Edenshaw Developments…

Edenshaw Developments Limited is the owner of numerous high-rise development sites in the City of Mississauga, specifically in Port Credit and along the Hurontario corridor. We have been monitoring the City of Mississauga Official Plan Review over the past few years and have engaged with staff directly in meetings, through BILD and with written correspondence. While we have seen a more favourable tone in policies throughout the iterations of the document, we still are concerned that there are specific policies that are far too onerous on the development community and will strain the feasibility of our existing and future projects, particularly during a time of an affordability and housing crisis.

In advance of providing our formal comments on the new Official Plan on the ERO, we would like to respectfully bring your attention to a few areas of concerns, which are as follows:

Servicing & Infrastructure – many policies tether new development to the existing capacity of infrastructure or to follow planned infrastructure upgrades. These should be rephrased to create a symbiotic relationship where new development and infrastructure can grow side by side and with the help of private industry with the objective of delivering homes quicker.

Strategic Growth Areas – there is a lot of emphasis placed on the rigidity of the City Structure and the hierarchy of the various strategic growth areas such as the MTSA’s, Growth Nodes and Neighbourhoods. Any deviation from the hierarchy, such as increasing building heights where appropriate, is met with extremely rigid and sometimes arbitrary and subjective tests that vary with staff interpretation. This places uncertainty with site selection and draws out the approvals process ultimately increasing costs.

Environmental Standards – Edenshaw has also gone above and beyond what the City or Building Code has mandated with respect to green building standards. However, this has always been voluntary and tailored to each project as appropriate. These policies should be revised to encourage sustainable building design standards without mandating them above and beyond what the upcoming Province wide standards will require.

Affordable Housing – while we appreciate the reduction of the Inclusionary Zoning rate to a maximum of 5%, we still have concerns regarding the direction for minimum unit types and tenure (i.e. 50 percent of all units to be 2- and 3-bedroom units and 30 percent of all new housing units to be affordable). Encouraging this is also welcomed, but the municipal and provincial governments need to be a partner in helping us achieve these goals. Further, the development community responds to market conditions and what is feasible to sell and build. The market rate of a 3-bedroom apartment unit competes with low-rise housing product and most will choose the latter. We can not build things that will not be absorbed by the market.

Urban Design – revise policies so that they are clear and performance based. Often times projects are delayed on the whims of the City urban designer and their interpretation of related policies. Developers hire Architects, Designers and Landscape Architects who are competent in their work but are often hamstrung by a myriad of policies.

Building Design – similar to the above the building design policies, particularly for high-rise buildings, are highly restrictive and work against the feasible delivery of product to the market. For instance, floorplates are restricted and then further constrained by intangible wind, shadow and transition requirements. This creates design pressures from both ends which can result in inefficient and unfavourable layouts.

Land Designation – policies regarding general land use categories need to permissive to incentive good development rather than being perspective and onerous. For instance, non-residential gross floor area replacement policies can completely neuter the feasibility of a development particularly when this type of product is not currently in demand.

Protected Major Transit Station Areas – we would encourage that the PMTSA boundary schedules be revised to further expand the delineation of these growth areas. Many are artificially constrained by the perceived impact of transition to low-rise communities. In conjunction with building design policies this constrains many development sites to be inefficient and not feasible. Further the PMTSA height maps should be revised to prescribe minimum heights and not maximums, which further restrict the redevelopment feasibility of many sites. Removing maximum heights does not mean that super-tall buildings will be built on every corner, rather this will provide developers with the flexibility of tailoring their projects to market demands and sensitivity.

The above are some of the high-level concerns that we would like to share with you. Enclosed in the link below you will find a fulsome mark-up of the adopted Official Plan with suggested revisions on a policy by policy basis. We would ask that you review the suggestions in advance of your review of the Official Plan and consider them while you undertake any revisions. This will ensure that developers can continue to focus on delivering homes with minimal red tape from local municipalities and thereby delivering product more effectively and affordably.