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‘Climbed into the back seat’: Beeton residents say council handed keys to developer, province by supporting special zoning order

Jun 1, 2022 , , , , by shlf

Longtime Beeton resident Niall Lawlor admits he was excited when he first heard about a proposal to bring more affordable housing for seniors to the community, but those feelings quickly faded as he started digging through the details.

Instead of going through the normal planning approval process at the local level, the developer is seeking a minister’s zoning order (MZO), a lever the province can pull to fast-track developments without having to seek input from the public.

FLATO did not respond to Simcoe.com’s requests for comment.

The developer has said the community would be geared toward seniors and provide attainable housing with five apartment buildings, comprised of 400 rental units total, plus 173 townhomes, 40 semi-detached units and 297 single-detached homes.

Council, which voted 7-3 in favour of the request, has directed staff to come up with a list of conditions to send to the province in its letter of support – a move that seems backwards to Lawlor.

“It is like trying to stop the bulldozer after gassing it up and handing the keys to the driver,” he said.

He thinks Simcoe County, not a private developer, is the only partner the town should be working with in order to bring true affordable housing to the area.

Lawlor looked into an adult lifestyle community FLATO built in Dundalk, where rent for a studio apartment goes for $1,545 per month, a one-bedroom is $1,745 and a two-bedroom costs $2,045.

Deputy Mayor Richard Norcross, one of the most vocal proponents of the request, pointed out how local organizations like the food bank and Out of the Cold shelter in Alliston have said more affordable housing would alleviate the pressures they are facing. He also argued that the province would make a ruling regardless of the municipality’s decision.

Norcross, who previously served as Beeton’s councillor, has asked for the zoning order to require the development be used for seniors housing, and for a demographic study to be completed early on to determine who is living there.

Beeton Coun. Stephanie MacLellan, who opposed the request along with councillors Michael Beattie and Shira Harrison McIntyre, questioned why the developer wasn’t interested in trying to get the plan approved at the local level, and why council wasn’t taking more time to consider the proposal.

MacLellan also noted that there have been no previous cases of MZOs being approved without the local council’s support, and a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing reinforced this.

“Only if the municipality supports the project and sends a request for an MZO will the minister then consider the proposal,” wrote spokesperson Conrad Spezowka. “It is under the minister’s sole discretion whether to make a Minister’s Zoning Order or not.”

The town report on which council based its decision did not include such clear language about the role the municipality plays in the approval process, noting only that the minister “would consider any comments that council wishes to provide before such a decision is rendered.”

The report does say the approval of an MZO is at the “sole discretion of the minister” and is “typically used when local and provincial priorities align.”

Resident Nicole Cox said this decision has also created uncertainly for Tottenham’s future water supply and whether the pipeline extension will still be able to supply both communities.

The town’s director of engineering has said insufficient information has been presented thus far to address this concern.

Cox also echoed comments from the town’s director of planning regarding the town’s inability to guarantee this development remains exclusive to seniors.

“We have no tools or controls within our municipality that permit for discriminating toward those having the ability to purchase homes within the development,” she said.

Resident Barbara Huson criticized council’s decision in an open letter.

She referenced comments from the City of Barrie, which describes the MZO process as essentially “an end-run on local planning and transparent decisions that are made in the public interest.”

She said previous planning documents, studies and master plans that were developed with input from residents have been “rendered useless” with this single decision.

She said the proposal ignores one of the requirements in the official plan, which states no new development be approved outside the current settlement boundary until the master drainage plan is completed. The first phase of the study was recently completed, but there are still two more phases to go.

There are many other aspects of this proposal that worry her, including the fact that the homes would be located 500 metres from Beeton’s border and 2.25 kilometres away from the Foodland plaza where most residents do their shopping. The development would also be separated from the rest of the community by the Beeton Creek and floodplain.

The developer has proposed building a sidewalk along County Road 1, but it’s unknown if this is even possible since it would have to run parallel to a busy highway.

Huson was also alarmed by the traffic study, which estimates daily vehicle trips would triple from 4,500 to 12,243 once fully built out.

