The public meeting for the application by the landowners of the quadrant in the north east corner of King City (i.e. south west corner of 15th Sideroad/Dufferin) is scheduled for Monday May 2nd in the Council chambers at 6 PM.  Earlier I posted the information boards presented at the open house hosted by the landowners in March; I anticipate that the application and analysis thereof presented at the upcoming public meeting will be based on these boards.  This is a complex and significant application; I encourage you to read the  notice  to see the specific amendments requested. As is usual, the Staff report will be published online about 5 days before i.e. about April 27.

The public meeting is part of the process dictated by the Planning Act for Official Plan Amendment (OPA) applications.  No decision is made at this meeting.  This is the meeting where the public has the opportunity to express their point of view about the application and to ask questions.

The Township has been working on a process to review and update our Official Plan; that process is not finished yet.  Hence, this application is one to amend the Official Plan (OP) which has been in place for King City for the last nearly 15 years.

At this stage I will say that I am not opposed to increasing the density versus what is the current OP for several reasons.

• The density in the latter is not sustainable given that this new subdivision will be serviced ( i.e. municipal water and sewers).  It would cost future tax payers far too much to maintain a subdivision built per current OP.
• In addition, a prerequisite for effective  public transit is population; given that Seneca is just north of here, it is reasonable to be considering this.
• Finally, given the apparent insatiable demand for residential housing (in whatever form) we need to be building within our settlement areas in order to not encourage paving the Greenbelt and growing houses on it; yes, building more in King City is not going to save the Greenbelt on its own, but there is no reason that we should be exempt.  Having said that, the critical issue is how we are going to build, how we are preserving natural heritage features etc.  etc.

My major points of concern are as follows:

• I need to understand the requests to modify the buffers in a couple areas.  I recall from the open house that generally our buffers for the natural heritage features is being maintained; but, there were a couple specific areas where the developer is asking for some relief.
• I had hoped that this development would include a diversity of housing formats; from what I heard at the open house there is not much.
• I want to know the impact on traffic.  How are these new residents going to access the 400?
• Is the proposed density appropriate?

I am interested to hear your thoughts about this application.