HousingNowTO
Senior Member
Releasing that "MZO delay" NEWS at 4:30 PM on a Friday in mid-August is just the icing on the cake… Willowdale RA be like...
It's hard to describe just how bad a look it is when the government has been touting MZO's as necessary to speed up affordable housing and there are literally modular units locked up behind a fence, waiting to go to an affordable housing project, as soon as the MZO comes through.
Just appalling hypocrisy and transparent political pandering in a swing riding, IMHO.
From Star article above: "
"We expect that city councils have done their due diligence and have conducted proper consultation in their communities before any request for an MZO comes to the minister for consideration," said Clark's director of communications Zoe Knowles, in an emailed statement.
"The ministry was not satisfied that proper consultation with impacted members of the community had been completed by the City of Toronto. As such, further consultation is needed," Knowles added."
Do these people not even have short-term memory and think about how THEY issued MZOs for The Foundry site after absolutely ZERO consultation with anyone, except their developer pals.
Hahaha, they would know something about "proper consultation" wouldn't they?
AoD
You missed my point - which is a government that is one of the least inclined to engage in public consultation using inadequate public consultation an excuse.I know everyone here knows this but pretty much every time the Province has passed an MZO, the municipalities and/or residents have complained about the lack of consultation.
It's a feature, not a bug of MZOs. Indeed, one "good" thing they do is allow for affordable housing or other contentious projects to get speed past the obstruction NIMBYs usually present. As with any democratic shortcut,there are tradeoffs and we seem to have learned with MZOs that most of us are OK with that, for projects like this one (and less for, say, a warehouse on a wetland)..
You really don't have to be a genius to put two and two together here on the hypocrisy at work.
This is a pretty prominent delay and there's probably only a few more months (maybe weeks) before MMAH stops MZOing, ahead of the election, and if they actually stall long enough... well, I guess it'll be a local election issue and (as with everything that's been going on with Royal Orchard on the Yonge subway) it'll be interesting to see how significant a few hundred loud objectors actually are.
You missed my point - which is a government that is one of the least inclined to engage in public consultation using inadequate public consultation an excuse.
City staff have repeatedly requested information from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as to if and when the MZO would be made. At this time, 6 months have passed since Council's initial request. The modules which will be used at the proposed development site completed manufacturing in November 2021, and since that time have been stored at a TTC parking lot space under a short term lease arrangement. Although the fastest course of action continues to be the issuance of an MZO, the lack of a Provincial response to the City's request forces us to put a potentially much lengthier City rezoning process in place. Adoption of this motion will direct staff to bring this report to the March 25, 2022 meeting of the Planning and Housing Committee. City Planning staff will issue the notice of the statutory public meeting as required under the Planning Act. Should Council adopt the proposed zoning by-law amendment, and no appeals are received by the Ontario Land Tribunal within the 20 day appeal period, the City will be able to proceed with construction of the project in Q3 of 2022 with occupancy anticipated in early 2023. |