Good afternoon everybody. This meeting of the community affairs and planning committee is being held virtually. This meeting is also being livereamed and may be viewed online at ajax.calive. Friendly reminder to all participants to please activate your microphone only when recognized by the chair. To those making submissions as part of a public meeting or during question period, please ensure you clearly state your name. If you decide you no longer wish to speak on an item on agenda, please leave the virtual meeting and continue watching the live stream on YouTube should you wish to do so. I'll now call this meeting to order. We'd like to begin this meeting by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is situated within the traditional and treaty territories of the Missagas. More specifically, the Missagas of Skugog Island First Nation, signitories of the Gunshot Treaty of 1788 and the Williams Treaties of 1923. This land is and will continue to be home to the indigenous peoples. Let us acknowledge the mistakes and traumas of the past through authenticity and support truth and reconciliation. Let us engage and celebrate indigenous communities by being leaders of action and acknowledging the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations towards truth and reconciliation. Let us keep these principles close as we continue towards truth and reconciliation and as we move forward with kindness and respect as a community. Any members of council have any disclosures of community interest? Seeing none, can I get a mover for the adoption of minutes for May 4th, 2026? I see councelor Bower. Any questions, comments, concerns on that? Seeing none, we'll start the vote on the minutes. for apologies. We needed a secondary. I got this confused with GGC. Councelor Tyler Mour, you are the secondary for the minutes. Is that okay? Give me a nod. Seeing that. Perfect. Okay, folks. We have uh pretty fast meeting. We're gonna get through this very quickly. Uh we're first going to start with a public meeting for PDS 2026-17 zoning our future comprehensive zoning bylaw review phase 2 final amendment. Um clerk do we have any de or public delegations? >> We do. Okay. Uh the first one please. Okay. Um the first one is thank you Tamika Marcus Ajax resident. Tamika if you could just hit your select to speak we can go from there. And you have five minutes. Great. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, >> we can hear you just fine. >> Wonderful. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My attendance is to formally request that staff and/or supporting consultants be directed to complete a social impact assessment as part of planning and include the findings in a report along with the eight other technical reports completed as part of the final zoning document. Uh the report should have a strong focus on the downtown area as we are currently seeing the limits of existing zoning in the commercial avenue area as well as use of temporary bylaw amendments to support things such as crisis care. Staff have produced eight excellent technical reports for this review covering parking trees strong neighborhoods. Yet there is no report evaluating the social or people related impacts social services as well as other services have on the area as well as potential impacts as a result of new requests that we know will be recommended especially as a result of the region's urban center social services methodology and the town's findings as it relates to winter warming and the recommendations to find alternative locations for the upcoming winter. Similar to how it is prudent to complete a traffic or environmental report as part of a new subdivision, updating the downtown central area zoning without a social impact assessment would result in gaps and blind spots, potentially codifying land usage that has already been admittedly problematic for the area stability and growth. So this afternoon, I'm looking for your support for the completion of this report and inclusion as part of final plans. Thank you. Thank you very much for that delegation. Uh members of committee, anybody have any questions for the resident? I see councelor Bower. Councelor Bower. >> Thank you very much. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon, Miss McCurious. Nice to see you and thank you for taking the time to come out and delegate to us for this very important matter. Uh I guess my question I'm sorry chair is not so much for the delegate but for staff if they could speak to this social impact uh assessment report that Miss McCurious has talked about and sort of tell us what what would be involved in completing something like that. Please >> councelor Bowerer there's going to be a presentation and then a report afterwards. if we don't mind saving that specific question um for the report, we can just ask questions to the delegate now, please. >> Okay, thank you. Uh no, I have no further questions. I I'm happy that Tamika has brought this forward and I will be following up with staff at the appropriate time for that assessment report. Thank you. >> Thank you. And thank you, Tamika, for joining us today. You're welcome. Our next delegate we have um Joshua Butcher, senior director of development on behalf of First Capital Canada or First Capital Corporation. Um Joshua, are you there? Yes, you are. And you have five minutes. >> Perfect. You can hear me? >> We can hear you. >> Great. Yeah. Hello everyone. Uh good afternoon. My name is Joshua Butcher. I'm a senior director of development at First Capital REIT, which is one uh the owner of Harwood Plaza at 280 to 350 Harwood Avenue and 33 Hunt Street, which is held by our subsidiary, First Capital, Ajax Corporation. As you may recall, I appeared before this committee back in uh November of 2025 and spoke to our official plan amendment and resoning application to establish permissions to allow for a comprehensive redevelopment of the north end of the property with three buildings at 16, 23, and 30 stories. The application was approved by council and resulted in sight specific exception 231 without any holding provisions. However, it's recently come to our attention that the draft uh comprehensive zoning bylaw review before the committee today contemplates the addition of a holding provision due to the site's proximity to 170 mil road, the index energy facility, and that to remove the holding provision, we must one submit uh an air quality study, and two, enter uh into a site plan agreement that um requires the implementation and of any of the required mitigation measures identified in that air quality study. Our request today is a simple one that our lands be excluded from this holding provision because part of the review of our official plan amendment and resoning application. We included a compatibility and mitigation study prepared by SLR which included an assessment an air quality assessment uh as well as noise and vibration and it was peer-reviewed for the town. The study concluded that the site is anticipated to be compatible with surrounding land uses with the inclusion of appropriate mitigation measures and use of warning clauses, namely the provision of air conditioning to allow windows to remain closed as needed. Um, and the provision the positioning of air intake strategically. These are all pretty typical conditions across Ontario for residential development sites uh located near industry. And we submit that a holding provision is not necessarily required to ensure these measures are contained in a site plan agreement as the property is already subject to the sound the town's site plan control bylaw already requiring the submission of a site plan application to permit development. At that time these matters would be assessed again for a second time. And then just finally for the benefit of all the properties subject to this holding provision, I just want to point out that I believe the H language as currently drafted could be deemed to be inconsistent with policy 351 and 352 of the recent uh provincial planning statement. The H language says that the air quality study must identify that there will be no negative or adverse effects. Whereas the provincial planning statement provides that sensitive land uses shall be planned and developed to avoid negative or adverse effects but also contemplates where avoidance is not possible, the effects should be minimized or mitigated. So anyways, I just wanted to point that out. some food for thought um before amendments go to council later this month as a slight uh language tweak may avoid some inconsistency issues going forward. Anyways, that's it for me and I'm happy to answer any questions uh that the committee may have. >> Thank you. We'll start with Mayor Collier. >> Oops. Thank you, Chair. And just I'll I'll try and do this as a question. Uh Mr. Butcher, were you aware that I will be bringing amendments later on that will uh satisfy some of your items that you brought up in your correspondence? >> I heard that there Yeah, I had heard uh end of day on Friday just because we only realized this was happening as of Friday. Um there have been some messages flying around and so yeah if it if uh if an amendment can be uh to put through to kind of address this issue is that will uh that will solve our concerns. >> I think the one that pertains to you is the zoning schedule specifically map 19 be amended to remove holding provision 31 from lands municipally known as 33 Hun Street which were subject to zoning bylaw amendment application Z 20/24 and approved through bylaw 86205. That will satisfy your concern. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other questions from committee to the delegate? Seeing none, thank you very much, Mr. Butcher, for joining us on the call today. >> Oh, no. He's good. Um to the clerk. Any other speakers from the public? >> No. >> No. Okay. Going once, twice. Okay. We are now closing the public comment portion of this public meeting. Um so now we're going to start with um we're back to item PDS 27 26 to 17. We have a presentation u Michael Sajuk on the comprehensive zoning bylaw review phase 2 final amendment. Mr. subject. >> Do you want to hit the head with the three lines emanating from the head to ask to speak? There you are. >> Good afternoon. I'm just waiting for the presentation to load here. All right, should be up there now. All right. Uh, good afternoon everyone. My name is Mike Sashek. I'm a senior planner with the town and I'm going to be speaking you uh to you today about the phase 2 final amendment for the comprehensive zoning bylaw review. So, a little bit of background. Uh the town's completing a comp comprehensive review of its zoning bylaw to ensure that it implements the town's official plan and aligns with provincial regulations and policies. Now this is a project that has been ongoing for some time. Uh and it has played out in three major parts. The first part dates back to March 2015 when uh discussion papers were released to initiate the conversation on the zoning bylaw direction. uh in June 2024, part two uh was undertaken and that was the release of eight different technical reports and also a draft uh bylaw and that was really designed to outline the proposed changes to the zoning bylaw as proposed by staff. Now the final stage is part three approvals. Now in March 2025, we brought forward a set of amendments related to uh additional dwelling units and those were approved by council and now we are looking to bring forward the remaining amendments. So a little bit about the consultation strategy uh that we've undertaken and uh this slide really only highlights what's been done since June 2024. There was also a fair bit of consultation uh that emanated from the original part of this project back in March um 2015. So since June 2024 uh staff have held four different openhouse sessions. Those were largely behind uh sorry those were largely in the summer 2024. Uh just making sure the slides align here. I think there's a a bit of a lag. Um so there have also been several popup uh events that have happened. Those were largely through the Ajax markets and Trailfest and we held agency and industry stakeholder meetings as well in August 2024 and statutory public meetings in October 2024 and March 2025 and of course the meeting happening today. I should also mention that we have met with uh dozens of uh property owners who have issued comments on the zoning bylaw in the time since June 2024 and our zoning our future IMO page has actually uh resulted in close to 7,000 visits. Now, as a result of this consultation, we have received 510 unique requests uh for revisions to the zoning bylaw. and all of those requests as well as staff's responses are included as attachment one uh to the report. Now, when it comes to the scope of the amendments, um we're proposing to make hundreds of revisions here and some of those are are quite large. They are things like the addition of new zones, uh new definitions, new and revised standards. Uh but many of them are also minor changes. So these are things like formatting and grammar and just ensuring that uh the um the document as it exists is in a uh clean and consistent format. Now most of the planning revisions uh are actually outlined in detail in the June 2024 technical reports. So, what I'm going to focus mainly on today is uh matters of pre of previous interest to members of council as well as matters that have impacted by new revisions since the release of the June 2024 technical reports. But before I get into those, I just wanted to do a quick overview of the scope of some of these changes. So, amendments include a range of actions. uh introduction of new zones to ensure that uses uh built form align with the vision of the official plan. Introduction of new uses to support economic goals and the development of mixeduse communities. Revised transportation standards to reduce parking rates. Provide flexibility through shared parking and TDM measures and also introduce bicycle parking. Upgraded environmental standards to protect sensitive areas and hazard lands. and then also an introduction of a pedestrian street classification system which will align built form with the road hierarchy. So now getting into some of the issues that have have been of uh previous interest to council and I will start with the definition of height. So, back at the March 24th, 2025 meeting, council directed staff to measure height of a pitched roof to its highest peak. And in response, the definition for height has been restructured to generally measure height to the highest point of the building. Now, I will mention there are some exceptions in both non-residential and mixeduse areas where uh height excludes parapits, but otherwise we will be measuring to the highest point of the building. Uh we now base measurements of height from the crown of the street rather than from the established grade. And we've also included language that clarifies how height is to be calculated when there is frontage onto more than one street. And that essentially takes an average from the various frontages. When it comes to ADU standards, uh most of these were implemented through the March 2025 amendments, but in the time that is passed, we have determined that uh the bylaw could benefit from some minor tweaks. So staff are proposing to uh revisions that would exempt detached ADUs from zone specific lot coverage maximums. Uh increase the lot coverage maximum for accessory buildings from 10% to 15% where there's a detached ADU on the property. Reduce the minimum width of an unobstructed path unobstructed path from 1.2 meters to8 meters and permit a detached ADU on lots with either a duplex or a triplex. Now, in relation to homebased businesses, uh the March 24th council meeting also directed staff to permit takeout restaurants as a form of homebased business to prohabit prohibit patios and limit homebased businesses to one per property. So, as an as a result of that, staff are proposing to make some revisions. Uh one of which would be to only permit takeout restaurants as homebased businesses in live work units. So the intention behind this is that live work units are typically fronting onto higher order streets and typically in mixeduse communities. So there would be less of an impact with a takeout restaurant in a live work unit than there would be in a traditional residential unit in a traditional uh residential area. We will also be restricting outdoor patios at homebased businesses. And we have decided uh not to limit the number of uh homebased businesses per property as we do believe that sufficient restrictions already exist to limit per property incurrences. And we do believe that in some uh situations it may actually be beneficial to have more than one homebased business on a single property. Uh when it comes to short-term rentals, again going back to the March 24th, 2025 meeting, staff were directed to add a definition for short-term rental, to permit the use uh of short-term rentals in all urban zones, and to revise the definition for bed and breakfast establishment. So, as a result, staff are proposing revisions that would permit short-term rentals in urban residential zones. Uh we are also looking to create a greater distinction in the definitions between bed and breakfast establishment and a short-term rental. And how we will be doing that is essentially saying that a bed and breakfast establishment is one where the host is on site for the duration of the visitor stay and a short-term rental is one where the host is not on site for the duration of the stay. Uh in addition to this, we are looking to migrate all of the performance standards in relation to short-term rentals to a new section in the general provisions. When it comes to places of worship, uh initially we were not planning to make any changes to the parking rate and the uh historical rate for that use was one parking space per every four persons maximum capacity in the largest room of assembly. Now, this has resulted in an under supply of parking at places of worship, especially given that many of the places of worship uh actually include multiple rooms of assembly. So, we're proposing to change the rate to the greater of one parking space per every four persons maximum capacity in all rooms of capacity or 10 spaces per 100 square meters of gross floor area. And it is the greater of those two that would apply. The most significant update since the June 2024 draft zoning bylaw is the undoing or the pausing of several proposed amendments and these are really taking place in three distinctive areas. The first is in relation to employment areas. Uh so bill 97 and the provincial planning statement uh in 2024 introduced new restrictions for employment areas uh that uh somewhat conflicted with the direction we were taking uh for much of our employment areas. So instead, we've decided to shift that consideration uh to the town's uh urban or sorry, the official plan review uh and to reconsider the standards for employment areas through that process. It's a similar