Newmarket council raised questions today about a proposed 122-unit townhouse development on Woodspring Avenue that has garnered traffic concerns.
Developer Marianneville Woodspring Ltd. made its pitch to council June 24 for the development next to the Environmental Park. The public meeting highlighted the history of the development but had several residents writing in to voice concerns about how much traffic the proposal could add to the neighbourhood.
Resident Connie Chan, who presented to council, said she was concerned about additional traffic when there are already issues relating to traffic generated by the nearby schools.
“As a resident there, sometimes you feel very annoyed,” Chan said. “The traffic cannot be solved because the traffic on that street has already reached the maximum… How can we ensure the safety?”
Richard Zelinka of Zelinka Priamo Ltd. presented on behalf of the developer. He described how the property is smooth and flat, and was once proposed for a new school site. When that fell through, and no public institution wanted to buy the land, Marianneville was able to purchase it for residential development. The proposal has been in the works since at least 2022 but is now advancing toward a zoning bylaw.
He said a traffic study found that the proposal would cause an estimated 12 per cent increase in a.m. peak hour traffic and 16 per cent in the p.m. peak hour.
But Councillor Christina Bisanz said the study dates back to 2021 during the pandemic when traffic was reduced due to stay-at-home mandates for schools and businesses. She said traffic in the area related to the area schools is already garnering concern.
“The traffic is really bad. It leads to a situation where there is some very bad behaviour on the part of drivers,” Bisanz said.
The study factored in projections for future traffic, Zelinka said. He added that the collector’s roadway is designed to handle more traffic than it currently has.
“It really is a traffic management situation around the schools, which is the key,” Zelinka said. “The roads were designed for developments such as this.”
Councillors also raised the need to ensure that residents there do not take up the few parking spaces available to the neighbouring Environmental Park.
Councillor Victor Woodhouse asked about the affordability of this development's built form.
“We often speak about the missing middle,” Woodhouse said. “As much as we wish this was all lower-cost options, can we as the town control any of that?”
Director of planning Jason Unger said the municipality did discuss other possibilities, such as an apartment complex on the site instead, but ultimately it is up to the developer. He added that it is difficult to say how well it would go if the town tried to stop the development and take it to the Ontario Land Tribunal in hopes of another type of development there.
“We’d have to try and describe why a different form of housing is better,” he said.
“It’s not that easy,” Woodhouse said of the idea of halting the proposal. “The province has made it clear they want housing built.”
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor floated the idea of adding heat pumps to the proposal but said that would be a conversation that would happen during a staff-led site planning process.
“That would go an extreme distance to helping our community and the country reach some of the GHG emission reduction goals,” he said. “There’s a real opportunity.”
Unger said after factoring in the feedback on the development, a report would likely come back with recommendations on the zoning proposal sometime in the fall.
