Yesterday at North York Community Council the Costco application for 42-46 Overlea Blvd. was rejected on a tie vote (3-3). Although The City Planning Department had recommended its approval, the application will now go to the entire Toronto City Council for consideration “Without Recommendation” on November 10.
There were a number of deputations regarding the application and of those opposed, traffic was a major concern. I share this concern and have serious misgivings not only with the methodology and quality of the traffic report, but our own Transportation Department’s unreasonably high threshold for rejecting an application based on a projected increase in traffic volumes. This is somewhat of an unusual situation in that opinions were strongly divided with a majority of Thorncliffe residents in favour of the application.
As I have mentioned previously, I believe the perfect solution would be a Costco without the gas bar but City Staff did not make this recommendation and thus it was not something Costco would agree to. One of the biggest challenges we have in opposing developments based on traffic concerns is that the developer always has a favourable traffic study. While this situation has gone on for years, there seems to have been little effort to hold the traffic consultants accountable. This is exactly what I tried to do with one of the three amendments I proposed.
Recognizing that without our own City Staff’s support a fight at the OMB is extremely difficult to win, I recommend the following additions/changes to the report:
1) Reduce the number of gas pumps from 18 to 12.
2) Costco conduct a follow up traffic study one year after store opening and pay for any mitigation efforts if their study underestimated traffic volumes.
3) Specify number of Thorncliffe residents hired by Costco.
Additionally, Costco had agreed to a voluntary payment of $650,000 to be used for community benefits in Thorncliffe. I ultimately felt that this was the best deal possible under the circumstances and that the risk of losing these concessions by forcing the developer to the OMB was not the proper course of action — especially since Ward 26 residents’ opinions were mixed.
Please contact me if you have any questions or would like to voice your opinion.
John Burnside, Councillor, Ward 26