situation for the GO station mixeduse zone. So we were originally planning on implementing this zone through the zoning bylaw and uh now we're planning to actually advance that separately as part of the town's GO station secondary plan study. So, the last item I'll mention here is the urban design provisions. Uh, there was quite a few comments received uh from property owners about the urban design provisions. Um, so we've decided to put many of these on hold so that they could be considered in more detail through the official plan review. Uh it should also be mentioned that we've made several sight specific amendments and this really came about in situations where property owners uh approached us with concerns about how the amendments would affect their property and in these cases we tried to work with these property owners to understand their issues and to explore alternative solutions. uh in some cases where alternative approaches were warranted and sight specific exemptions already existed, staff were able to amend the existing exception to provide sight specific relief from new minor provisions of the zoning bylaw. Uh now lastly, I'll speak to the transition provisions. Uh so we've received several comments from property owners uh with concern about how these new standards would impact uh their ongoing development applications. And in response, uh, we're proposing new transition provisions that will ensure that the existing bylaw standards continue to apply, uh, to planning and building permit applications that were actually submitted before the approval of the zoning bylaw amendments. So, this would apply to site plan applications, land division, minor variance, draft plans of subdivision, and plans of condominium as well as building permit applications. Uh, one interesting aspect of the transition provisions is that it allows for the less restrictive parking rates to apply regardless of whether those are in the former version of the zoning bylaw or the new amended version. Uh, and we will also uh these transition provisions will expire after five years which provides some incentive uh for our development partners to to work these through the process. So in terms of the amendment strategy, uh all of the proposed zoning bylaw amendments have been captured in a series of 10 bylaws and those are attachments 2 through 7 or sorry 2 through 11 with the report. Uh each amendment bylaw essentially represents one section of the zoning bylaw, but there are some instances where multiple shorter sections have been combined into one bylaw document. Uh the successful implementation of these amendments will close a decadesl long process to ensure that the zoning bylaw conforms to the town's official plan and other provincial planning requirements. And uh staff will continue to monitor amendments to determine if further adjust adjustments are necessary into the future. Uh so that wraps up my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Sachuk and councelor Henry and councelor Tyler Moore. see you in the queue. What I'm going to do actually is I'm going to move up the report just so we can deal with that first. Um so can I get a mover using the hand function mover and seconder for the report please just put her on the floor. I see councelor regional councelor Crawford and councelor Henry. Thank you. Um so the report is on now on the floor. You can now ask questions to the presentation and the report. We will start with councelor Henry. >> Thank you. Okay. I have some questions here and I'm flipping screen so bear with me. Uh my first question I'm going to go to uh page 15 of the report and um a little section that talks about provision postponed in section 4 uh 2.8. So this section is talking about um operation is limited to 180 days of the calendar year. the requirements um prevent scenarios where investors purchase properties to be used permanently as short-term rentals. So, Mr. Saluk, my question is, does operation include um when we're talking about the operation time limit and you can only operate for a short as a short-term rental for 180 days, does that include um the time it's on the market or is it referring to occupancy? >> So through the chair to councelor Henry, uh that would refer more to occupancy. So, to the time that it's actually being rented out as a place to stay by any visitors. Um, and what the intention is here with uh with all of those provisions is to ensure that short-term rentals are being utilized uh for truly what they were were intended to be and that is somebody who lives in the community. Uh let's say they're going overseas for a short time and they want to ensure that they can earn some income in their primary place of residence. uh these provision ensure that that's done in a manageable way. Uh and what it does prevent is it prevents scenarios where people are actually buying new properties using those as full-time uh Airbnbs or short-term rentals of any kind and where those are then being rented by people and there's no oversight uh by the owner while people are staying on site. But isn't this is where I I looked at this more closely because it seems the opposite to me because if we're saying that um if you're using it as a short-term rental for the time that it's occupied as a short-term rental within 180 days seems like a longer time provision than let's say it's on the market 180 days and you've only rented it six times and you've used up your 180 days and you can't do it anymore. That seems like the shorter provision as opposed to the other. Do you understand what I'm saying? >> Sure, I do understand what you're saying. Yeah. And that is a I would suggest that that is more of um something we can look at from the administrative side in terms of how it's enforced by bylaw. Uh the intention with the 180 days is to ensure that it's less than half the year that it's be used being being used for this purpose. um because obviously the remainder of the year it should be being used as that person's primary residence. Um so I do note the uh the points you've made and and I think we will have the opportunity to work with bylaw and ensure that uh it's enforced in the way that makes the most sense. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. And and when we talk about um um well actually here let me just go back to my notes because there's a few others I have. So for homebased businesses page 12 uh we're talking about uh live work units have been specifically designed to accommodate commercial activity and as such typically front on to high order streets and you mentioned that in your presentation. I'm just wondering I'm trying to picture this in my mind. Is there an example of that a specific example? >> Uh there is. Yes. I'm trying to think of an exact uh address. Um there's a new um somewhat new development just south of Hunt Street where uh so this is right beside the the Legion uh the the development that that's happening there. Some of those units have been designed as live work units. So they actually have some commercial space at the front of the building that fronts out onto the street. So, in a scenario like that, we think it's actually um it's reasonable for somebody to have a takeout restaurant in that kind of a building because it's it's designed to provide that commercial area as part of the residence. Where we don't think it's appropriate is where you have more standard residential neighborhoods. Um, and we've seen through the past that there can be conflict in terms of competing land uses there. when you have an establishment that is quite popular and quite successful, it can it can result in, you know, long lineups, lots of issues with parking on the street, trespass, all that sort of thing. So, for that particular use, uh takeout restaurants, we're uh we're implementing it so that they can only take place in live work units. And is that um going to be an issue when it comes to I know the one you're referring to off of Hunt Street and that's like a townhouse style unit. Is that not going to be problematic for the existing um town home owners? And if they're not using it as a restaurant or, you know, if they're not using a commercial space in the front, is that not going to create a problem? Have we thought about that? Uh so I would suggest it wouldn't create a problem because that's how these units have actually been designed. So when people were purchasing these units, they would be aware that they uh do have a commercial aspect to them. If people choose not to take advantage of that commercial aspect, I mean that's up to them and they have every right to do that. Uh but I do think they are aware that there is that ability for them to use a portion of their their property for a commercial purpose. >> Okay. And then when we refer to places of worship, um will the the new rules uh for parking be grandfathered in? Like how will that work for grandfathered properties? Will they be exempt from the rules or will they be um will they be mandated to conform to the new compliance rules, the bylaw? How will that work? >> So that's a good question. Uh so the way it works is when any of these new standards are introduced, they're going to apply to any land uses, any new land uses, any new buildings moving forward. Um so it's not a situation where we are able to be retroactive in terms of what those parking standards are. So I think in scenarios where we have existing places of worship that do have issues with parking, uh the town will be will need to continue working with those uh those hosts to ensure that all of the parking issues are resolved. Okay. And um um employment area uh reset in the report. I just want to clarify that you're not asking or allowing for additional gas stations in that area zoning. Correct. >> No, we are not. So we had been making we were planning to make a number of changes to the employment areas largely in relations to zoning provisions. So things like setbacks and build within zones. Uh but when the province came out with all kinds of new standards and new requirements for employment areas, we decided it was best to sort of back off uh at this point, tuck those aside and then study that more in depth through our official plan review where we could take the time necessary to look at the new framework for employment areas and then implement things that would align more closely with the province's rules. because I thought I could be wrong, but didn't we pass something with a zoning bylaw amendment? Was it for W 2 or was it for the town about no more gas stations? Something along that lines? Yes, I believe there was something that related to gas stations and to um uh storage facilities as well. And because that was um that was council direction, that is the one item that has moved forward. Um, so when it comes to gas stations, gas stations were never zoned to be permitted in employment areas to begin with. So we didn't have to make any changes there, but um, uh, storage units were permitted in the, uh, in the prestige employment uh, zone. So we've actually we're looking to move forward with removing that as a permitted land use within the uh, the prestige employment zone. But as I said with gas stations, they were never um permitted to begin with. that we didn't actually have to make any changes to prevent them moving forward. >> And with and with the um storage unit, I believe we have one I think it's up in war two coming diamond or something that's still going to be allowed. Correct. >> In that particular case, uh it all depends on how our transition provisions play out. So, for them to be continued to have permissions there, they would have to get an application into the town, a complete application before the zoning amendments are approved by council, uh, which it would be expected on June 22nd. >> Oh. Oh, there you go. Hope somebody's watching this meeting gets a move on that. Okay, then. Um, and my last question for now is with regards to the short-term rentals and we put provisions in place for uh the like I I've seen the definition. Thank you for that for Thank you to staff for working on that. Um, with regards to is it countryside north of Totten Road? That's not permitted. Correct. >> Correct. So, we are focusing on the um the urban residential zones uh for the permission of short-term rentals. So, those provisions won't be extended to the CRA and the CRB zones. >> Thank you. Much appreciated. There's a large group of residents up in that area that thank you for that. Thank you. Those are my questions for now. Thank you. >> Um thank you. Um just so the committee knows um based on the breadth of the um report I'm going to allow everyone 10 minutes with an option to come back for a second five minutes um if you have any further questions. So uh knowing that council tren it's all up you now. >> Thank you chair and thank you Mr. Sachuk for your uh vast uh report that was a lot of work I'm sure um you and your team. So on your homebased business slide, there is a staff are proposing revisions that would and in your this case it says only permit takeout restaurants uh restrict outdoor patios at home based businesses. But just for the record, would it also include is there a distinction between the inside of a home? So, if you're doing a guitar lesson in the basement or piano lesson in the living room or tutoring math or whatever, or if you're doing swimming lessons outside or if you're doing barbecue hot dogs outside, is that are there, you know what I mean? Are there two different distinctions there? >> That's my first question. >> So, through the uh the chair to councelor Tyler Morren, uh yes. So the way the um the homebased business provisions work is that the homebased business must be restricted to the inside of the home. So there's no uh no component of it that can be outdoors which is why we've put in the prohibition of patios for example. And the intention for that is to ensure that there uh any effects on neighbors are limited. So, uh, in addition to restricting them to the inside of the house, there are also other restrictions to that relate to things like the floor area of the home that can be used for that purpose. >> Okay. Okay. That's that's a little problematic because um, yeah, more specifically, there has been situations where a swimming lesson is compared to a piano lesson, one's done in the homeowner's backyard, fairly unintrusive. But you're saying as we speak and that's not something that you would consider as being part of the uh revisions. Correct. >> Correct. And and that's uh historical nature in the sense that the way the provisions exist now do not allow for any part of the homebased business to happen outside of the home. So this isn't anything new that's being introduced. This is just status quo for that requirement. My question had the spirit of moving forward but um okay the second thing is um is there any provisions that would be in place because the first thing that happens is increase in traffic there's always a parking problem uh because you know if the business is doing well which obviously you want them to do uh there's two types of businesses again if you're doing a piano lesson at 11 and a piano lesson at 12 it's a little more regulated but if you're selling cookies inside your house uh or knitted sweaters and everybody shows up at the same time. Can the homebased businesses say hold on these are my customers don't give them tickets or is it just regular parking? >> So the way that homebased businesses should work is they should be secondary in in nature to the residential character of the property. So the intention is that these are small businesses uh that allow for some flexibility in people working from home but they do not sort of overtake the character of the property. The property still you know reads from the street as a home generally would. So we are very much aware of some of the uh impacts that can come about by way of a homebased business. So, we're trying to um uh we're trying to be um somewhat clear in the way we manage the types of businesses that do operate as well. So, in the past, it's been very open-ended. We didn't have a tightly defined list of the types of businesses that could operate from a home. Now, we do. So we specify that these the business types that could exist as homebased businesses are art galleries, artisan studios or workshops, catering services, commercial schools, homebased child care, office, personal service shop, or service or repair shop. So it's a very limited list to things that we think could function well within a neighborhood setting. In addition to that, uh we've also introduced a new provision that would limit the number of clients or customers on site at any time to three. So the intention there is, you know, let's say you're somebody that works from home as a hair stylist. You have your one person sitting in the chair, you have your next person arriving for their meeting or sorry, their uh their hair styling appointment. And then perhaps, you know, it takes a few minutes for the first person to move onward. So at any time you may have three people on site. Uh we think that's a very manageable system and it also makes it very clear to people before they decide to undertake a homebased business that if they're looking at a use that really has no controls over the number of people coming onto site at any time, it's likely not an appropriate use as a homebased business. >> Okay. Thanks for speaking to the report publicly. I appreciate that. Um two more quick questions. Where does the garage fall into this? Because if you're fixing I wouldn't say radios, but if you're fixing guitars or if you're fixing whatever you're fixing it, because you said that's allowed, can somebody do it from their garage? >> They can as long as it's not taking away a required parking space for the property. So, uh let's say we have a scenario where somebody has uh one parking space. Let's say it's a detached home. They have one parking space in their garage, one parking space in the driveway. Those are the two required parking spaces for that home. Wherever there's a homebased business, you require an additional parking space. So now there's a requirement for three parking spaces. If somebody were to offer a homebased business out of their garage and eliminated one of those two parking spaces in the scenario I've given, that would be an issue because not only does it remove one of the required spaces, but it also doesn't accommodate the third space that would be required to support the business. So, it's a bit of a careful dance when considering these uses as well as um you know, existing properties and how much parking they can contain. Um and that's why I said earlier on that uh in some you know where you have large properties that have an expansive parking and there are also multiple units on the property there could be scenarios where there are actually two homebased businesses on the property but everything makes sense because there's enough room. Uh parking really does tend to be the limiting factor when it comes