Burton talks 58-storey towers

Second in a series on Oakville's Mayor since 2006

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Since Burton's brand is "Control Growth", it might seem contradictory that he is on record as favouring 58-storey towers at our biggest transit node, the Oakville GO station. 

Has he completely lost it and caved in to the pressures of Premier Ford and his PC government? Or is he in the pocket of the developers? One wag even compared it to Colin Powell supporting the war in Iraq at the UN, where it really looked as though he was having an out-of-body experience. 

So how does Burton's head not explode supporting giant high rise urban form development after running so many campaigns on "controlling growth and keeping taxes down"? Let alone repeating Harry Barrett's line about the "city that calls itself a town and acts like a village"?

In this series, he repeats his view that it is futile to believe we will not have growth. Further, he reminds us that Oakville, like every other city or town in the province, exists at the pleasure of Queen's Park. And lest you think this is a question of who is in power, so we should resist and fight and wait for the next party to take over, Burton underlines a pretty important consideration.

By provincial legislation passed unanimously by all parties, Oakville must plan for 20,600 people and jobs (200 people and jobs per hectare) in the midtown, in other words the GO station area, by 2030. The province has designated it an "Urban Growth Centre".  By 2050, it would be expected to be double that size. 

So this is something Burton thinks we have to accept. There is a finite amount of space there (103 ha). Every storey higher means more green space at ground level. And conversely, every storey lower means more massing, more concrete at the ground level. And every housing unit accommodated within the midtown core is a housing unit that doesn't have to be accommodated by greater density on our stable neighbourhood streets, or by incursions into the greenbelt or reductions of Oakville's parkland.

Many community groups and some on council disagree with Burton and are opposed to accepting high-rise development of anything like this scale.

Others raise a different concern: they acknowledge the inevitability and desirability of growth at the transit nodes. However they raise the concern that the currently proposed amendment to the official plan to accommodate this could lead to much higher density:  90,000 people by 2030 and double again by 2050. Ben Sprawson, of Design Quorum Inc. (DQI), a local architectural firm and developer, has looked at the proposed amendment and presented it graphically at its theoretical maximum. While not suggesting that anything like this is probable, Mr. Sprawson is concerned that the current proposed amendment could open the door to much more growth than the province is requiring. Councillors Dave Gittings and Janet Haslett-Theal have put together an independent website offering similar views.

The mayor has responded to this concern with the assertion that the amendment lives within the Livable Oakville plan and the Provincial Planning Act and related legislation. A public meeting takes place on May 23rd to address these issues and he expresses his confidence that those attending or reading the staff report will see that these fears are unfounded, and that the town is only giving effect to the provincial population targets with the proposed amendment. We look forward to communicating our judgement on this issue as soon as we have seen the material. Like Mr. Sprawson, we hope these fears are unfounded, but clearly it is essential to be completely confident and test the math to ensure everything is consistent and does not lead to unintended consequences.

Burton's acceptance of population growth is, as we have pointed out, both an acceptance of provincial edicts and an awareness that the past is the best predictor of the future, which in Oakville's case would mean the population doubles on average every 21 years. New population can be accommodated up or out, and high density near transit means less traffic impact and less impact on settled neighbourhoods.

It has never been about fighting growth for Rob Burton, who clearly believes it is inevitable. (In fact, the population of Oakville has doubled 8.5 times since 1840, or once every 21 years.) For him, it is about controlling it and making Oakville as livable as possible in the process.

Will this change our town? In the mayor's view, of course, as it always has. The autonomy to say "we're full" has never been ours.

It is Burton's contention that Oakville's population growth must be accommodated in transit nodes or it will cause intensification in stable established areas. Others argue that this is not a black-and-white choice and that a balance could be struck.

Is there any chance that any Provincial government would ever give up its right to allocate population and let cities fight over who will grow and who will stay a small town?

Probably not. 

But one thing is certain: residents who want to advocate for even a bit more municipal autonomy should direct their energies at the province, not the town. They can ask their municipal representatives to take that message forward, of course, to lobby for greater autonomy or for provincial intervention to stop or reduce developments.

They can elect representatives who support that approach and who can credibly claim to be able to change the provincial position on development in Oakville.

The recent Ministerial intervention in York Region to fast-track 80-storey buildings when the municipality was pushing back on 60 storeys is the kind of signal Burton relies on to support his view that bucking the rules won't serve the community. 

Mayor Burton sees himself (our analogy, not his) as a team captain: he might argue the refereeing, and indeed he has, but he is not challenging the rule book. To carry the analogy further, that is for the board of governors, or in this case, the provincial government.

This issue will be playing out at Oakville Town Council over the next many months. Whether you support the Mayor's approach or those who want to fight these developments, or some other strategy for managing development in Oakville, you should make your views clear by attending council meetings and speaking, by communicating to your residents' associations, or by writing to your council representatives and the mayor at council@oakville.ca, and of course to your Members of Provincial Parliament Stephen.Crawford@pc.ola.org or Effie.Triantafilopoulos@pc.ola.org and the Minister of Housing.

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