In her view, council essentially “handed off the keys” to planning and growth decisions to a developer and the province, while councillors “naively climbed into the back seat to see where the ride would take them.”

Resident Carolyn Milne called the decision “heartbreaking,” and said council has opened the door for more developers looking to do the same.

Since this decision was made, . Two of the applications will be discussed at the Nov. 2 council meeting.

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After reporting on council’s controversial decision to support FLATO’s zoning request for a mega-development in Beeton, Simcoe.com asked residents to share their opinions.

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‘We have to work together to shop local’: Survey says Collingwood businesses optimistic about next six months

Aug 19, 2021 , , , , by shlf

A large majority of Collingwood business owners say they should survive through the next six months — but there is concern as a second wave of positive COVID-19 cases washes across Ontario.

That’s the assessment of a survey conducted late June and early July of more than 130 businesses, which found local business owners “cautiously optimistic.”

The town’s director of marketing and business development, Martin Rydlo, presented the numbers in his most recent update to Collingwood town council.

According to the survey, business owners in the downtown were more likely to be concerned about the future of their enterprises within the next six months than owners of businesses outside of the downtown. However, the overall number of business owners looking ahead six months with an optimistic outlook was 87 per cent.

Looking further out, to three years, the picture seemed bleaker. Only 51 per cent of business owners were optimistic about the future, compared to 69 per cent of business owners when the question was asked in 2018.

Rydlo said there is still some good news to be found in that number, “considering the gravity of the situation we’ve gone through over the last six months … (it is) still a significant number of businesses saying, ‘we’re looking to grow’.”

Even so, the survey determined, downtown businesses were more likely to state their rating of Collingwood as a place to invest, live and visit had increased over the past two years.

“We remain an excellent place to live,” Rydlo said.

Regularly disinfecting downtown areas — and making sure that was communicated to the public — was seen as a top priority for downtown businesses. Allowing restaurants in the downtown to extend their patios into parking spaces was also welcome, he said, and in some cases, businesses saw double-digit increases in revenue versus the previous year.

Rydlo said those same establishments are now considering how they will continue to operate once the inclement weather comes.

Mayor Brian Saunderson said the results were positive, but it was clear the town has more work to do.

“We have survived the first wave (of COVID-19) relatively strongly, (and) the town and the BIA, and our other stakeholders have been working together to support our local businesses in any way we can,” he told Simcoe.com. “Those supports have been effective and are helping, but the longer this crisis goes on, the harder it will be for our local businesses. We really have to work together as a community to shop local and support our local businesses every way we can.”

Saunderson said the idea of reconvening the economic recovery task force created at the onset of the pandemic has been discussed.

“There are some ideas that are percolating, and given the second wave is here, they are definitely engaged and have expressed an interest in meeting,” Saunderson said.

Two task force members — Brandon Houston and Kathie Ondercin — have recently been appointed to the Downtown Collingwood board of directors, “so I think they’re making their presence felt, not only as local business people and members of the task force, but also in other ways.”

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Rapid at-home COVID testing remains a dream for Canadians

Aug 17, 2021 , , , , by shlf

The dream of at-home rapid testing for COVID-19 in Canada remains just that: a dream.

Health Canada has not received any applications for at-home testing kits, though says it has proactively reached out to manufacturers of such tests and encouraged them to apply.

The FDA granted emergency authorization last week to the first home-based rapid test in the United States, but the company behind it — which was approached by Health Canada — says it has no plans for now to expand into Canada.

Some health experts — as well as opposition politicians — have said what Canada needs is inexpensive and rapid home-based testing, which could lessen the need for long testing lineups and lockdowns.

“I believe that Canada would have the capacity to make home tests if the government pointed its focus that way in regards to funding them,” said Dr. Funmi Okunola, president of Kojala Medical Enterprises Ltd, and a Vancouver-based family physician and COVID-19 medical adviser.

Okunola advocates for the development and use of inexpensive, rapid paper-based COVID-19 tests similar to pregnancy tests, but instead of urine they would use mucus or saliva.

And she says the federal government should be directing more funding at their development, similar to what they’ve done with vaccine research, to scale up production and ultimately bring down costs for individuals.