to homebased businesses. Um, so in the garage, it's likely to impact that even further. >> Okay, my final question regarding uh property taxes. So if number 42 pays $5,000 a year in taxes, number 44 pays $5,000 a year in taxes, but number 44 has a thriving homebased business, does number 44 have to pay a business tax on top of their regular property tax? It's an interesting question and I'm going to say that is outside of my field of expertise as a planner. So, uh I can't offer uh answer that one off the top of my head unfortunately. Uh but we could look into uh we could look into that further and get a response for you. >> Is there through you chair? Thank you Mr. Sachuk. Through you Mr. Chair. Is there someone on staff that could answer that question at this time perhaps? Um, any planner willing to step up to answer that question >> or if our director of finance I'm just suggesting >> um certin um repeat your question one more time. My question is, if you're at number 42 and you pay $6,000 a year in property tax, number 44 pays $6,000 in property tax, but number 44 has a thriving homebased business. Does number 44 have to pay an additional business tax? >> Uh, Mr. McCll, you want to take a crack at that? >> Yeah, we'd have to we'd have to reach out to EMPAC to get information on that on taxes. That's a question that's out there right now because uh if you own a business, you have to pay tax on that business and you have to pay property or business tax. But if you, you know, do it all within your home, you know, you if you're complying, okay, uh we can um do you want to go offline on this, Mr. McCulla? Maybe you could get back to me on this. >> Yeah. So, through the chair, I think that'd be the best approach. We can uh our team can reach out to EMPAC and get that information for you. >> Okay. Uh I appreciate it. We'll just leave it for there. Thank you for the ex extra time, Mr. Chair. >> My pleasure. Thank you, Mayor Collier. >> Thank you, Chair. No questions. I just have an amendment that the clerk has regarding some of the items that have been brought up already. >> Yep. We just need a quick second for the clerk to put it on the screen. Do you have a secondary, mayor caller? Uh I don't right now. These are staff initiated changes that I was asked to bring forward. Our second delegation spoke to some of them to do with with Hunt Street. These are administrative in nature. Uh anybody that wants to second them, please step up. >> I see councelor Henry um has um volunteered to second. So now it's now on the floor. The amendments are now on the floor. Do you wish to speak to them? >> I believe I I believe I've already spoken to it. These are administrative for the most part. their staff initiated. Um I just said I would bring them forward today. >> Thank you. Um so I see councelor Ber councelor Grie Crawford on the queue um for this for the um amendments. If you have any wish to comment or questions please use the hand raise function. Seeing none. Thank you. We're going to go ahead. Oh councelor Bower on the amendment. >> Thank you uh chair Lee. Just for clarification, if I when I get my turn to speak, I will be talking about the social impact assessment with a possible motion for an amendment. Should we include that in here or do it separately? >> Councelor Ber, I think it's cleaner if we do it as a separate amendment. Um, it's it's not necessarily connected to these ones. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And then if you don't mind selecting to speak again, I'll move you up in the queue. Thank you. All right. Last call for any questions or comments on the amendments. Seeing none, thank you very much. We'll start the vote. And that passes. Thank you very much. Next, we had councelor Bower, then regional councelor Crawford. Oh, >> okay. Thank you very much, Chair Lee. Good afternoon, Mr. Sache. Thank you very much for all the work that has been put into this. Uh really really appreciate it. All 780 pages of the agenda or so. But I and I will comment the uh the attachment the comment matrix of the 500 plus um comments issued. Um I read them all. Uh I was very happy to see some of some of the W3 residents who who made input and some of their input actually did impact the results. So I appreciate that staff is listening. Um and that's a lot of work. So my question uh is about the definition of height. And I'm sorry I don't understand all of the some of the words, but I know the intent of that initial request was for example in the neighborhood one area or the wartime homes area where people were buying property, tearing down the house and then building what they called monster homes. And this height um change came in place so that there could be some sort of consistency and maybe a slight decrease to the height of these homes with the changes that that you've put in for today the restructuring. Does that still all apply? Like what what what does that mean? Like what's the crown of a of a street for example? >> Sure. So through the chair to councelor Bower. Uh yes. So all of that still applies. The the main difference the the main change we're looking at here is measuring to the highest point of the building um when we're looking at residential buildings. So in the past the way that we've measured uh peaked roofs was to the midpoint. So if you have uh you know your roof going like that you're only measuring to right there and our 11 meter standard would would measure to that that midpoint. The way we're moving forward with the definition of height is, as I suggested, it's to the highest point of the building. So, we would now measure to the very peak of that roof. Now, what that's going to mean in terms of real world implications is that buildings in the past that could have the peaks could have been at, you know, 12 1/2 mters, 13 m meters, they will have to come down to 11 m or less. So it is going to have uh real impacts on how high you can you can build your buildings. Um some of the other things like where we measure from uh when we're measuring height the crown of the street the intention with that was to provide more of a uniform process when you look at an entire streetscape. Previously, we were looking at measuring at the building wall. And the problem that was presented there is there are little loopholes that people could have exploited. People could have graded their properties so that it moved upwards on a hill and then that's going to afford them more room to go higher because you're only measuring from grade. When you measure at the midpoint of the street, that ensures a consistent place to measure for all units on that street and it's going to result in a more standardized streetscape when it comes to height permissions. >> Okay. So, what the original request when it first came up uh last year is is being met. So, I just wanted confirmation on that. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. So then my second question is uh in response to the delegation from uh Miss McCurious about the social impact assessment and um I apologize for not contacting you sooner with my questions but can you talk to us about that has is that something that's included in this type of report or in this type of action? Uh should it be? Uh if it should be why isn't it? Um what's involved with it? etc. >> Sure. So, uh the short answer to that one is yes and no in terms of what's been done in the past. So, so no, we have not created a separate um uh report that looks solely at uh at social impacts. Uh but what we have done and what we are doing in this case is we're largely just implementing existing measures that exist in our OP. Now prior to being added to our OP there were a number of planning studies and a number of reports that were done and in many of CA many cases those were supported by research looking at social impacts. So when you kind of take a step back and look at the existing official plan provisions social impacts have been considered. Now what we're doing is we're just implementing them into a zoning framework. So my response would be that social impacts have been considered. there just isn't a separate report out there uh that runs alongside the um uh the amendments that we're looking to make and I think my my supervisor uh Mr. McCullum may have some additional comments here. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Mike and through the chair to councelor Bower. So I think um this request might be um more would be better to be directed towards the official plan review. Um, we had been hoping to look at uh the official plan review through an equity lens as well. Uh, so I think that it might be good to uh set up a meeting with the delegate and kind of talk through kind of the impacts that they want us to take a look at because as Mike mentioned um the current official plan permits uh special needs housing in all designations that permit residential uses. Uh so shelters fall in that category and in the written correspondence from the delegate they had identified things like the DCAME1 which is an employment transition zone as well as the PE zone. Um and there are from the PE zone perspective there are provincial uh policies that prohibit uses like residential and institutional uses from locating into employment areas. So I think that was one of the original concerns the delegate had. I think certainly we can meet with the delegate and and that might be a good approach to kind of understand what they're hoping to look at and maybe there's something that we can look at through the official plan review. >> Okay, I appreciate that information and uh yes, I would I think that's a great idea to meet with her and see what it is the expectation and how it can be used. But my question with that sort of um plan by not including a social impact assessment in as an amendment to this comprehensive review uh does that impact like leaving it out does that make a difference or had there been one in here would that have made a difference too you know what I'm saying? >> Yeah. So through the chair there there are few changes that we're making through this comprehensive review that would touch on some of these elements. So crisis care facility is already permitted use uh in areas of the downtown. Um the only changes that we were making though and I think this may also help the situation is we were just updating the definition to reflect the definition in the crisis care bylaw that was uh that was passed earlier this year that is designed to help manage some of those issues. Okay. So, by by moving this request out of this review and into a discussion uh regarding the official plan review, there is no uh disadvantage as far as uh what what the resident is talking about um or the those kinds of negative impacts that you know that that she's talking about have already happened or could happen. by keeping it a separate issue. Is that is that correct? >> So through the chair I think that's correct if there are any and I know the delegate raised issues related to the temporary use bylaw. Um so in the DCAM ME1 zone um that use was a prohibited use and uh I believe that that temporary use bylaw was repealed as well. So it would continue to be a prohibited use in that zone. >> Okay. So then do I uh can we are can I just take it that this meeting will be arranged and and we'll have discussions to figure that all out or you do you need an actual direction to do that? >> Uh so through the chair to councelor Bower we're happy to make that connection with the delegate and and arrange a meeting and if you'd want to be involved we're happy to invite you as well. >> Thank you very much. Yes I would love to to come and listen and learn. Thank you very much uh Mr. McCulla. Thank you Mr. Sachuk. Uh, and those are my questions for now, chair. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up is region councelor Crawford. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Sashuk, for this detailed report. Um, I noticed that um I found I don't know if I found it creepy or not, but that the way you track um the the the movement of people in different locations for shopping uh and you do it through mobile phones. Is that am I reading that right? >> Uh maybe I'll jump in the mic. So through the chair to to uh regional counselor Crawford. I think that's uh for our next presentation or or two presentations. >> I'm in the wrong one. Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay, I'll I'll hold my question. Sorry. I apologize. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um for a second time is councelor Tyler Morren. >> Thank you so much. I promise I'll be quick. Um, so in the recommendation it says number one receive to be received for information but then number two says to be endorsed and forwarded to the June 22nd council meeting for approval. So what we're talking about here and all that it encompasses is it true that we will have this is this is going through um as per the council meeting and as per the vote or is it to be received for information? Um both Tyler council Tyler Morren um the uh report is going to be received for information and then the implementing zoning bylaws the attachments uh will be forwarded to the June council meeting if that >> the reason why I asked is because I did ask for the distinction uh and I have a lot to say I shouldn't say I have a lot to say about it but if we make the distinction if you have a homebased business you have to pay a property tax like for that business um I wanted it to be tied to a threshold which means we're getting deep here. You know, like obviously if you're a a teenager doing tutoring for a grade six student in math, I wouldn't consider that. Not that I'm an expert in any of this, but you know, would have to have a financial threshold. So, I don't know if that needs, you know, 30 anything above $10,000 a year. I don't know if that needs an amendment that I would bring forward or it's just something I would just leave for now. >> Council Morn, I'm going to clean this up for you if that helps. uh at the June 22nd council meeting when those um those attachments come to council after you received all the information you have and gotten you know spoken with staff, you're able to pull it at council to then amend as needed if you still think it's necessary. >> Okay. So, um, because again, we weren't able to provide you all the information you had asked for, my suggestion is why don't we, um, kind of table this, you know, uh, you ask your questions with staff and then in three weeks you can pull this and if you think amendments are needed, then you can add the amendment at that point. >> I understand. Yeah. Okay. >> Does that work for you? >> Uh, yes. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Um, Miss Andis, did you want to jump in there? You queued up. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Um it it's just to reply to councelor Tyler Morren's uh comment. Um financial impacts are not something that is a land we can implement in a land use planning tool. So we will look into it with EMPAC and we will circle back with you uh to discuss it further so you have more clarity on that before the council meeting. >> Great. Thank you. Um, councel, are you just going to say okay? Yeah, that's what I figured. Okay. Uh, for second and final time, councelor Henry. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I want to go back to some correspondence we received um from um a planning company with regards to Diamond and the 500 Selm Road North property. So, one of the requests in their documentation is a sightsp specific exemption be provided for 500 Salem Road North in footnote 7 to the permitted use in section 6.4.1. This would continue the permissions for the public storage facility and would continue to facilitate the development of the property with a diamond center. So, going back to that request within, where are we standing with that? cuz I I heard you say, "Look, you need a site plan um application before the end of the month." I don't know that that's feasible. I don't know where they are in this. I already have staff in the back end working on getting in contact with them and seeing where they are. Um if I need to bring forth an amendment at the council meeting, um should I choose to do so? Is that a possibility? And um Mr. Salanchuk, where are we on this? Two questions. >> Sure. So >> yes, so through the chair to uh councelor Henry. >> Um for them to for for us to be able to provide an exemption in the zoning bylaw, we would need some type of application to know exactly what it is they are proposing on that site. Um it's hard to create an exception for uh something that we don't have information on. Um they did pre-conult in 2024 with town staff. Um they were aware that these prohibitions were going to be implemented in the zoning bylaw uh eventually. So as Mr. Sachuk has noted previously if they are able to get in a complete application a complete site plan application prior to uh council's approval of the zoning bylaw amendments then they would be captured under the transition provisions >> and Miss Anderson uh how long would that take to do? Do they have enough time? Is that reasonable to say that they could do that by the end of the month? Um, it's not a lot of time and I am unaware of whether or not they have been doing any work. >> Sorry, I can't hear you. Something's cutting out with your mic. >> Okay. Um, so it is a short period of time to get a complete application in if you're starting from the beginning, but I am also unaware whether or not they have been doing any work in the background uh to prepare for an application submission. Okay. So, can I ask that we reach out to I I've asked um um Michael from our department from ECD to reach out to them. Can I ask that you coordinate with him then and and see what stage these folks are at? I I I'd rather know and deal with it prior to council meeting than deal with it after the fact. >> Yes, of course, Mr. Sach can follow up with you on that matter. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And uh let me just check my notes quickly. I do apologize. I have multiple screens open here. I just want to make sure that there's nothing else I needed to ask on the short-term rental situation. I think that was it for now. Any anything that we discover after we still have the council meeting to bring forth changes or amendments. Correct, >> Council Henry. That is correct. >> All right. So, that's enough for now for me. