Find out more about the Port Perry housing development and considerations for speeding up the process. Listen to the interview: Click Here
Transcript:
So what is Avenue property is looking or rather proposing to, build near Port Perry. So Avenue has been looking to create a model community to show a different form of integration of sustainable technologies and to create a model community which is built on different principles for social benefits. And, we looked at a number of communities, in Ontario.
We’re active, we’re an across country active company, but we’re very active in Ontario. And, we found the, the site in Port Perry, which, collectively is just over 100 acres. It’s in the urban area. And we thought this would be the ideal place to build a model, showcase community. We hope to demonstrate a better way of designing a community.
We hope to reproduce these communities at larger scale, 10 to 15 times the size of the project we’re intending to build in Port Perry. And, this is 600 units that would be in the, the neighborhood, is I correct? A better way to think of it is, is the official plan of Google org permits 50 units for net buildable hectare.
All we want to do is build 50 units per net buildable hectare. So if it turns out there’s ten that buildable hectares, then will be 500 units. We just want to stay in the four square corners of the official plan, which is the objective of township is Google. And what kind of homes would these be with these be like, you know, low rise, mid-rise, semi-detached.
So, Alistair, we, from the get go, we want to build a, a mixed, mixed housing project. So there will be some single family, some townhomes. Most of it will be in the form of multi-unit buildings, typically, five stories or less. And, the project planned to be an intergenerational project. So we’re looking for, a mix for units for first time buyers.
We’re particularly interested in young people who are going young professionals who are looking for, live work, live work, accommodation. So it’s a remote working world. It’s changing. And we’re we the other big emphasis for us is, multi-unit, multi-unit, apartments for people wanting to downsize and stay in the Port Perry neighborhood. We’re intending to bring pace pack pace to this project.
We won’t be the first project in Canada to do it, but there are very few. And Pace is, a program to help to provide coordinated medical services as a available to people. So they can age in place to keep people living longer in their homes and apartments and not have to go out to long term care or, institutional facilities.
Pace is a big part of what we’re intending to do. Probably Pace will be servicing a couple of hundred of the, the residents and neighbors in the, in the project. So we’re speaking on, the the benefits that this will bring to the community. You’re asking for a, rather, your team is asking for a ministerial zoning order.
Can you tell me a little more about that? The, the site has been sitting dormant for a lot of years. The site was approved, in 2018 to be, a collection of McMansions, 12 to 15,000 square foot estate homes, 4 to 5 car garage, all on septic systems. We because we’re looking to build a, a highly sustainable, modern community, a different, different type of project.
We thought it was a better use of the land, and particularly because it’s in the urban area. And so, we started we’ve been working on this project two years. This is not, this is not new. We’ve been meeting with City council, since, we’ve been meeting with officials since 2022. But, within the political realms since early 2023, we’ve had pack meetings, which is pre-application consultations and so on with Durham Region.
We’ve done a lot of background work. And when the government came forward to empower municipalities to move projects along quicker. Everyone was of the view that this is the right project to do it. It’s already allocated in the official plan of, school Gog Township to be, housing. It’s already in the official plan area for 50 units a hectare, and there’s a lot of buildable land.
It’s the perfect project within the confines of the already agreed to objectives of the town. We had nothing to do with making the official plan of school Township. That was done before we came along to propose this project. We’re just fitting into the, the goals and objectives that School Board Township has set for school Township. Now, advocates, environmental advocates have expressed some concerns that this could harm nearby wetlands.
Could you, speak on that? Any? Yeah, sure. There’s been a lot of noise from the community to the north. I respect people who live there, but this is not about building more McMansions. It’s about using available land in the urban area to satisfy housing and health care needs and other social benefit attributes for everyone. The wetlands.
There are wetlands. We’re not touching them. We are not encroaching on them. We are not disturbing the wetlands. There are approximately 42 hectares of land on the site. We’re going to be building on 11, 12, 13 hectares out of the 42. The wetlands are preserved. In fact, Alastair, it’s our intention and everybody knows it. It’s our intention to make the wetlands part of a naturalist system for the site, and it’s part of our intention to open up our land to the public.