“Providing there was a comprehensive strategy implemented alongside these home tests and proper education, then if they were used, really in my opinion they would turn the tide of the pandemic, and would buy us time and reduce the spread of COVID-19 while we’re waiting for the vaccines,” she said.

Such tests have been the focus of research both in the United States and in Canada, including work being conducted by Professor Alexandre Brolo in the department of chemistry at the University of Victoria.

“We are working on it,” Brolo said. “It’s a team of very talented researchers. I sometimes look at the news and people are saying ‘We need more tests.’ We are trying. It’s not easy, but I think that we have some encouraging results and I’m hoping that we will be able to contribute to the pandemic at some point.”

In the meantime, a first-of-its kind home-based COVID-19 detection test was given emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week.

The Lucira All-in-One Test Kit allows individuals to collect their own swab, place it in the test unit (which is a single-use device) and learn the results in under 30 minutes.

According to a company news release, a trial involving more than 100 individuals which compared Lucira results with one of the FDA’s high-sensitivity tests showed positive results agreed 94.1 per cent of the time across all samples, and 98 per cent of the time for negative results.

The test is only authorized to be used by individuals with a prescription, and for now will only be made available in some health-care settings on a limited basis to prescribe to patients for use at home. The company said in a news release that it plans to scale up production so that the kits — which retail about $50 (U.S.) — would be available nationally by spring 2021.

A company spokesperson said they have no plans for now to expand into Canada.

“We have been singularly focused on the FDA, because that’s the foundation for being able to go out there and start manufacturing,” said spokesperson Kevin Knight. “We’re focused on lining up production right now.”

A handful of other firms in the U.S. have been given emergency authorization since the spring to sell home-based collection kits, which allow individuals to take their own nasal or saliva samples but still requires them to send it to a lab for results.

No such home-based collection kits are currently authorized in Canada, and Okunola said it would require already-backlogged labs to ramp up capacity even more to process the results.

At least two American firms with emergency authorization to sell saliva-based home collection devices — Spectrum Solution and P23 Labs — told the Star they also applied to Health Canada months ago, but have yet to get a final decision.

P23 Labs, which received emergency authorization from the FDA in May for its saliva-based home-collection kit, said it was approached by Health Canada in August to submit an application, and the company did so in September.

The company said the process to apply to Health Canada is not as clearly defined as the process for applying to the FDA.

“Nothing from the FDA carries over. The paper trail and documentation required is more difficult. We are stuck as they will not accept the letters of reference from our manufacturers of some of the kit components,” the company said in a statement to the Star.

“P23 Labs is eager to make our at-home COVID19 test kit available and accessible to Canadian customers, as a means to make testing easier and more convenient, and to lessen potential exposure to and spread of the virus.”

Spectrum Solution said it began the process with Health Canada in June. The company said it found the FDA’s and Health Canada’s processes to be “very similar,” though they said unlike Health Canada, the FDA provided a clear estimation of the time the process would take.

Health Canada told the Star it is “working closely” with manufacturers, including P23 Labs and Spectrum Solution, “to determine whether their devices meet safety and effectiveness requirements.”

The regulator said it has received multiple “interim order” applications for several types of saliva collection kits, including some that are home-based. It said it has yet to receive applications for devices that combine saliva collection with COVID-19 testing at home.

(Interim order applications mean that “products that may not fully meet Canadian regulatory requirements but are manufactured to comparable standards may be imported,” according to Health Canada’s website.)

The opposition Conservatives have been adamant that rapid and at-home testing capabilities must be scaled up in Canada to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, something they’ve accused the federal government of dropping the ball on.

“What we need…is widespread access to frequent, rapid and at-home tests so that we can have targeted isolation measures that more effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19 rather than simply asking Canadians to sit at home for months and months on end without any hope or clarity of how this is going to come to an end,” Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner told reporters this week.

Physician epidemiologist Dr. Nitin Mohan said in an at-home testing scenario, there could be concerns with the test’s sensitivity or whether the individual has properly collected their sample.

