZO would pave the way for an industrial and commercial development. However, lands in question “are located within a flood hazard” that an MZO can’t be a workaround of, the decision posted to the environmental registry said.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing posted three other MZO-related consultations on the province’s environmental registry last week. Toronto’s and Waterloo’s councils asked for one apiece. The third follows “two privately initiated applications” asking for land-use changes in Oakville, the ministry wrote in an environmental registry posting.
The MZO asked for in Toronto would permit a new mosque, community centre and nine-storey mid-rise including 220 rental units in Rexdale, a neighbourhood a few kilometres east of the Pearson International Airport.
The City of Waterloo wants Calandra to issue an MZO to rezone almost 25 acres of municipally owned land on its outskirts so a mixture of market-rate, affordable, and attainable housing could be built there.
Whether three properties in outer Oakville, just south of Highway 407, should be removed from the Parkway Belt West Plan — which restricts development to reserve land for potential infrastructure — “to facilitate future employment uses” is the subject of the third consultation. The move would require a previous MZO to be revoked, according to the environmental registry posting.
The public is welcome to provide input to the three newly launched MZO consultations until Sep. 15.
MZOs under a microscope
Over the last year, Ontario’s auditor general's office has been working on an audit of the Ford government’s process for approving MZOs. The government expects the auditor’s office to release its findings before the end of the year.
Shortly after Ford appointed him housing minister last September, Calandra announced he’d be developing a new process for receiving MZO requests and issuing them. In December, Calandra effectively threatened to revoke or change 22 — almost one in four — of those previously issued since the Progressive Conservative came into power. In April, he revoked six and amended another. The future of fourteen more remains in question.
Calandra has issued eight MZOs of his own in his 11-and-a-half months as housing minister.