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other members of committee you wish to speak for a second time? Seeing none, then so we have the two recommendations moved by Mayor Collier, seconded by Councelor Henry. Um, as amended, I'll read the recommendations of the report dated June 1st, 2026, entitled Zoning Our Future Comprehensive Zoning bylaw Review, phase 2, final amendment be received for information and that the implementing zoning bylaws provided as attachments 2 through 11 to town initiated zoning bylaw amendment application Z10/26 be endorsed and forwarded to the June 22nd, 2026 council meeting for approval, plus the amendments. Any questions, comments, concerns? We'll start the vote then. And that passes. Thank you everybody. Now we are on to presentation PDS 5.1 PDS-2026-15 town of Ajax inclusionary zoning assessment report and draft official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment. Um does anyone want to set the table? Sean. Yeah, thank you Charlie Shirley and maybe I'll just quick set the table. So, um this is one of our housing accelerator fund initiatives, the inclusionary zoning bylaw review. And today our consultant Nick Michael will be the one uh delivering the presentation on all the great work that they've done. Um and then at the end of the meeting I'll just turn it over to Anu Kather who's our planner and uh he'll go over the next steps for this project as well. So with that um maybe we'll just turn it over to Nick. That's okay. Hello everyone. Hopefully everyone can hear me. >> Yep, we can hear you. >> Perfect. I have Oh, there we go. Sorry, I'm just sharing my screen. And there we go. Just wait for it to pop up. Perfect. I see it up on the screen. Uh well, hello members of council and thank you for having me here today. Hey, my name is Nick Michael. I'm a partner at the planning and real estate consulting firm, NBLC. We specialize in the market and the financial feasibility of real estate development with a heavy emphasis on perform assessments, project feasibility, market analysis, and increasingly affordable housing delivery and policy. By way of experience, we've been assessing inclusionary zoning for municipalities across Ontario since the legislation was introduced in 2018. This includes the communities of Toronto, Missaga, Bmpton, Markham, Whippy, London, Ottawa, KW, and many others. So, let's begin by first identifying what inclusionary zoning is. I may also abbreviate and say for short during this presentation. Well, inclusionary zoning allows a municipality to require that a specified proportion of units within new residential development be provided as affordable housing, which is a very big deal because this is the first time that municipalities have been given the authority to require affordable housing through the development process that is not tied to sight specific negotiations or section 37 type agreements. However, it is important to identify that it can only be applied within protected major transit station areas, which for Ajax is of course the Ajax GO PMTSA, which means there will be lots of areas in the town where these requirements would not apply. Importantly, any property that has a development application in place or entitlements already approved would be exempt from the policy. Now, of course, it is important to identify while inclusionary zoning certainly does sound really great in theory, being able to require affordable housing through new development. It's also important to note that ISD does impact project viability by reducing the sale price or rent that a developer can charge, which can of course make new development unviable. If not calibrated appropriately to the market, a policy of this nature could reduce and delay new housing supply, which would actually worsen affordability conditions as we would not be accommodating new market or any affordable housing. In addition to directing growth and development away from strategic transit oriented growth nodes to locations where inclusionary zoning would not apply, the ideal scenario is one where development can continue to advance while also producing the required amount of affordable housing with minimal impacts. And for this reason, the province requires through IZAD regulation 23218 that a municipality thoroughly assesses market conditions and conduct performance assessments to ensure that IZ can be implemented without stalling or eroding the viability of new development. Only once these conditions have been proven, only then can be implemented. And this analysis must also be peer-reviewed by a qualified firm. This is the analysis that I've completed for the town which I'll now summarize which was successfully peer-reviewed and found acceptable by the land economics firm Urban Metrics. Now without spending too much time on uh on this slide you know we we really could probably talk about the market and everything that's currently happening for hours. It is important to identify that residential and particularly high density residential market conditions are just facing unprecedented challenges that are resulting really in a complete collapse of new construction activity across the broadly the broader GTA. On the one hand, we have construction costs that have nearly doubled on us since the co 19 pandemic after increasing at or slightly above inflation for over a decade. At the same time, elevated interest rates have increased borrowing costs for developers while also reducing demand and pricing levels in the market. Demand and overall pricing has been further impacted by economic uncertainty, recession fears, tariff threats, and of course, reduced immigration levels. And all of this is also impacting the risk profiles of lenders, making access to financing more restrictive and difficult. If you cannot secure financing for a highdensity residential project, there is no possibility or avenue to move that project forward. Developers are therefore facing very high costs and at the same time reduced demand and pricing levels as well as increased risk for both rental and condominium apartments. All of this is resulting in projects facing unviable and unfavorable conditions with construction slowing drastically across the province, which also includes in the town of Ajax. In response to this, we're seeing all levels of government respond by advancing policy changes and funding commitments to try and accelerate housing supply. Everything from easier approval frameworks as of right zoning entitlements and reducing fees and charges including development charges as well as other fees like HST. Of course, it is important to recognize that would be the opposite of this as it's a further constraint, challenge and cost on development feasibility. So in addition to our market research, we also completed performance assessments of a 12,2 35 and 60s story residential apartment within the Ajax PMTSA. We assess each building as both condo and rental. And we begin first by assessing the viability of each scenario without any affordable housing. And then we start layering on 5% affordable housing in both ownership and rental tenure to understand the impact. And this 5% threshold is the maximum allowed by the provincial regulations. And given the current market, we unsurprisingly found negative results. None of the development forms were found to be viable today, even without an affordable housing requirement. As affordable all housing is then added, of course, viability worsens, indicating that a financial subsidy would be necessary for these projects to advance today over the near term beyond the expedited approvals and heightened density that's already been provided. And just reflecting how challenging things currently are and how much construction costs have accelerated on us, the subsidies required are not small, ranging anywhere from a h 100,000 to $200,000 per unit depending on the scenario and context under evaluation. We therefore do not find that would be viable and implemented without impacting housing supply, which was again also supported by the peer review as well as virtually every other municipality currently exploring inclusionary zoning. Now, this does not mean that development will not occur in the PMTSA. It's certainly possible that under specific circumstances, you know, situations where developers acquired land at a low cost many years ago, probably combined with them also securing very valuable lowcost CMHC financing and likely also advancing with a lower return expectation, you know, a project may advance. However, broad viability is not observed with our modeling indicating highly challenging economic conditions for developments of this density. And with these findings in mind, there's really three options we can consider for an inclusionary zoning policy framework. We can implement the IZ policy but not activate the requirements until market conditions improve. So essentially we implement the policy framework but we wait until market conditions present more viable and favorable conditions until we actually turn it on. Alternatively we can implement IZ today with the IZ requirement but with the subsidies that I identified on the last slide. So this would eliminate and neutralize the negative impact of inclusionary zoning but of course it would be expensive and require a significant budget to support or we can refrain from implementing is altogether in our report and analysis and through consultations and discussions with staff. We recommend option one, which aligns with the direction that the vast majority of municipalities in Ontario are currently taking because it is really important to identify that the current challenging market conditions will eventually pass. We will one day be out of this currently bleak context. I certainly hope so and I believe so. And by implementing the policy framework today, this positions Ajax to be ready to activate the policy once conditions allow in a timely and efficient manner. This strategy also allows developers and land markets to be aware of the policy likely years in advance of it actually being activated which allows land markets and developers to consider and account for the policy's land transacts as well as to incorporate this requirement into their future business plans. And of course, this also allows time for staff and stakeholders to sort out implementation and administrative frameworks which are frankly equally as complex as the market and feasibility assessments that we're presenting today. And finally, I just wanted to quickly highlight what other municipalities are doing on this topic of inclusionary zoning. It is important to identify that since IZ was enabled in 2018, only three municipalities have been able to prove viable market conditions to implement the policy, which was Toronto, Missaga, and until recently Kitchener. All three were supported by analysis completed by my firm and all three reports were authored prior to 2021 when market conditions were much stronger. Given the current environment, the provincial government recently deactivated inclusionary zoning in these three communities until at least July 2027, at which point market conditions will be re-evaluated. So therefore, no community currently has an active policy in place at the current time within Ontario. The vast majority of communities including Ottawa, Oakville, Waterlue, Markham, New Market, and others are all advancing an ISD framework without activating the policy until market conditions improve exactly as we're recommending here. A smaller group of municipalities have elected not to advance at all for different reasons and are instead focusing on incentives, land programs, and a host of other strategies to try to achieve their affordable housing objectives. And despite being a common approach to inclusionary zoning in the United States where they've been using this policy for many decades, we have not seen communities in Ontario implemented with a corresponding package of financial incentives. So that's the end of my presentation and I'll hand it back over to Anj and of course be here to help answer any questions that you might have. Hi. Uh, thank you for giving me the opportunity to just piggyback a little on Nick. My name is Anoj and I'm a planner working on the inclusion zoning project with Sean. So before we get into the questions, uh, I would like to just briefly outline the next steps in the process. We, uh, subject to council endorsement today, we plan to undertake consultation activities. These primarily include three uh activities. The first would be an agency consultation session which will be held with representatives from Durham region, Metroinks and nonprofit housing organizations. This is planned for the 3rd of June as a virtual session. A second separate session, a virtual stakeholder consultation session geared towards land owners and development developers is planned at uh on June the 12th. And in addition, we are collecting feedback from the general public through the project's IMO page. Questions and comments will be accepted until July the 13th. And following consultation process and considering all the comments received, we plan to bring uh the final official plan amendment and draft uh zoning final official plan amendment and zoning by amendment to council at the September cap meeting. Over to you, Sean. Thank you both for the presentation. Councelor Bar, councelor Henry, I see you in the queue. I'm going to just jump ahead. Sorry. Um, how did Kitchener make it work? So, I get Toronto, Missaga, those are two biggest cities in Ontario. Why? Why Kitchener? Like Kitchener has a population of under Markham. Markham would argue has more financial sustainability. How did Kitchener make work? Oh, don't uh you already in there. Can you hit that same button and just go ahead? >> Apologies. The the red icon makes me think I I don't have permission to speak. Apologies for that. Um no, it's a it's actually a really good question. I mean, on the one hand, you know, Kitner in terms of a of a high density market is is is much more mature than, you know, even a lot of communities within Durham region where, you know, they've historically been getting, you know, upwards of a thousand new condominium and rental apartments every year. But on top of that, you know, there were a number of initiatives that that helped spur that, you know, those viable results that we were able to find. One of them was the construction of the LRT. this was having a very significant impact on um demand and achievable pricing along that corridor and at the same time they implemented you know in addition to to the transit investment significant as of right density increases along the corridor. So we had this unique position where you know a lot of highdensity development was not happening along you know the central downtowns and along these corridors. So land values were fairly low and then we had an immediate investment in higher order LRT transit combined with upzoning which again very different market context in 2021. Right? We had condo sale values that were going through the roof, rental rates that were going through the roof and in addition to that we had relatively low construction costs. So all of these factors combined started to paint a picture of where you know we started to think that viability conditions would be present but even then we did not recommend the full 5% um set aside rate or affordability requirement because the development economics were certainly not as strong as downtown Missaga and Toronto. Um so we wanted to to start at a one and 2% and slowly phase it in over time. So how do we determine when market conditions get better? So I mean you briefly touched on that but just what stops a developer being like from saying oh no like these conditions are always unacceptable. We always have to keep it at zero. >> A a truncated new report from a firm like mine would would be necessary to undertake new market research and perform assessment and analysis to prove that conditions would be viable. This would also be a requirement of the inclusionary zoning regulations needed prior to turning the policy on which would then also need to be peer-reviewed by another qualified firm. >> But that's incredibly expensive to do each time, is it not? Like we could go through this exercise and the result could still come back zero. Am I incorrect? >> The result definitely could come back zero. Yes. Um, in terms of expense, you know, we wouldn't we wouldn't suggest or recommend that, you know, the 200page report that we just completed would need to be redone um every single time. It would be a much uh smaller and lower effort exercise where we would focus solely on the financial feasibility. >> And if I can add uh to that, Mr. chair. I think staff would also do an evaluation and take a look at what's happening in other jurisdictions and then definitely in the broader market before we made that determination to go through that exercise in uh obtaining that updated report and we would also be required to seek council approval of any budget to do that. Does >> it make sense for us to go hypothetically to like 1% now or 0.5% now? We, you know, I I I get marketing conditions are tough right now, but I also get that realistically Ajax doesn't have much building left. We've signed all these mayor's directives. We know where the intensification projects are coming. If we're going to be at zero for the next uh five to seven years, just as a round number, then that could preclude us from having any inclusionary zoning as we during our prime intensification times. Is that correct? Yes, it's it certainly is possible and this is the push and pull that every municipality that's currently considering inclusionary zoning is facing. But unfortunately the regulations are quite clear and you must be able to prove viable conditions which is just you know unfortunately not not possible in the current market and economic times. >> Okay, I appreciate the answers. Um I'd like to hear what other counselors say. So we'll start with councelor Bower. Uh thank you very much uh chair Lee. Thank you for the report or the presentation. So I just wanted to confirm it's in the actual staff report on page 418. The existing approvals in the GO station PMTSA. Uh it's noted that the findings of this staff report do not have any impact on affordable housing commitments agreed to by approved developments in the Ajax GO station PMTSA. So I just want to confirm because on page 439 which is the map of that area that means uh that 190 West. So 5% of,274 units, 493 Bailey Street West, 10% of uh 1311 units, 425 Bailey Street, uh 5 to 10% of 3,38 units. Those have all been committed to and those developers are obligated to provide affordable housing outside of this this report today. and the recommendation going for it. I just want confirmation that that is I'm reading that correctly >> through the through the chair to uh councelor Bower. That's correct. So those those developers have made those commitments uh in exchange for accelerated approvals for their developments and there's been holding provisions that have been applied to those properties that require an agreement to secure that affordable housing units uh prior to removal of that holding provision which would enable them to proceed to construction. Um so that is occurring outside of this um and so we believe that that holding provision is what would would uh hold them to those commitments. >> Okay. Thank you. So even though the result of today's um of the report done by the consultant recommends implementation with 0% set aside the if we approve that these three developments uh we don't expect or they won't be able to come back and appeal their commitment. >> So through the chair to councelor B. So right now there isn't a mechanism for them to appeal. they would have to apply either to remove it or explore other appeal mechanisms. But I would imagine that they may if they felt that they couldn't meet those obligations that they would be looking for some sort of adjustment to that commitment and council would have to look at uh consideration of that adjustment. >> Okay. Uh okay. I just don't want and and I feel like based on the report the findings of the of the consultants um report I mean I I feel like we really don't have much of a choice here um other than to implement it with a 0% but knowing that I just what my concern is if we all agree that that is the logical and sensible step at this point that these developers may try to you use that decision um as a as a reason to justify trying to reduce their commitment. >> Yeah. And if I may and and maybe Nick can jump in in a moment just to expand on this, but so the justification that they used is that they're getting accelerated timelines, right? So in in Nick's performer analysis that or in his firm's perform analysis that was completed for our prototypical developments, >> they assume more of a traditional trajectory in obtaining some of those approvals and the timelines and the application fees and the studies that go along supporting those types of approvals. So some of that was built into the performer which of course costs money and drive up some of those costs where some of these other developers have benefited from not uh going through that traditional process. >> Okay, thank you. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, Mr. Michael, did you have anything else you wanted to add about that? >> No, I I'll just mention that you know what what you're describing probably, you know, may happen. We're seeing it happen in the city of Toronto, for instance, where developers that have agreed to affordable housing requirements through secondary planning exercises, you know, employment land conversions is a big one. Um, you know, they're looking at current market conditions and they're trying to make a case that, you know, if we were to move our project forward sooner rather than later, you know, the affordability requirements are kind of getting in our way. But, you know, the good news is that those agreements are completely separate from inclusionary zoning and have no impact on um you know, the the validity of those those agreements and those what developers have ultimately agreed to. So, in the city of Toronto, Missaga and other municipalities case where they are dealing with this circumstance right now, they have all held firm and um appear to be doing so. >> All right. Thank you very much. Uh that was my only question here. Thank you. Um just as a follow to council Bower then that includes all agreements done through mayor's directive not just the MTSA ones correct like there's some in North Ajax that I believe had um affordability uh requirements built in. >> Uh so to chair that's correct so I said we can only apply to PMTSA but where there have been commitments outside of the PMTSA the same mechanism has been used to to try to secure those uh affordable units. Okay. Thank you for that, Council Henry. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Michael, for your uh report and your directness. I appreciate you not sugarcoating things. I wish um all uh people that came before us, consultants were as direct as you. Um I'd like to ask a question of you, if I can. I'm going to read something. I want you to tell me if I'm accurately understanding this. Municipalities receive no direct funding. Unlike other affordable tools, ISD um does not provide municipalities with funding grants, tax support, must municipalities must still fund infrastructure, transit, parks, and community facilities. Does that make sense? >> Yes, 100% correct. I think the point you're getting at is that despite enabling the legislation, the province and federal governments have not provided funding support to help create these affordable units or backfill the fee and charge exemptions through to DC's and parkland fees that you would have to do to support these ISAD units. Is that correct? >> That is correct. I I said it in more plain language, but yes, that is correct. And again, I thank you for your directness. So, um, let me let me ask this question then, and I don't know if this is the place to ask it, but a while ago before all this came before us, while we were waiting for these reports, we put maximum minimums um in this area, I think it was, and Mr. McCulla could correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't it 25 stories for this area? Was that correct? >> Uh, so through through the charity, councelor Henry, that's correct. Uh but we're still working on that and council will still need to approve that official plan amendment zoning bylaw, but that is the direction we've been given by council. It's a minimum of 25 stories within approximately 300 meters of the GO station and 12 uh a minimum of 12 stories elsewhere in the protected major transit station area. >> So I had voted against that at the time, but I am asking this question of you. Should we be looking at higher minimums in in correspondence with this report? Is there anything stating that that would help to create uh development faster? >> Unfortunately, it's a it's a really good question and you know I I find this topic of density relation to feasibility is dominating most of the conversation in my line of work these days. And the primary issue is that in today's market, no density has virtually no impact on project feasibility. In fact, what we find and and what we found in this work is that there's a negative relationship between density and project feasibility. And the reason for that is because project costs are really high and they're not offset by our revenues that we're getting from the increased density. So every every floor and every story that we're adding, whether it's rental or condominium, we're actually adding more cost than we are in revenue, right? Which is why most of the projects that we're seeing, the very few of them that actually are advancing are advancing at smaller densities. We're seeing that 6 to 12 story project being, you know, kind of the the Goldilock scenario in terms of feasibility that are currently working. And in fact, it gets better as we go lower density. You know, currently there were 900 new uh home sales last month after virtually zero for the previous year. They were all town home product, right? All stack town home product. This is a GTA number. Um so that's the primary issue that we're currently seeing in in the current market. Again, not where we think we're headed, not where we might be in two or three years from now. So, you know, putting these entitlements in place, it still does add a tremendous amount of value. You're de-risking the process. you're shortening development timelines for the time when the market is actually supportive of those types of densities. Once we get there, it's really, you know, your crystal ball is as good as mine. There's a lot of different perspectives of where we're going. If we end up where we were in 2020 and 2021, you know, as much density as you can layer onto these properties, the better. The more value we're creating and the more ability for these groups to offer community benefits, whether that's affordable housing or non-residential space or community space. But if we're going back to, you know, where we think we were probably in the early 2010s, which is where, you know, most market analysts think we're going, I don't think we're going to have the same level of investor activity. We don't think we're going to be creating such value where buildings, condo projects are selling out in a weekend, right? As opposed to two years as what they used to. in which case, you know, those 15 to 25 story buildings are probably going to be much more valuable and the higher density stuff is going to be continue to be a bit of a slog and a challenge. >> Is there anything we could be doing um to create to help create a more hospitable environment to get shovels in the ground faster and get these projects to fruition? Personally, I think Ejax is actually on a very strong trajectory in doing a lot of these things. You know, listening in this morning on the changes that you're making to your comprehensive zony bylaw, the process that resulted in the secondary plan area itself or we're putting a lot of these entitlements in place and, you know, the the strategic directions to, you know, quickly reszone and approve some of these projects that have come forward. like these are all very positive and I think it sends the right message to developers but also putting these types of entitlements in place you know it's going to set you up over the long term and again I think you're doing a lot of the things that are in your control to do outside of offering direct financial incentive and subsidy to really start kickstarting things but that is of course a municipal finance consideration and you know that's a >> yeah let's not go there I didn't ask you about But I thank you. I thank you for your cander and your bluntness. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time here today. Um, any other questions for the consultant? Seeing none, then we're going to go up to report PDS-2026-15. Town of Ajax inclusionary zoning assessment report and draft official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment. Can I get a move and seconder please to put it on the floor? I see councelor Bowerer and councelor Henry as the mover and seconder. The recommendations are that the report title town of Ajax inclusion area zoning assessment report and draft official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment be received for information and two that council endorse option one to proceed with an official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment to implement an inclusion zoning policy framework with an additional set aside fee of 0% of total residential units to be required as inclusionary units to be re-evaluated as market conditions improve. Um, any questions, comments, concerns regarding the report? Um, I have a comment. You know, it's funny. Um, as the mayor's directives were going through, I'm sure myself and many of you also had concerns regarding, um, you know, whether this was actually best for, you know, the public and for, um, uh, inclusionary zoning, uh, the, you know, subsidized units. And it looks like um yeah, Mayor Collier, who is not there right now, so we'll not hear these words of praise, uh was actually pretty forward thinking in including these in the mayor's directives because as we are seeing now, um we are left with zero uh if we had not approved them. So um since he's not here, let's pretend I didn't say that out loud. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Vote for mayor call here who's currently not had his is absent. We'll just give him the full 10 seconds. Okay. Well, that passes. um with the uh counselors that were present. Thank you, council. Okay, we're now we're doing making great time. Um actually, just show of hands. Anybody need to need a fiveminute break? Okay, we're just going to call a quick fiveminute recess then and everyone will be back by we'll call it 2:42. Thank you. and we will call this meeting back to order. Everyone seems to be back. All right. Where we left off was 5.2 PDS-20226-16. I love reading these out loud apparently. Our future and focus commercial land needs strategy background report. employment area strategy background report and climate resilience and great greenlands system policy review report. I believe this is Mr. McCulligan. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh yes, we're pleased today to release uh the next three reports as part of our uh our official plan review. Uh so as you may recall, we released the first two reports last month and then we're joined today with our consultants from SGL Hempson Consulting and Tate Research. Um Hemson and Tate will be giving the presentation today. I would if it's okay ask for a bit of leniency on the presentation. Um we have two presentations today on this topic. One with the consultants and one with internal staff. Uh the consultants presentation is about 15 minutes long. Uh however we will make up the time as our internal staff presentation is approximately 5 minutes. Um so we would hope that the committee would agree to a little bit of leniency on that item. Um Well, it's a good thing I'm chairing today because I will give you that leniency. Go ahead, Mr. Mcola. >> I appreciate that. Um, and finally, just before we get into the presentation, I will mention that we are planning a series of open houses over the summer and all that information will be communicated on through our IMO page and through social media. Uh, so be sure to watch. We are planning the first one at the end of June. So, we're looking forward to seeing uh the community out with that. And with that, I will turn it over to Stephan who will uh start us off with the consulting presentation. Thank you very much. >> Hope you can hear me. >> We can hear you. Yes, please go ahead. >> Okay. Uh I'm going to share my screen here. Uh that doesn't seem to be coming through, Mr. Chairman, yet. Okay, give us a quick second. We're gonna We see it on our screen. No, we don't. No, we don't want to see it on our screen. Sorry. We see the previous presentation. Um, our clerk's going to walk you through how to make sure to share this properly. One moment. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Hi there. Could you just hit the share screen button in the top left corner? >> Yep. >> And then you should be prompted to select the window that you'd like to share today. Okay. And that seems to be selecting. >> We're just seeing a black screen. Did you select the PowerPoint or PDF that you were hoping to share today? >> I did. I did. Let me try that once more. >> Perfect. Uh, let's try this. There we go. >> Ah, excellent. >> You just want to put it to full screen. We'll make sure that works. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Sorry, we're still seeing the version with all of the slides. I don't know if you went to full screen on another >> um >> window. >> Let's try. If it's on another window, we just need you to select that window now. >> Yeah. Okay. Is that not coming up? >> No. So, you've selected the window that we're currently seeing. So, if you go back to share screen, you can select the appropriate window that you'd like to share. >> Okay. Is that coming up now? >> No, we're still seeing the other version. So, we can share your slides for you. Just give us one moment. >> Okay. Okay, there's your slides. If you could just let us know when to advance. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Clerk, and my apologies, Mr. Chairman. Um so uh this presentation covers the second part of uh Hemson's retainer with SGL for the official plan update Mr. Chairman and it's focused on planning for employment areas um and then Samir um my colleague is going to pick things up uh to speak about the commercial uh land need side of things. So uh we have a report an employment area strategy report out and uh in that report there's a lot of discussion about the policy framework under which these employment areas are planned for uh for which there's been a lot of change over the last few years. There's a more detailed discussion about the employment forecasts uh for these areas which were was touched on a little bit in my presentation to this committee last month. Uh there's a section on the market conditions uh regional and local market conditions that sort of are governing uh employment areas and the bottom line here is that uh they're pretty good right now unlike what you heard from Mr. Michael on the residential uh side of the ledger. Uh there's very detailed profiles about your existing employment areas and ultimately there's a pretty strong conclusion coming out of our report uh that the town should prioritize the protection of your remaining employment areas. Uh next slide please. Um can we advance to the next slide? Um, Madame Clerk. Oh, thank you. Oops. Just that's the one. Yeah, thank you. Um, so just what this slide does is it uh just looks at the employment uh base as a whole in Ajax. And you can see on the graph on the left there, over the past two decades, the town has experienced um pretty steady employment growth. It's about 18,000 jobs between the 2001 and the 2021 censuses. And there's two messages I I wanted to just impart here to the committee. Um the first is that most of the job growth has been in the the sort of the green components of the bar. So those are jobs that are that have a fixed location within the town. Um, but there's also been quite a lot of job growth in the red component of the bar. And those are jobs that that are like construction or transportation focused that have no fixed location. And a lot of what they're doing is uh is dealing with the movement of goods in and around uh your employment areas. Uh the gold component of the bar is the jobs that are located in people's residences. And you know they've been pretty static at uh 10% other than in the COVID period in 2021 where you can see there was a huge shift from people working in their regular offices to to their homes. So that's that's ignore what whatever's happening in 2021 here because that's an anomaly. Um the second thing I want to point out is although the job growth has been quite sustained, it has not kept paced with the population growth. And you'll remember from my presentation last month that one of the key objectives that um we're trying trying to achieve through the official plan update is to build a complete community. Uh and that's a community where people can work close to where they live without extended commutes. Um and so a fairly crude measure of completeness is the ratio of jobs to people. And that uh graph there on the right uh shows you um the activity rate which is a a sort of expression of that ratio. Uh Ajax's activity rate uh has actually declined fairly steadily over the last 20 years. Uh and it's lower than the average activity rate in Durham. In fact, only Clarington has a lower activity rate uh than Ajax in Durham. And I should point out that Clarington is opening up huge swaths of employment areas uh at the moment. Uh next slide please. Um the distribution of jobs uh within the town is is actually um is quite diverse. Um so this uh this chart here shows you in red the distribution of the jobs that are in the town and then in gold you have the distribution of the jobs in the region. Um and so in 2016, which is sort of the last reliable census data we have on this, about 60% of all the jobs in Ajax was concentrated in five sectors. Retail trade, manufacturing, healthcare and social assistance, education