Steve Somerville
This plaza and the strip along Yonge Street north of Steeles Avenue is slated for re-development. Developer Liberty wants to turn this land into a major mixed-use development with 30-storey or higher condominium towers.
Markham
October 11, 2008 09:30 PM
Sprawling retail stores out, mixed-use growth, including 30-storey buildings in, planners say
David Fleischer
After nearly 20 years at the corner of Yonge Street and Langstaff Road, Tony Pacito is philosophical about having to uproot his business.
“I started with two acres, now I have 11-and-a-half,” he said.
Despite the history of growth, Beaver Valley Stone will move to Vaughan, likely within five years.
In its place, just south of Hwy. 407, condominiums and a new mixed-use community, housing as many as 30,000 people, will rise.
All along Langstaff, and certainly along Yonge, are strip malls and other businesses set to go the way of the dodo, paving the way for a new vision for what the region’s main street could be.
“Things are going to happen in a big way along the Yonge corridor,” Markham planner Ron Blake said.
Things are moving fast with studies by Markham and Vaughan re-evaluating planning on their sides of the strip.
Despite being a relatively small area, planning for the corridor involves five municipalities: York Region, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill and Toronto.
Ensuring all plans dovetail is important, but York planners and politicians are happy with how things are going.
“We’re working close together all along Yonge Street because we want to have a street that’s in concert on both sides and provide a quality of urban environment,” Vaughan Councillor Alan Shefman said.
A driving factor (no pun intended) behind all the work now under way is the increasing likelihood a subway will soon wend its way up to Richmond Hill.
The extension of the Yonge subway, which seemed like a pipe dream little more than one year ago, is moving briskly with a preferred route selected and a broundbreaking could follow in less than two years.
Viva transit planners have selected six likely station locations (four entirely in York Region) and intensified development is sure to follow.
Pleased as punch at a public meeting about the subway last week was the Midway Diner’s Cosmo D’Aguanna.
He was among the first to get residents and business owners, such as Mr. Pacito, onside to lobby for the subway.
Residents and business owners still need to see what the future brings and he hopes streetscaping fix-ups on Yonge will be among the long-term improvements.
“It’s coming together but we still need to be careful,” he said.
“Clearly, the subway is immense but the real core issue here is we want to have a plan that will work in concert with what the subway must do,” Mr. Shefman said.
“It’s a balance between (the provincially mandated growth blueprint) Places to Grow, where we have to intensify certain areas, and protecting our residents and neighbourhoods.”
Just one example of that protection can be seen in the way Vaughan’s study leapfrogs Thornhill’s heritage district. Both sides of Yonge are protected by a joint plan Markham and Vaughan established a few years ago.
The first meeting for Vaughan’s study took place two weeks ago and was well attended, Mr. Shefman said.
Markham’s study is nearly complete.
It was launched in response to plans by developer Liberty to turn the former Hy & Zel’s plaza into a major mixed-use development with 30-storey condominium towers or higher.
The town decided it was time to stop and think about what the future of Yonge should be.
In the meantime, Liberty took its case to the Ontario Municipal Board, where a pre-hearing convened last Monday.
A full hearing is tentatively set for May but could be moved up if the parties can resolve the issues still on the table.
Markham council sees the full plan Oct. 14 and the picture will be clearer then.
A draft version of the corridor study shows buildings with maximum heights of nine to 10 storeys. Special zones, set just back from the street, allow for the heights Liberty is proposing.
Having a transition between those high buildings and the existing neighbourhood is a concern for residents and planners.
Markham’s plan envisions 3,700 new units housing 7,500 residents between Steeles and Clark avenues.
If a resolution is not reached by May, the OMB will hear Liberty’s redevelopment plans.
Even when approved, construction will be phased with commercial and retail developments going in first.
“We’re sitting on opposite sides of the table but we’re not that far apart,” Markham counsel Catherine Lyons said.
Whatever their final form, the Liberty towers will become Thornhill landmarks.
Mr. Shefman wants to see a similar gateway established with a high-density building at the northwest corner of Yonge and Steeles, now occupied by a strip mall and an abandoned Chapters store.
Low-rise retail developments and car dealers are part of the area’s past. The stretch is ripe for redevelopment, but it has to be done right, he said.
Be part of the plan:
- You can learn more about Markham’s study at tinyurl.com/3h9453 and Vaughan’s at tinyurl.com/3g7oym
- The region is about to begin an environmental assessment of the Yonge subway. It could roll by 2016 if all goes according to plan. The next public meeting takes place Oct. 26 at North York City Centre, followed by a Nov. 26 meeting in Richmond Hill. You can learn more at www.vivayork.org
- Markham’s Yonge-Steeles study goes to council Oct. 14. The next step is an official plan amendment to lock in the new planning rules.
- Vaughan’s study began in the spring and includes a public design workshop Oct. 20 at the Rosemount Community Centre.