We have committed from the very beginning with the with the mayor and politicians, but with the mayor, that this would not be a gated community. It’s not going to be, an elite community. It’s going to be a open intergenerational project meeting up a lot of needs in Port Perry. So our project’s the right thing in the right place at the right time.
And the Ms. at all, which is a government program to allow municipalities to deliver needed housing faster, is what we’re asking for. The Mississaugas of the Island, the First Nation, they have, raised some concerns, I think, about the, the health of the watershed, perhaps with sewage. Would the sewage be going into the lake? Would it be, going elsewhere?
We’re not intending to discharge any effluent directly to the lake. No. Number two, the system that we’re proposing to use is the most advanced in the world. There are many waste treatment systems operating well, not only in the world, out of the world. The space station completely handles everything in a closed environment. Even all the water in the space station is 100% recycled.
We’re using this kind of technology to do the waste treatment. And in taking a leap in sustainability A-lister, we’re going to recover waste water and use it for non drinking purposes. So I’m sorry, I know people in radio don’t want to hear that. 15% of the water in their house just gets flushed down the toilet. But that’s the statistics.
30% of water is used for non drinking purposes. We intend to treat everything on site in a in a in a in a contained way. We intend to use the wastewater. We’re going to flush every toilet in this project with wastewater cooling towers. Climate change is creating terrible heat conditions and summer’s heat is a real problem. Even Durham Region wants new buildings constructed with cooling towers.
We have a letter from Durham Region telling us that we must be thinking of cooling towers in the project. Normally people take very expensive drinking water and they evaporated in cooling towers. We’re going to use recycled water after it’s been processed and evaporated into the atmosphere, with cooling towers. This project we have planned is a marvelous project. It will show uses of sustainable technology in ways that people have not been thinking about in Canada, but ought to.
And, this model community use will be built and showcased in Port Perry, and it will meet really big needs. There’s no environmental disadvantage to this, notwithstanding whoever is trying to make noise, it’s just it’s just fake news. Now, looking ahead, I understand that, the topic of the MCO will be going up to, Port Council rather next month.
Are those the next steps or is there anything else we should, keep a look at? Before then, people need to understand that 80% of the housing in Port Perry is in the form of detached housing. This is in itself is very problematic. The average community, the average community like Whitby, Pickering, Oshawa and any other community, Ontario has 54% of its housing in detached forms.
Port Perry is 80%. Port Perry doesn’t have place places for people who are aging in their single family home to downsize to. So it needs the kind of housing we’re proposing. Okay. This is absolutely. So the town is considering an EMS at all to move this project along so that it can’t be held up with a single person who pays $129 to force it to go to a, a land an Ontario Land Tribunal hearing, which takes you 2 to 3 years to get to.
It’s already in the official plan. So we have a meeting, a planning meeting on September 16th. It’ll be an open meeting to the public. Everybody will be there to delegate. We’ll deal with planning issues one more time. And then on September 23rd, it goes to town council, and it’ll be up to the mayor and, and six councilors to decide, to support the project, by, asking the minister to make a minister zoning order on December 4th, 2023.
The town council unanimously supported moving this project ahead. It’s a really good project. Everybody has environmental concerns. Everybody. But we’re not only addressing them. We’re making everything better. We’re proposing to make the most technologically advanced project in Canada, in Port Perry at this point in time. I think this answers all my questions. Is there anything I should have asked?
You could ask, what kind of attention this project has again. And you may or may not know that the world famous Toyota Mobility Foundation, which is a leading proponent in helping to enhance mobility not just for elderly people, but for people with disabilities. The Toyota Mobility Foundation is committed to helping us design this project so that it will be enhanced mobility at the highest level.
And, there is a formal, memorandum of understanding which has been entered into with the town with Toyota Mobility Foundation and us. I can tell you that the there are many aspects to this project that are at world stature, and we also are inviting Leonard Eng, Ngee Leonard Eng of Henning Larsen, who is one of the world’s most famous designers and planners about wetlands and waterfront lands.
