Lessons from Mississauga about Smart Growth

From: The Mississauga News

OMB decision a smart move

2008-08-19 19:34:01.000

The message is clear: Mississauga residents want development that fits into their communities, rather than buildings that simply adorn them.

While Mark Bozzo’s Queenscorp proposal for a “landmark” building in Lakeview was thorough and innovative, the project just didn’t fit into the neighbourhood.

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) had no choice but to uphold the City’s planning guidelines and restrictions for a site that is currently zoned for a maximum four-storey development.
Queenscorp’s proposal for a 21-storey building is more than five times higher than that allowed under the City’s planning policies: Allowing the development would have made a mockery of Mississauga’s planning authority.

While Bozzo is understandably, if somewhat naively, upset by the “imaginary municipal border” that separated approval for a similarly sized Etobicoke building from disapproval for his Mississauga initiative, the boundary between the two communities is very real.

Mississauga is a unique and separate city, distinctively different on many levels from its neighbour to the east. What’s good enough for Etobicoke, or Toronto, isn’t necessarily good for Mississauga.

Nobody would argue — probably not even Ward 1 councillor Carmen Corbasson who led the City’s charge against the Queenscorp proposal at the OMB — that Lakeview could use an esthetic shot in the arm.

But Corbasson was bang on when, in response to the OMB decision, she said, “Smart growth doesn’t mean dumping...height everywhere, especially in a very stable area like Lakeview.”
While parts of Lakeview are decaying and aging less than gracefully, any development in that area must fit comfortably with existing structures and community expectations.

Smart growth is not just about adding height and increasing densities: It’s about creating harmonious communities that combine to make the city, as a whole, a better place.