He said such concerns could be tempered if a screening tool was included as well. For example, ETIO Public Health Consultants, of which Mohan is partner, recently joined forces with Ontario-based firm Virocule to help launch a testing device that detects loss of smell, a common COVID-19 symptom. The device received Health Canada authorization last month.

He said a screening protocol could include not just the smell testing device, but also whether the person has a fever or other COVID-19 symptoms, prior to taking the actual test for the virus.

“It diminishes the risk of a false negative (test),” said Mohan. “We’re not eliminating it, but we’re dropping that risk down by the time you actually get the test done.”

Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter:

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Penetanguishene correctional officers not looking to ditch OPSEU

Jul 1, 2021 , , , , by shlf

The province-wide movement by correctional officers to leave the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) and create their own autonomous union isn’t garnering much backing from employees at the Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene.

“There is some minimal support locally,” said Richard Dionne, president of OPSEU Local 369, which represents staff at CNCC. “However, it is not supported by the OPSEU Local 369 executive.”

Thousands of corrections workers across the province are reportedly fed up with OPSEU. They have enlisted the assistance of the Confederation of National Trade Unions and are trying to create the Ontario Association of Correctional Employees (OACE). This new organization is aiming to establish a corrections-only association that will advocate and fight for the specific needs of Ontario’s correctional employees.

“Those pushing for the change in unions believe they have been misrepresented or under-represented by OPSEU,” said Dionne.

OACE has until Dec. 30 to raid members from OPSEU. In order to be recognized as a bargaining agent by the Ministry of Labour, the new union would need at least 40 per cent of OPSEU’s correctional membership. 

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‘I don’t want to close the doors’: Small businesses in Alliston say government not providing enough support

Jun 29, 2021 , , , , by shlf

Small-business owners in Alliston who opened their stores at the beginning of the year say they’ve been forgotten when it comes to financial assistance programs meant to help retailers get through the pandemic.

Shamiran Tamras, owner of Tamras Mini Market, a grocery store in downtown Alliston that specializes in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Lebanese products, opened her store in February, just weeks before the provincial shutdown in mid-March.

While her store was considered essential, allowing her to remain open during the spring lockdown, she struggled to stay afloat. She is just barely managing to cover her rent, utilities, insurance and other fixed costs.

“Business is very bad,” she said.

Tamras had planned on expanding her business with a bakery so she could sell fresh pita bread, but that plan has been put on hold indefinitely.

While a $40,000 loan she accessed through Nottawasaga Futures has helped her continue paying rent and suppliers, she is burning through the cash quickly.

Rent relief wasn’t an option since her landlord didn’t apply for the program, and while she is applying for the recently revamped tenant rent-relief program, she doesn’t think she will qualify since the application asks for financial information from 2019.

“This is my dream to keep this business,” she said. “I don’t want to close the doors.”

Just down the road, Mohamed Haidary, owner of Alliston Tailoring and Alterations, finds himself in the same situation.

He opened his shop on March 9, about a week before the shutdown. By that time, he had already signed a lease and provided first and last month’s rent.

He wasn’t able to reopen until a little more than two months later on May 19.

“It was very tough,” he said.

During those months, he was still paying the rent, along with the utilities and insurance, without generating income.

Haidary said his landlord also didn’t apply for the rent-relief program, and he didn’t qualify for any business support since his shop had just opened.

“I don’t know what happened to the new businesses,” he said. “They need the support and it’s not only me — there’s lots of other people.”

Alliston Business Improvement Association chair Mike Jerry recently wrote a letter to Premier Doug Ford requesting more support for small businesses.

He also thinks allowing big-box stores in areas that are in lockdown to still sell non-essential items is a “flawed” decision, adding there “needs to be a fair playing field.”

Nottawasaga Futures said 30 businesses impacted by the pandemic have received loans to cover fixed costs and retain 55 jobs. Funding for the loans was provided through the federal government’s Regional Relief and Recovery Fund.

The feds recently provided Nottawasaga Futures a top-up of $1,085,000, which adds to the $994,888.67 provided in May.

For more details on the loan program, visit .

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Simcoe.com talked to some local businesses to find out how they are planning to get through the next wave of the pandemic and what financial supports they’ve been able to access from the government.