To be the lead on, on the design of the project and dealing with the wetlands. This is a fantastic project that deserves a lot of good press. And I just end the interview by saying, please, you call me. Call. Reach out to us. We’re happy to speak. We would be happy to meet. We’d be happy to help you, to let your listeners know how important this project is and why it deserves to be supported.
And I just end the interview by saying it’s 100% within the four square corners of the official plan of Skoog Township. It meets their objectives, their plans, of which the whole community voted on and which the Mississauga School Berg Island First Nations community supported. In 2018. We checked all the boxes. That’s why we went to Port Perry. We went there because we were attracted there, and we were when we were shown the official plan and when the town sat down with us and said, here’s a reason why you ought to bring this model community and build it in our town.
We agreed. Thanks, Alister. Oh. Thank you. On the topic of the, sorry, the Toyota Mobility Foundation, we’re talking about making a community more mobile. Are we talking about public transit? Are we talking about making sure that people can, you know, like there are two initiatives that we’re, that we’re engaged with the Toyota Mobility Foundation.
Number one is that they have a design team to help you rethink how you design inside and outside. So in the surrounding environment, the walkway is the way all that works and also how things happen in the built environment. So they’re going to when the projects approved. And then we start the actual site planning and design.
The Toyota, the Toyota Expert team will be helping us to reimagine it in the best way for enhanced mobility. That’s number one. Number two, Toyota Mobility Foundation has said there’s a need to develop better kinds of EV or EV hybrid shuttles for mobility, from the project to the town and project out into the surrounding environment. And we’re currently working up, a program with Ontario Technical University, with their Ace center, that’s the automotive Center of excellence with Ontario Tech U.
That we would build this first prototype with the participation of our project, the Town and Toyota Mobility Foundation. We would develop this world leading first of kind prototype at Ontario Tech U. And the first prototype will be started at our project in and out of Port Perry. Two initiatives. Both of them hinge on the project going ahead. And Alister, I don’t know that we’re on the record or off the record, but on the record a company, organizations like Toyota Mobility Foundation are reached out to by cities all over the world LA, Zurich, you name it, people want the participation of world leading thinkers in new design and new ways to do things.
The Toyota Mobility Foundation said publicly at the meeting of December 4th, 2023. They’re all in on the idea of building the kind of project we want to build, import, carry. They said to town council on December 4th, 2023, look, we can’t keep our door open waiting forever for someone to say, is there a project or not? Everybody has scarce resources.
So when you have opportunity, take it. When you have people willing to do it. And that’s what this project is about. And that’s why an m z, o is important. Toyota Mobility Foundation is not going to sit around on their thumbs for 2 or 3 years, while we’re waiting to see whether there’s going to be an Ontario Land Tribunal decision.
It’s silly. And so they’ve said it just straight talk to people. Like if you’re doing the project we’re in, if you’re not, let us know because we have scarce resources, human resources, and we need to allocate them elsewhere. And that’s what’s another big driver between everybody. The town knows that we have proponents and participants and collaborators like Toyota or like the Ontario Technical University.
People need to know, is there a project or not? The m z o is an opportunity to do it. The provincial government empowers municipalities to ask and they ask is please give us a minister zoning order to confirm a project which is within the official plan. Now, the official plan says build more, build it in the urban area.
We’re in the urban area. Build up to 50 units a hectare. That’s what we’re asking to do. I hope this has been inspiring for you because you’re the very first, very first, interview we’ve done in two years. There’s been no publicity on this project. We’re just a really great company with a really great project.
And we think that Port Perry is the place to show how you can build a better project. And it has wonderful elements. We’re building for the future. We’re not building for the past. And this project is the way the future ought to be. And this fits what Port Perry has expressed they want in their own official plan. All right, David.
Well, thank you for, getting in touch with us or. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Yeah. Thank you. You got in touch with us, and we’re very grateful for it. And, Alister, thank you very much for the, the quality interview, I appreciate it. I hope you take the time, maybe to reach out to the Ontario Technical University and other the many supporting organizations who believe this is very much, needed and very much the right project, the right time in the right place.
Thank you, I appreciate it. We’ll look into that. All right. Well, have a have a great day. Good. Have a great weekend. Bye bye.