Hello Neighbours,

A big thank you to the whole community for showing up in large numbers to the Public Hearing! We had a huge turnout and we filled the Council Chamber, as well as two overflow rooms.

There were upwards of 30 amazing speakers who spoke eloquently as to why they oppose the rezoning application, and why a 15-storey condo does not make sense on Queen Filomena and Bathurst.

At the end of the meeting, almost every councillor reiterated that they "do not support the application in its current form", which is the best we could have hoped for during this meeting. The councillors themselves raised many concerns about the size of the project, and the impact to the community.

For those that were unable to attend, the video recording can be found online here. We were 4th on the agenda, so you can skip ahead to 14 minutes. The closing comments from the councillors start at around 2 hours 30 minutes.

Here's a link to the agenda package that was distributed yesterday, it shows some of the exceptions that the developer is asking for. There's also an interesting paragraph on page 11, which states:

"According to York Region, the Development represents a significant increase in height and density and will have cumulative impacts on York Region’s road network and water and wastewater systems and appear not to conform with the planned urban structure and intensification hierarchy. Therefore, exemption of the proposed Official Plan Amendment Application has been denied by York Region at this time. The final approval of the Official Plan Amendment will be forwarded to York Region Council."

It's great news that York Region also has concerns about this proposal. We now await the official report/decision from the Vaughan City Council which is expected towards the end of April.

If you live in Richmond Hill, please email your concerns to your elected officials and let them know you are opposed to the rezoning application. Feel free to use the template email which can be found on www.preserveupperthornhillestates.com.

The City of Richmond Hill will also be directly impacted by this development.

Here are the email addresses:

officemayor@richmondhill.ca
godwin.chan@richmondhill.ca
joe.dipaola@richmondhill.ca
simon.cui@richmondhill.ca
karen.cilevitz@richmondhill.ca

Thanks again for your support.