and ACU accommodation and food services. So that's as I said quite a good balance between service oriented businesses and goods producing businesses. Um three things to note here. First is that relative to Durham as a whole, Ajax exhibits a quite a strong industrial profile. So there's a heavy concentration of the region's manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing and wholesale trade jobs that are in the town. Second, much of that activity requires employment areas for its um for its activities. And second of all, this is way back in 2016 and there's a lot happened particularly in the last 5 years in in Ajax that I want to speak to a little bit uh in the coming slides. Uh next slide please. Um the other thing that I'm sure you're all aware of of course is that uh Ajax remains an outcommuting um uh municipality as a as a whole. Uh so a large number of Ajax residents travel outside the town for work particularly in the knowledgebased and professional services sector where there's a heavy concentration of people um sort of going to a job in in a downtown location in in Toronto for example. Um but there are a number of sectors where um there's a lot of incommuning as well that kind of offsets the outcommuting and uh so the green in this chart shows the outcome commuters for each of the sectors and the gold shows the incomuters and when you look at manufacturing and retail trade um those those two and and transportation and warehousing all the activities that are located on employment lands actually attract a lot of job uh uh commuters in from other places uh as as well as uh having a lot of people leave to to jobs in these areas uh in in these sectors elsewhere. Uh next slide, please. I mentioned we've had a lot of employment growth in Ajax in the last 5 years since the 2021 census, especially on employment lands. And this map here shows you in purple your your currently designated employment areas. and the and the yellow dots that are sprinkled around them shows you the buildings that are under construction or have been recently constructed or are proposed to be constructed in the near term. Um, and the bottom line is that you've had over 4 million uh square feet of building space constructed since 2016. About 3 and a half thousand uh jobs associated with with those um uh with that development. And there's another 1.7 million square feet of buildings that we know is going to take place in the next few years. Um, so it's a it's a really strong market right now and Ajax is of course very well positioned um to to continue to um capitalize on that market. Uh, next slide please. Um, another thing I want to point out is that because we are in some respects through this exercise updating work that the region uh did as part of its envision Durham exercise, um, we spent a lot of time trying to understand how the recent employment growth that's occurred in the town fits into the envisioned Durham forecasts. Um and um so the bottom line is from an employment area perspective um we'll still get we still think we will still get to the same place as Envision Durham envisioned. Uh but a lot of the growth that's been forecast for the employment areas has been frontended. And if you look at the graph there on the right uh or the chart there on the right, you can see that our forecasts reflect all the the recent growth that's in occurred on employment areas uh and then sort of incrementally fills in the remaining employment areas to 2011 whereas the envisioned DARM forecasts had a little bit more even employment growth over the period. Ultimately, both of these two forecasts get to the same place, but maximize the potential on the remaining land supply that exists in the town. Next slide, please. Um, so this chart here um uh you'll see uh a just a summary of the overall employment forecast. If we can go to the next slide. Madam chair, uh, madame clerk. Thank you. Oh, uh, the next one, page six. Can we uh get to page six, Madame Clerk? >> Sorry, you can continue. It just looks like there's a little bit of a delay between the video. >> Okay, sure. Um so, uh what you'll see on page six then, Mr. chairman is um just a summary of the employment forecast that I've been describing and you'll see a forecast that is very much frontloaded um and uh then sort of incrementally builds up uh to 201 um the key thing I wanted to emphasize uh with this is that the employment projection remains um you know quite ambitious um the ratio of jobs to people um that I highlighted earlier is set to increase. Um and uh you can see the gold component of the bar here uh represents the job growth that is anticipated on the employment areas. So uh reflecting what's just occurred between 20 uh 21 and 2026 which is u you know unusually uh high amount of job growth uh and then uh we sort of know what's going to happen in the next 5 years uh and then incrementally filling in the remaining employment areas to 201. Samir will speak about the the jobs associated with the uh the red component of the bar and then the green component of the bar is uh the the office the major office jobs that are anticipated as part of the forecast. The next slide please. Um so wanted to conclude then just with uh to highlight that you know the biggest constraint on your employment um uh land uh jobs will be the land supply itself. Um and the forecast indeed um is set to maximize the opportunities that exist on your remaining employment areas. Uh so it's about 3,000 more jobs between now and 201 that we feel could fit onto the remaining vacant lands uh in your employment areas with a little bit of intensification uh in your existing employment areas. And uh the map that you see up there uh it's a little fuzzy on my screen, but I can just make out the the the blue areas are the areas where you uh uh which are currently occupied with businesses and then the red areas are the vacant lands that are remaining uh to be populated. So about 3,000 jobs that we could reasonably shoehorn into the remaining lands to 201. And that's what this strategy is doing. Uh and then if we go to the final slide which should be slide nine. Um I just wanted to conclude by reemphasizing that um you know the report has very detailed profiles of the current employment areas in the town. And when we look at each area and the strengths and weaknesses of each area, we really uh conclude that there's there are very good reasons to protect those remaining lands. Um they are a key strategic asset. Um and that's clearly demonstrated with the growth that we've seen in the last few years and and the proposals that are that we know are on the books. Um we don't necessarily want a situation where all the employment are, you know, elsewhere in the region and all the residential development occurs in in the town. Uh a lot of the businesses that are in Ajax serve a local function. They've got long historic ties to the community. Um and we want to build that kind of complete community. Um and although we haven't done any financial analysis as part of our report, you know, generally speaking, there are really good fiscal benefits that that that would acrue by having employment areas. They they tend to produce higher tax uh revenues than they than they demand on municipal services. Um so there are conversion opportunities um that we've highlighted in the report. Some some of these are south of Bailey Street on the Ajax East employment areas. um but they're few and far between. And there's also an area that um at the Salem and Highway 401 intersection south of the highway um where there may be opportunities. Uh but if you are going to consider uh future conversions, they should be done on a very sightspecific basis. They should address compatibility issues, the long-term employment potential of those lands. Um and uh you should have very you know strict criteria uh and apply that criteria when when considering future conversions and and we anticipate developing those criteria as part of the next phase of the OP review. Um thank you very much Mr. Chairman and I think I'm going to pass things over to Samir now. Go ahead Sam. Uh I'm not given an option to share the right screen right now. I'm sharing myself it looks like. >> Go ahead cl. >> Hi Samir. Top lefthand corner. >> Yeah >> looks like you've selected that. So now it should ask you which window you'd like to share. Are you seeing the popup to select which window? >> It's just waiting to >> Okay. >> I'm going to just redo it. There we go. >> There we go. We can see the presentation. Perfect. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, members of council. My name is Samir Patel and I'm a vice president with Tate Economic Research. Tate Research was retained to conduct a commercial land need strategy for the town of Bayjax. The report submitted to town staff presents detailed forecasts of commercial demand to 201. It includes trends impacting future commercial, a detailed inventory of current and future supply and the demand forecast. This presentation provides a brief summary of the analysis and re and resulting recommendations. Uh there are many factors within the macro commercial environment that influence the requirement for future commercial space. These include demographics, changing formats, consumer and retailer preferences. This slide summarizes two of the more impactful ones with respect to Ajax's future commercial environment. The first is e-commerce. The overwhelming majority of purchases are still made at brickandmortar stores. However, almost every retail category has some form of e-commerce. The implications within the Ajax context is twofold. Firstly, brickandmortar stores increasingly have to provide an experience that cannot be found online. Therefore, where and how retail is planned and delivered takes on greater importance. The second part is larger national chains, many of which anchor and tenant commercial developments are finding they can serve greater areas with fewer stores. The other big trend is mixed use. Mixeduse developments will increasingly be the vehicle through which new commercial space in Ajax is delivered. There are several challenges with commercial and mixeduse buildings, including the reluctance on behalf of larger national chains to tenant space within these types of formats. Conflicts and uses and parking. In addition, the major issue is the overall land economics in which mixeduse performers favor residential development over commercial. Essentially, the commercial land need strategy is a supply and demand analysis. On the supply side, there are two components, existing supply and future supply. This slide illustrates the commercial categories that were inventoried and form the basis of the analysis. Commercial consists of three categories: food and beverage commercial or FBC, non-food and beverage commercial or NFBC, and service space. Typically, FBC and NFBC are what we refer to as retail. The existing inventory provides us with information on the current health of the market as well as assists us in the demand analysis when setting inflow and capture rates. We split the commercial inventory between employment lands and non-employment lands. The result is that Ajax has approximately 4.4 million square feet of occupied commercial space of which around 20% is located within the employment lands. The vacancy rate in Ajax excluding employment lands is approximately 4.4%. Typical vacancy rates are between 5 and a half between five and 7 and a half%. Therefore, the low vacancy rate in Ajax could be an indication of under supply of commercial space. Overall in Ajax, FBC and NFBC or what we consider as retail accounts for approximately 52% of the total space. Typically, we'd like to see a 6040 split between retail and service. Therefore, the lower ratio in Ajax is likely due to the fact that there's not an enclosed mall or a large main street. The implication is that Ajax loses expenditure dollars to other municipalities that likely have a more wholesome range of retail types. Within the employment land service is a dominant use is which is what we expect. This slide examines the square feet per capita of commercial space in Ajax compared to other municipalities where we have completed municipalwide inventories and are confident in the comparison. The upshot is Ajax is underserved to other areas except for Milton. To summarize on the current health of the market, Ajax has a range of goods and services in various nodes across the town. However, there are number of indicators including the vacancy rate and per capita ratio which suggests that Ajax is understood with respect to the amount of commercial space. The ability to accommodate future demand is primarily based on the future supply which is shown here. Overall, there's a significant amount of commercial supply that could potentially accommodate future demand. There are three components of supply combined. There's approximately 1.8 million square ft of potential commercial space that could be added into the market through development applications, pre-conultation applications, and vacant land. On the opposite side of supply is demand. Market demand for commercial space is influenced by population growth. The findings within these commercial land needs strategy are underpinned by the Ajax population forecast of 199,100 persons by 201 or a growth of 58,000 persons. The result of the current and future population as well as other inputs and adjustments is that by 201, Ajax residents will spend approximately $2 billion annually on commercial goods and services in Ajax and other municipalities. This represents an increase of approximately 521 million annually over the current levels. We then take the demand for commercial space and reconcile that against the potential future supply. Generally speaking, there's demand for 1.2 million square ft of commercial space by 201 and there's the potential commercial supply of 1.8 million square ft as described in the previous slides. Therefore, it can be concluded that no new additional commercial lands are required to support future demand. The previous supply and demand analysis focused on Ajax on an Ajaxwide analysis. However, in practice, demand will be geographically distributed as well as supply. This slide indicates that while overall there's a balance of supply and demand in areas such as the GO station PMTSA, which is expected to have significant population growth, there will there's currently an under supply of commercial space. However, this is expected as given the mixeduse development type of format that commercial space will come online with the population. To recap, the analysis results point to the fact that no new commercial lands are required to support future demand. So, while this is a positive outcome, the town cannot take it for granted that all potential commercial will be built. Our experience across the province is that there are more applications to reduce the amount of required commercial than to provide an appropriate amount of commercial. This is based on a number of factors. The leading one being land economics and mixeduse performance which favor residential over commercial. Therefore, our policy recommendations are biased towards protecting and encouraging more commercial space. We have provided four policy suggestions all of which are centered around encouraging commercial and ensuring that there is a mechanism to ensure development applications that result in a reduction in the amount of commercial are properly assessed. That uh ends my uh my presentation and I'm happy to take questions I believe along with Stefan. Great. Thank you. We all Okay. So, we have um questions from committee. We'll start with Mar Collier. >> Thank you, chair, and thank you for the presentations. So, I do have a few questions. I'll start with, you know, how can you reliably predict out to 201 with any sort of accuracy? I mean, we undergo this process every few years. I don't know if you had an opportunity to review the Watson Associates reports 2010 and 2019 analyzing our employment lands, but I'm just wondering how you can do this uh through the chair to the mayor. I believe for the employment I if you're speaking about employment lands, I can ask Stefan or if on the commercial side uh or the retail side, you're correct. We can't predict out to 201. Uh which is why we periodically review the the findings. Tape research actually conducted the 2018 uh retail study and uh and it's really based on population forecasts. So uh if we achieve those population forecasts, we'll be on track. Uh if not, then the amount of commercial space would be reduced. >> Okay. You talk about a 60/40 split and and I think we would all like to see that, but in reality, you know, development is market driven. So, what can this council do? We we've tried very hard. You know, we all want to see an 8020 commercial to residential split on the tax base, but the numbers keep going higher and higher and higher and residential despite our efforts. How can we steer that ratio from our perspective? uh through the chair to the mayor. I don't I don't think the I I don't think there's anything wrong with having a reduced ratio. Typically, that uh aligns with current trends where it's really service space that is driving the tenanting. Health and wellness, restaurants, uh personal services are really what's driving tenanting right now. the the concern not been the concern the 6040 all that means is that there is like there's less outflow of expenditures and they that may not be sustainable in the sense that as we saw with Stefan's slides where there's an out uh flow of labor so when people go to Toronto to work they may end up doing some of their shopping there too so the 6040 is just aspirational in terms of it it results in more dollars being saved within Ajax than going out of Ajax. The flip side of that is that there are uh restaurants that people come in that are high-profile that are on Instagram that people want to eat at in Ajax where people come in from the surrounding municipalities and spend their dollars within Ajax as well. >> Okay. You talk about on slide five 1.8 million square feet that could be added to our inventory. Um where is this and how? These are lands that aren't already identified in our OP >> uh through the chair. There there's three areas for the 1.8. One is uh so around 800,000 of that is just current development applications that are within the pipeline. Uh an additional 214,000 are pre consultation applications that are haven't been officially submitted. And then there's the another 755 which are commercially designated lands that could accommodate future commercial. I will flag that that 755 of vacant commercial lands is a very similar number to what we had in uh 2018. Therefore, the uptake of that land hasn't been hasn't occurred. So those lands may uh may not be attractive for commercial for various reasons uh or they're just waiting to be uh developed. So that's the the the how the 1.8 breaks down. I I can't agree with you on that statement. In since 2018 