Regional council candidates talk about development

Joshua Freeman caught up with the regional council candidates at the Meet and Greet session Sept. 21. He asked: Places to Grow has targets set for Vaughan’s growth and density. What will you do to ensure responsible development?

Joanna Cacciola Lionti

Ensure we don’t continue with urban sprawl that’s not necessary. First, we need to build up what we have and ensure our residents have a city where they can work, play, learn in and enjoy. Right now we don’t have that. … We need to protect the environment. Before anybody touches (protected lands), there has to be justification.

Robert Craig

Density numbers in Places To Grow have to be supported with infrastructure improvements. We can’t keep growing the city without providing essential services, like a hospital and proper roads. Putting homes here and nothing else just won’t work.

Dominic De Luca

I would encourage future residential intensification on sites that provide direct access to city, regional, Metrolinx transit routes. … Thatwould hopefully alleviate any future gridlock and traffic congestion.

Michael DiBiase

You have to make sure that what is approved is what the community wanted. … You have to have patience and listen to everybody. We cannot have the densities the region wants us to build.

Mario Di Nardo

Development needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. We need to ensure that nothing is overbuilt, that they don’t go past the targets

Mario Ferri

There’s a phasing and staging component to identify criteria to be met before development happens—availability of services, type of housing. (We) need to have work-live situations—balancing employment opportunities with residential, making sure we implement pedestrian and cycling paths, integrating transit for the community and of course making sure there’s also social health services in the area so we’re not just building structures, but building communities.

Joyce Frustaglio

I want to ensure the corridors that have been identified for intensification are dealt with first. It’s important we ensure those corridors are intensified because that will play a major role in assisting rapid transit.

Richard Lorello

Transit is always an afterthought. … Public transit capacity has to be tied to development at the beginning of the planning process.

Gino Rosati

I’ll ensure development occurs in a reasonable fashion and that we don’t overlook one part over the other. I don’t believe we should put a priority on high density while forgetting other types of development like low density.

Carrie Liddy

The big missing part of the official plan is that they never developed an economic plan to go along with it. It should be put on hold until the economic plan is done.

John Ross Harvey

The higher densities need to be in the core of the city. That’s Hwy 7, Jane Street, Yonge Street. It is not Major Mackenzie, not Rutherford, it’s not Weston Road. It has to be right where the core is going to be. Vaughan Metropolitan Centre is the perfect place for it.

Deb Schulte

I’m probably going to be appealing the Vaughan Official Plan because it doesn’t actually follow the spirit of Places to Grow. There are numbers missing, which means there’s intensification that will occur, that is planned for and it’s not being recognized or accounted for … We need to make sure that if we have intensification, we plan for it. And if you do plan for it, we don’t need the urban boundary expansion.

Krystof Klabouch

Ed. Note: Krystof Klabouch did not attend the Meet and Greet session nor respond to a phone message by press time.

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