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Hardball
When the village gathered in the basement of CML Snider school 11 years ago to consider how Wellington might grow, no one imagined this. No one raised their hand in favour of doubling or tripling the village population in two short decades.
Neighbours talked about what they love about Wellington, about the values and character of the village, and the things they believed must be preserved—tree-lined streets, the built heritage, the walkability, proximity to the shoreline of two lakes, the pastoral setting all around.
The collective aspirations of the village were encapsulated in a new Secondary Plan—the first rewrite in 30 years. It prescribed how the village would grow and how fast. It envisioned 251 new residential units over 20 years in the most modest scenario, 726 in the more moderate projection, and 1,413 new residential units in the most aggressive scenario considered—a mix of detached, semis and apartments.
Despite the explicit and clear direction contemplated in the community-developed Secondary Plan, Shire Hall is, instead, planning for many more homes in Wellington. Indeed, it is preparing for 2,591 new residential units in Wellington over the next 20 years. To do this, Shire Hall is effectively tossing out the village’s Secondary Plan and writing a new one, this time based upon the developers’ desired pace of development.
Shire Hall says the pace is out of their hands. They say the Secondary Plan didn’t put sufficient tools in the hands of County planners to control or manage new residential growth. Moreover, they say the Secondary Plan wasn’t designed to control or regulate the development of land by private interests. That instead, it provides the framework for making decisions on how to grow, the provision of public services and facilities, and the protection and enhancement of the quality of place.
However, it strains credulity that Wellington’s Secondary Plan would set out to protect the quality of life without providing reins on the pace of growth. How do you do one without the other?
In 2011 there were about 1,000 homes in the village. It has grown to about 1,200 today. Adding 2,591 new homes over the next 20 years will change this community. It may go well. Perhaps everything will go perfectly. It is much easier, however, seeing this pace of change going horribly wrong. Of infrastructure budgets spinning out of control. Of acres of serviced land populated with milkweed and expired ambition.
Not everyone was thrilled with the pace of growth prescribed in the village’s Secondary Plan. Still, enough folks understood in 2010 that the pressure of Toronto’s rising home prices would soon wash over this village—and that new residential home supply was necessary to meet growing demand.
Developers had already staked out land north of the Millennium Trail from Consecon Street beyond Belleville Road—armed with plans for more than 750 homes. Folks understood the village was growing—and needed to grow.
None of it was a surprise—except Shire Hall’s complete surrender to the developers’ time frame. Before the first shovel was put into the ground.
So, what to do? Shire Hall officials say the ‘ship has sailed’ and these numbers are ‘baked in’ to the value of the land. (They might start by not using this language anymore.)
Perspective is everything. From Shire Hall, Wellington is a $100 million waterworks master servicing plan—the biggest infrastructure project ever undertaken in this municipality. It is a development charge and tax base cash machine. It is a series of insistent developers champing at the bit to turn soil into homes. It is a big project. A challenge. Legacy stuff.
It looks entirely different from Main Street. This is our home. We have one shot at this. We must get it right.
Perhaps we made mistakes. Perhaps we carved out too much land for development. Perhaps we should have insisted on rigid and explicit controls upon the pace of development in the Secondary Plan. But it is useless and utterly self-defeating for folks to shrug their shoulders and claim their hands are tied because of decisions made before them. We have heard that every day since amalgamation. Even when it is true, it is a feeble excuse for failing to push back. It is an even worse negotiating posture.
It is time to find our backbone. Our leadership must assert this community’s will as stated clearly and emphatically in Wellington’s Secondary Plan. That is why we write such documents.
None of the 2,591 basements has been dug yet. It is way too soon to wave a white flag. Pick the most aggressive scenario if you must—set 1,413 new residential units as the cap for the next 20 years. It is time to play hardball.
It is time for our leaders to look developers in the eye with a steely gaze and welcome them to our community. But in the very next breath, make it crystal clear that we are their partners in this venture. That we are going watch them like a hawk from the first shovel in the ground to the final nail in the last house.
It is time for our leaders to set the pace of development. Something recognizable to the folks who put their heart and soul into the Secondary Plan. Because they believed it mattered.
Yes, developers will howl and threaten. They will stamp their feet and claim they have rights. But 1,413 homes isn’t zero. There is a market window that exists currently, through which each wants or needs to pass through quickly. They want to be in the ground. Now.
They know this market window may not stay open forever. Demand is untested. Will it be satisfied in a few years? Well short of the thousands of new homes their marketing folks project? Will lending markets remain willing to place their bets on an overheated Canadian housing sector? Will governments let them? Or, once the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, will the appeal of urban life prove more durable than the romance of living in the country? Four hours is a long commute.
Developers need to be in the ground and selling homes. We still have some bullets in our gun. Start to negotiate. Hard. As if you live here.
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