Technor Developments Limited recently submitted an application to add 28 upscale townhouse units at 71 Regent St. in Heritage Estates of Richmond Hill. But residents said it was, ironically, this same developer who built this subdivision near Mill Pond in the mid-1980s and promised them a neighbourhood with only single-detached houses.
An official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment have been requested of the Town of Richmond Hill, to permit the development, which would include five blocks of two-and-half-storey townhouses. The 2.02-acre property is located near Mill Pond and Stavert Park.
Fran Black, a longtime resident on Regent Street, since the late ’80s, pointed out that the proposed site is part of the Oak Ridges Moraine, an environmentally sensitive area, which affects the town’s drinking water for more than 250,000 people.
“It borders nature and a wildlife habitat within the town, and the ecological balance needs to be respected,” he wrote in an email to Post City.
“Mill Pond Park will be destroyed if this townhouse development is approved. [It] will [set] a precedent for other developers to come in and build townhouses all around Mill Pond,” said Dave Tsai, a Heritage Estates resident of 28 years, who feels angry and cheated. “Developers should be held responsible for the communities they have created.”
Although the townhouses would be characterized as the same Georgian and Regency style as the million-dollar houses nearby, many residents feel that the character of the neighbourhood, which was once heralded as the “Rosedale of the north,” would be dramatically altered if the application is approved.
“As a community, we do not believe we should have to deal with these ongoing issues at 71 Regent St. Frankly, we are very tired of the … developer,” said May McConaghy, who has lived on Regent Street since 1989.
The proposed site is the former office of Richmond Hill Golf & Country Club (now Richmond Hill Country Club). It was then home to a neighbourhood commercial shopping centre, which was largely vacant since its construction in 1990, and more recently, Century Montessori School, which closed in 2012.
Technor planner Brad Rogers said a traffic consultant has concluded that the 28-unit townhouse development would have substantially less impact than the former school use.
But Tsai isn’t convinced that the townhouses would not contribute to greater traffic congestion on already very busy Regent Street, where buses run and cars often park due to the lack of parking spaces for the three tennis courts nearby.
Councillor David West, who thinks a medium-density built form is most efficient when it is close to transit, intends to schedule a residents’ meeting this fall.