to 2022, we had about a billion dollars worth of commercial investment in the town of Ajax. So how is it possible that the needle didn't move on the the land availability? like things like like the Amazon warehouse for instance a million square ft. The pure industrial warehouse 1.2 million square ft. Um a combination of others through Crest Point and everything else is another 1 point something million square feet. How can we say or how can you say that that the needle hasn't moved on available land when we've had that type of develop that quantity of development? >> Uh through the chair. So this so our report the tape report only uh deals with retail commercial lands and therefore so the Amazon so those are all employment lands developments >> so that would be >> yes >> okay >> yeah through through the chair I think Stephen's presentation recognized I think it's been 4.2 2 million square feet on that side that's been constructed since approximately 2016. >> Okay. Okay. I'll I'll try and stick to the the retail. One of your statements you made was the under supply and the go. I assume you reviewed as part of this process the 10 or so uh mayor's directives and approvals that we've given as well as the secondary plan that's undergoing right now ongoing right now in the the MTSA area and the direction being given that all of those will have some type of mixeduse component versus what was originally there where they were going to be predominantly residential without that mixeduse component. Did you review those and have you factored those stats in >> through the chair? Uh we haven't in terms of unless they were active development applications. But I think what what the slide wanted to show was that as those populations because it's mixed use as those populations come in the assumption is is that on the ground floor or the ground and second floor you'd have to provide a level of commercial which would then be uh which would then mirror the population growth. My last slide wanted to highlight the fact that across the province we find that many developers uh try to to reduce the amount of commercial they can build and therefore for the in terms of the policy recommendations we wanted to ensure that if somebody comes in with a mixeduse development application and says you know the ground floor isn't viable or it doesn't work that we have the mechanism and say, "Well, you have to actually show us or show Ajax uh why you think it's not viable." So, in terms of for not forcing them, but making sure that the ground floor is always uh viewed as as commercial development. Well, this is why I really like mayor's directives and doing things this way because we can hardwire these requirements in the zoning bylaw, you know, to to absolutely make sure that in the podiums they have a grocery store, daycare, coffee shops, restaurants, all those amenities that the people that are going to live in those units are going to need and they don't have to jump in their car to go to. So, I I'm a bit surprised that that since we've done that, probably I don't know 6,000 units in the MTSA, maybe more. No, actually, no, now that I think of it, probably about 12,000 units in the MTSA, that you wouldn't have factored those those into these these results. >> So, through the chair, if I can just jump in quickly. So, there was uh many of those applications were considered in the development pipeline. We also included other ones like the minister zoning orders that have been approved over the last number of years. I think um there was a cut off date though and I'd have to go back into the report to see because I know the a lot of those um strong mayors uh applications have been moving pretty quickly and so in order to allow our consultants to complete a lot of their um their work. There was a cut off date earlier this year uh where we made sure that we had to stop adding them to make sure that a lot of the information was accurate in the final report. Okay. It just I I guess I I use the term doom and gloom. I mean, I when I hear some of these things like under supply and and back to Stefan with the uh the preserve the employment lands, I think it's important that we note, especially for the public, that we've made a lot of changes here, this council has, that are pretty progressive to maintain these employment numbers. and not only maintain but improve increase. So what was our official plan Sean before 32 jobs per net hector on average for for unit? >> Yeah, I believe it was approximately around there for our last uh analysis. I think that was in vision durm as well. >> I don't think we've done anything less than 50. So in most cases when we do these they are significantly like 500 600% higher than what the standard would have been which is actually growing the number of jobs and opportunities in these areas. Anyway, I I have some questions. I guess those are my jobs on the retail. Just on to I guess Steph and the other is he still here? >> He's here. One moment. Go ahead. >> Just very similar. Um, you talk about protecting the employment areas and and as I referenced the 2010 and the 2018 or 2019 Watson reports, you know, that talked about our inventory of employment land. The 2010 said we didn't have enough. The 2019 said we did have enough. Um, your talk about protecting. I guess same question. Your numbers show that more people are working from home from a significant amount like it's gone up a lot. However, we have done some conversions in the employment lands. But I guess same question as to the other consultant. We have increased significantly the number of jobs per net hectare plus adding you know 25 stories residential above. Were those numbers factored into your figures? Um Stefan, once I select you, don't touch anything and you can speak right now. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Sorry. Uh through you, Mr. Chairman. Uh yes, we look we we spent um probably the the biggest chunk of our time was to try and assess exactly what has occurred over the last five or six years since the Envision Durham forecast was prepared because a lot has occurred. Uh as you mentioned there's Amazon was built in 2021 with a very high employment density. I should say Amazon is quite an unusual kind of business especially when with respect to the density of employment. Um so there's been a lot of other stuff constructed as well. The lacoridge facility I think was another one you mentioned the density on that is almost certainly going to be a lot lower than what's uh in Amazon. So um we've we've tried to map out uh we've looked very closely at the density trends. We've looked very closely at what's been built on the ground and we have a pretty good idea I think of what's likely to occur over the next 5 to seven years and uh as you point out and I agree with Samir the further you go out to 201 the harder it becomes to forecast this kind of stuff and with the employment lands it's particularly difficult because it depends so much on regional and you know provincial and global forces and supply chains. So um but you know we uh we have done a lot of work to reset things and to update assumptions reflect to reflect what's actually happening on the ground. >> Okay. uh you talked about manufacturing and and I mean that would be great and I would love to have more of that type but unfortunately these are market driven and we went through a pretty significant growth in warehousing especially through co and you talked a bit of e-commerce um I'm trying to think of the how to phrase this question I mean how do you get around the market driven like you get what you get >> uh through you, Mr. Chairman, you you get what you get. I I couldn't agree more. Um and the market has certainly shifted. Uh we're no longer in in in the age where employment lands are places where we do sort of heavy dirty industrial manufacturing type stuff. uh as you rightly say um a lot a lot of the boom in employment areas that has occurred since co has got to do with logistics, transportation, warehousing, distribution which has relatively low densities but still needs dedicated areas for its activities. Um and so and and you know Lacidge is a is a prime example of that. Uh so I think we've recognized that in the market. Um and uh we still think there's a need for employment areas to accommodate that kind of stuff particularly in the near future. Um and uh so I I I couldn't agree with you more, but there's not there's not much you can do to change um what somebody wants to do on those employment areas when they when they develop there. >> Okay. just I guess I'll ask your opinion on this because I've looked at this on um you know basically with the opinion that you know a singlestory commercial plaza or a singlestory uh employment you know condo unit with with seven or eight different different buildings will generate DC's planning fees and taxes once for one level versus by maintaining those employment numbers or in our case growing those employment numbers but then adding the residential component above provides us exponential more planning fees, development charges and taxes in addition to giving close proximity to employment so people can walk to work. I mean looking at those types of benefits, what are your thoughts on that? because I understand you're probably just looking at the employment zone strictly for employment but not for the other uses which what we have done here as a council in certain areas. >> Yeah. So there's several things going on there Mr. Chairman. Um the first is that um I entirely agree with the mayor um that there's a real opportunity to be had to develop mixeduse developments um and I think Samir touched on this as well and those have financial benefits as well as sort of planning community benefits as well. um not all a lot of that will be geared towards retail kind of uses and um the Hemson study our sort of study really focuses on less on those kinds of uses and more on the uses that need to be segregated from other types of uses. um either because they're heavy industry or because they uh generate a lot of truck traffic and they have, you know, very powerful lights that need to accommodate turning circles of trucks when when when it's 8:00 at night in January or because there's odor or vibration or air quality issues, all that kind of stuff. Um and you know, it's not just manufacturing that generates those kinds of compatibility compatibility issues. uh anywhere you're going to get high volume of trucks and goods being moved, you're going to have those sorts of issues. So, I think I think mixed use is an important um uh element to explore and it's great that the town has uh put the right mechanisms into place to foster it, but uh there still will be important parts of your local economic base that require lands that are, you know, clearly separated from other types of uses. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Those are my questions. >> Thank you. Next, we have region council Crawford. >> Thank you. I think what I'm hearing you say is that we should not be converting our very precious commercial or um employment land into housing. Am I hearing that correctly? >> Uh oh, certainly on the employment areas. Um, that's what you're hearing from from me. Uh, and I think Samir may want to touch. I'll I'll leave the the commercial retail areas to Samir. >> Uh, through you, Mr. Chair. Uh what I'm saying is that if a strip plaza for instance were to be redeveloped or have a development application for a mixeduse plaza, a mixeduse development, uh typically the resulting amount of commercial is less than what was already existing on the in the strip plaza. And so what we're saying is that at a minimum you should where possible replace the existing space, not the existing tenants, but the existing amount of space. uh because while we view intensification and mixed use as great, more often than not we end up losing commercial space when those development applications go through. So it's just to make sure that it's not a we don't have a net loss of commercial space. >> Well, what's your thoughts on building on top of commercial >> through you uh Mr. chair in terms of building on top existing commercial or >> or even even future commercial. >> I guess it would depend on what it was, right? I I think in terms of building on top of existing there's whole like I'm sure there's engineering th those types of issues that uh and in terms of just general mixed use of having residential above commercial it is it works in very specific instances unlike a typical commercial strip plaza where you can drive up park in front of the store walk into the store. uh there is a cultural barrier in terms of uh people not wanting to for instance drive underground into a parking spot and then have to take some sort of escalator to start shopping and then there is push back from major national chains where the where they're sort of if you're a shoppers drug for instance or you have a very specific floor plan that you have to operate from and uh those chains find it difficult to uh accommodate those into mixed use formats, but in the scenario where that's the only option, they'll they'll adjust and they'll do it. >> Okay. Just just question. Um, is this where I can ask where where you got your data? Okay, this is the Okay, good. Okay, so I thought the g the data collecting was a bit odd. I didn't I didn't know actually that um that my phone I mean I knew my phone could be tracked, but I didn't realize anybody actually used any of that stuff. So, I realized it was a short window that you used it. Well, it was a year you used it for. And what surprised me to be honest with you is that the Harwood Plaza trade area was higher percentage than Costco. Now, are we only counting bodies? Are we counting like how can you you must only be counting bodies because you can't tell really if people are shopping or spending money, right? So it's just volume of people. Is that what we're tracking here? I'm just Can you explain that for me? >> Through you, Mr. Chair. So I think there's two things. First of all, uh as as a sort of as a research firm, uh we find the data really interesting, but we also recognize that whenever we go speak in public, people also say, "Wait a second, this is really weird and creepy." And uh so I think just to sort of uh there's two things on that side. One is that uh how you get tracked is sort of is up to you is up to you in terms of your location enabled on apps etc. Uh so it's if you don't if you don't want to be tracked you just turn it off. Uh secondly from our point of view we it's it's anonymized data. So we we have a sense of where it's coming from, but typically it's also restricted to a geography that's not specific to like where your house is. And we wouldn't we wouldn't know anything beyond just the location. So it's fully anonymized. >> Uh a as for the what is collected, you're it's correct. It's just whether you were seen at that location versus how much you spent. So you're right. So you could if you went to Costco once a month and spent $400 versus if you went every week and uh and spent only you only only bought a hot dog or $2, uh the person who went every week would have a greater would be captured more often than the person who went once a month. So we don't have the ability to uh to to see how many dollars are spent. So we use it very we don't we don't use it uh linearly in terms we don't interpret the results straight like we look at it it's it's one extra data point that just helps us in understanding uh where the customer draw is. >> So that's interesting because everything we've heard about the plaza or Ajax plaza is that business is down. So, we're not we're tracking s I'm just trying to understand the difference between like there's a there's a a quite a big difference between the percentages between a plaza that seems to have um less traffic going to it versus a a center that like like a Costco center where you would see volumes of people every single day. So, I'm not sure if I'm Does that make sense to me? C does that make sense to you? Like I I don't is the is the are the this is it just the bodies in the plaza area that's it. So we have lots of bodies in the area not necessarily lots of business in the area >> through you Mr. Chair. That's correct. So all we try to do with the mobility data is to understand how far what is your your your width of of draw. So we how far do people come from and there and then we'd say if 75% for instance come from within 3 kilometers then we'd be able to say well that 3 kilometers is really is your market area and what's the population within that. So it's not it's not the actual amount of data points at the at Harwood Center. It's actually tells us where how how big the draw is. So at Costco, the draw is is very large. It draws from a larger area. There's more population within that area. And then we be able to sort of say this is the market for that Costco. It's much larger than for the market for a smaller area, >> which would be your next all other would be where you're drawing from. >> Yeah. Uh no, I'm I'm just sorry. I'm I'm just going to move to that table. Uh >> I'm on page uh yeah 62 612 >> correct? So uh through you Mr. figure B1 is that >> yeah yeah >> so the way to interpret figure B1 would be uh so for Harwood for Harard Plaza 61% of the people who had visited Harwood Plaza of the people who had allowed tracking on their phones etc. So, of those people we were able to identify, 61% of those people came or lived within Ajax, which makes sense because it's more local versus if you look at the Costco, 37% uh of the people who visited that Costco lived in Ajax. the balance of those of the people who are seen at that Costco lived either in Pickering, uh 18% came from Pickering, 15% came from Toronto, which also makes sense because it's a larger draw. >> Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Thank you. And finally, Council Henry. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. Most of my uh questions have been asked and answered. I do want to circle back to uh the employment land. So um to Samir, I'm the counselor for WI. So up in the north area and when we were looking at some of the employment land tables on page seven and four of the presentation and we're seeing all the purple and pink highlighted there. Um, and then again for the Costco area, that's also myself. Um, sorry, I think a headphone just died there. Um, can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Sorry. Um, so looking at uh those areas, let's start with um the main street on Highway 2, the Costco uh area, Michaels, all all of that area. So we um regional coun already spoke with regards to um having residential on top of it and I know that's problematic. I know that's uh not the way we like to um uh introduce residential is on top of an existing building. Correct. >> Uh through you, Mr. Chair. Uh I I just I don't know if I've seen it in in terms of uh adding residential on on top of a sort of like you know if you're in a power center uh adding on top of existing. I I've seen I've seen it the building gets demolished and then a mixeduse development uh is constructed with commercial on the ground floor. >> Which makes sense. Yeah. Because it's all new. It's all fresh and your concern is keeping the square footage of commercial that was already there in the new foot plan in the base of the building um for with the residential on top not shrinking that commercial size foot plan to accommodate for residential that's that was your main concern in that scenario correct >> through you Mr. here uh more so ensuring the function remains and I'll give you a great example in that for instance if there is a no frills supermarket a current no frrills would be around maybe 35,000 square feet and that means that that plaza has a a neighborhood supermarket function now we've seen no frrills being developed at 10,000 square feet and they're they're just as good just they have just as amount of stuff in them so if They said, "We'll replace the no frills at 10,000." We I would be fine with it because it still has the supermarket function. And in that in that area, we get into difficulty if we talk specifically about retaining that 35 35,000 square feet that was existing for a supermarket because they're providing the same function. It's just a smaller store. You want you want the development to maintain the same neighborhood function and cater to the existing neighborhood it was already doing so while adding to the new neighborhood that's created above it in airspace. >> Correct. >> That's the goal. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, so what if you had um a space like um uh the recan center where there's you know there's a lot of empty parking space in certain areas it's not used. What if you created a building inside that existing domain, not on top of something else where it's more difficult, but within the existing structure um of the plaza? Sorry, within the existing uh footprint of the plaza itself in a area that's uh underutilized, not used for parking. What's that look like? >> Through you, Mr. Chair. U we we are in favor of it. It adds it it adds mixeduse buildings onto underutilized lands. Uh it adds more residential into the area that provides more support for for retail for for the existing retail. Uh so it it doesn't it's not you know it's not demolishing or taking away from anything that's already there. It's just underutilized land. So we see a lot of parking lots being redeveloped into mixeduse buildings and and for us that's a it's a positive. It adds more housing and more support. >> It's a win-win. >> Yeah. Yes. >> Okay. And then we have some lands um that are existing to big places like our um our Home Depot, our Walmart Plazas such that uh you know we're we're in the employment zone area, prestigious employment zone area, but we're abing up against the commercial and we've taken you know a little chunk of land here and there and allowed for that um I like to call it like a bridge, a cohesive bridge to um the the more commercial um the more uh sorry prestigious employment area and where we have like a a mixed use where we have you know space on the bottom uh level of the podium and we have the residential on the top giving that bridge between the two sections more more cohesive that that sounds like something you're in favor of correct >> for you Mr. Chair from a commercial standpoint uh for us any additional commercial uh is is a win. And so as long as I can't speak to the residential attractiveness, but certainly on the commercial ground floor, any additional commercial for us is always uh is always warranted or attractive for us. >> Okay. And then um when we look at um some of the slides that you just went through with counselor Crawford and we're looking um in particular I'm just trying to pull it up here. Um the slides that are showing where we've had our business come from from surrounding areas and we like the Costco in particular and Rioan was very interesting to me because I did hear you speak about um Ajax not having an indoor plaza something that Pickering has. But I also um noticed like myself the weekend center, the Costco, that area is packed constantly with people shopping there and like Costco is basically you know for getting a parking spot Game of Thrones as is Walmart sometimes, right? Let's be honest about that. And um there's never enough accessibility parking. I don't think we ever will have enough. But when we look at um where we have folks coming from that are uh going into that area, the graph that you're showing on uh page what is it page here in the report it's page 616 on your slide it's page 73 and we're looking at you know the amount of folks that are coming from other areas of Pickering and Whippy. Um, I would I would imagine that is money that's being um spent in the community cuz you know, you come over to do your shopping. Well, you're going to as you as you come in from Pickering, you're going to notice that we have an Old Navy. Pickering doesn't have an Old Navy. You know, you want to do some shopping there. You're going to notice a restaurant that we have that Pickering doesn't. You might want to eat there and vice versa from Whippy into coming into Costco and that. But I'm there's no way to see those figures in numbers, right? You said there's no numbers showing the amount of funds spent uh through you, Mr. Chair. We have in the not on not not on specific uh sort of retailer basis but part of our demand analysis in the background uh does account for what we this is called inflow and so it does account for inflow of dollars. So when we when we in our demand analysis talked about >> uh the I think it was the 2.1 million or the 1.8 million square feet of future demand. So that is not only demand generated by Ajax uh residents and their growth but it also accounts for this inflow of expenditures. So that's part of when we looked at this mobility data and we we see that there are people who live in other municipalities and even who work who come and work in Ajax they bring their dollars too whether it's lunchtime dollars breakfast hours on their way home they may stop at a supermarket uh within uh within Ajax so that we do account for what we call inflow dollars >> and then I'm not seeing anything in your report and I guess it's because it's um short-term based one-offs, but we have some large festivals that come into Ajax and our operational bringing in, you know, we've got one that does 20 like 20,000 people it brings in. Um things like that that's that's going to be generating a lot more that's not captured in this report. >> Correct. >> Through you, Mr. Chair. We we would normally just uh have that as as the inflow number in terms of there's we know that there is inflow coming in as the traveling public always spends. Uh so there wouldn't you know there you could probably have a more specific uh if you wanted to look at more of like an economic impact of those events and then what that means to the surrounding area and uplift in expenditures of whether it's a week-long uh event or but that wouldn't be specifically captured here in terms of what those events mean on the economic development side. >> Okay. So, um, wrapping it up, um, uh, you know, uh, what what are we looking at here for, um, increasing our development, getting some things going, uh, continuing to maintain the existing footprints of the businesses we have, not necessarily their current buildings, but the the footprint, the structures. uh you are you offering some advice some tips here >> uh through you Mr. chair. I think the the biggest uh the biggest sort of recommendation is this is this policy or is a recommendation or suggestion that when development apps come in and say that they don't want to build ground flooror commercial or it's too difficult or there's no market uh that there should be a level of scrutiny in terms of why that is. They are clearly uh commercial. There are clearly some de mixeduse developments that aren't just welllocated for ground for commercial that don't make sense because they may be on a secondary road etc. and the viability wouldn't be good. Uh but certainly there are other developments that uh that may be better suited for ground flooror commercial and they may not uh those development applications may not be recommending that and I just think it's a bit more scrutiny on why that is >> and maybe if I can just jump in Mr. Chair. >> Okay. So so continue. So this uh the report before you this is all background information that will be used in the next phase of the project which is where we really start looking at what those policy recommendations are and really acting on some of the re the the um the information and the recommendations including in these reports >> which makes sense. It makes sense you know like a lot of a lot of things that you've said here today. So, you know, looking at that and knowing that uh commercial has to stay in the forefront of our minds when we're working with any type of development that involves housing on top, we must be fighting for that commercial space on the main level. So, thank you. Thank you for uh your time and your detailed report. And you know, uh, we're we're we're clearly seeing, um, that, uh, Ajax is attracting a lot of people from outside of Ajax into our business area. So, that was, uh, very appreciative to see. Thank you. Great. Any other speakers who want to speak? Seeing none, allow me to jump to the report. Um, this is PDS 2026-16. Um, the recommend Oh, can I get a mover and a second or first, please? >> Oh, wait, sorry. >> On the same thing. >> Mhm. >> Oh, excuse me. Sorry, folks. Uh, clerks, you're right. As has informed me, there was another presentation 5.2.2. Uh, so before moving secondary, uh, director or director, Mr. McCulla, did you want to set the table again? Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry about that. So, I'll turn it over to Nichollet Francis. She's an environmental plan with the town and she's uh written the climate resilience and Greenland system report and she's got a very quick presentation on that. So, I'll turn it over to Nichollet. >> Uh, please let me know if you can hear me. >> We can hear you. Thank you. >> Just going to share my presentation. There's a slight delay on my end here. Please let me know if you can see the slides. >> Um, do you want to just start the presentation? We are having some tech issues where it's kind of catching up eventually. We also have the presentations in front of us as well. So, just go ahead and start and we'll we'll catch up. >> Okay. Maybe if I can. Um, all right. I'll kind of do it this view in this view. Um, good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of committee. My name is Nichollet Francis. I work with sustainability as the environmental planner in the planning and development services team. I'm here today to provide you with a highle overview of the climate resilience and greenland system policy review as it pertains to the official plan project. This review responds to provincial and regional policy changes as it relates to climate mitigation adaptation, the natural heritage system, the water resources system, and the agricultural system. Over the past several years, there have been um various bills that have been introduced by the province. Um and most notable of these are listed on this slide. Um and I will try to get into it with bill 23 that narrowed the scope of conservation authority reviews to natural hazards and as a result, municipalities are now required to assume an increased role in natural heritage reviews outside of conservation authority regulated hazard areas. Bill five repealed the Endangered Species Act and enacted the Species Conservation Act and narrowed the definition of habitat and as a result less species habitat area may be protected in Ajax compared to previous provincial legislation. Under bill 17 that really restricted municipalities from imposing building construction and performance standards beyond the Ontario building code and as a result Ajax now has a reduced authority in imposing building related measures through its Ajax green standard. And just for some context, our HS green standard is our sustainable design metrics that all development applications are uh are required to meet um that undergo site plan and or draft plan of subdivision. Bill 98 proposes to limit munipal authority to regulate building related environmental standards under site plan control. Uh, this bill is still under final legislative approval, but if passed as proposed, the Ajax green standard may need to be revised with building related measures potentially becoming voluntary and the town relying more on incentives and collaboration with developers to promote sustainable development practices. Then moving on, uh, we conducted a comprehensive gap analysis between Envision Derm, which is the region's official plan, and Ajax's official plan policies. The review essentially identified key thematic areas that are listed on this slide as well as the next slide. And for the purposes of this presentation, I will just kind of highlight the major components or major themes. So under climate resilience, sorry, climate mitigation and adaptation. It highlighted the need to further integrate our climate policies um into all land use, infrastructure, transportation and bill form sections of our official plan and strengthen our policies around green infrastructure as well as introduce tree canopy targets into the official plan under land stewardship and securement. This really highlighted recognizing partnerships with indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge as it relates to natural heritage, land securement and stewardship under the natural heritage system. This really identified highlighting the Duffins, the Kthers, and Lin Creeks as land corridors and potentially identifying and mapping enhancement opportunity areas um that are outside our current natural heritage system. I'm not sure if the slide is showing on your screen um but essentially these areas are highlighted in orange and are identified for restoration opportunities. Then moving on we have the water resources system. Um under the water resources system we have groundwater protection and source water protection. So, groundwater protection really highlighted identifying and mapping um water resources such as significant groundwater recharge areas, highly vulnerable aquifers, and significant surface water contribution areas. The town essentially completed a salt vulnerability assessment that maps these features and evaluates them using a salt vulnerability index to identify areas most susceptible to chloride contamination. Um so this assessment really helped inform where development proposals could potentially um be asked for a salt management plan to protect the natural heritage and water resources system. And then under the source water protection, this really highlighted identifying drinking water areas such as intake protection zones 1, 2, and three. Um intake protection zone one is a 1 kilometer radius around the drinking water intake in Lake Ontario. Um, intake protection zone 2 is based on a 2-hour time travel window to intake protection zone 1. And intake protection zone 3 identifies areas where contaminant pathways have been modeled to determine how spills or discharges could travel through tributaries and reach the drinking water intake in Lake Ontario. And then lastly, we looked at the agricultural system. So this really identified and mapping uh and uh requires the mapping of prime agricultural areas. Uh these areas essentially are highquality farmland with high quality soil that are intended for long-term agricultural use as directed by the province. These areas are high uh are highlighted in the black hatched areas on the map to the left of this slide. And lastly, in terms of onfarmm diversified use, this was a clarification terminology piece as they're listed as agricultural related secondary uses within our official plan. Uh these uses are secondary land uses on a farm that are complimentary to and compatible with agricultural operations providing additional income while maintaining the farm's primary agricultural function. And then lastly uh we did a best management practice research where we looked at other municipalities in terms of what they are um adding within their own official plans as well as via programming and the most notable are listed on this slide. So under tiny forest that's really looking at the Miawaki method which is a dense native tree planting approach that uses closely spaced fast growing tree species to rapidly create biodiverse self-sustaining forests in small urban areas that have limited space under pollinator friendly design. This is something we're already kind of introducing programs but this would really look at integrating policy within our official plan for pollinator habitats along infrastructure corridors. um looking at maybe some roadway design, utility corridors as well as public lands under ecosystem compensation. This is a last resort tool to address unavoidable development related ecological impacts on natural features such as woodlands that are outside our current natural heritage system. And finally, solar carports and canopies. This is really the integration of renewable solar energy into large surface parking areas to build municipal leadership and energy resilience. So, think of your rooftop solar PV panels that this would kind of be um on top uh parking areas and it would kind of essentially provide um canopy cover for the urban heat island effect. It would also supplement for EV charging infrastructure and also act as battery uh battery storage. Thank you. That is it for me. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you so much for your presentation. Looking at committee right now. Any questions for the presenter? Going once, twice. Seeing none. Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll now move on to the motion. I believe I had councelor councelor Crawford to move. Could I get a seconder, please? I didn't catch the sec. Thank you, councelor Henry. Um, so we're on PDS-20226-16. The recommendation is the report titled Ajax, our future in focus, commercial land needs strategy background report, employment area strategy background report and climate resilience and green land system policy review report and associate attachments be received for informations. Any questions, comments, concerns? Council region councelor Crawford, did you want to speak or just um you didn't lower your hand from previously? Okay, I'm going to assume you didn't lower your hand then. Seeing none, we will call the vote. And that passes. See folks, this is how you get through a 776 page report. The last item on the agenda is a German. Can I get a mover and seconder, please? I see councelor Tyler Morren and councelor Bower. Any questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, we'll call the vote. That passes everyone. Have a fantastic day. Great work.