Vision Georgetown

I like the plan however I agree with some of the others comments that we need to progress the updating of roadways to accommodate more traffic - 9th Line, 8th Line and Trafalgar all desperately need to be widened and lights added for visibility for driving in the evening or bad weather. A 407 extension closer to 5th Side Road would be beneficial. Trying to enter and exit the town and get to anywhere is a nightmare during any peak time.
The town currently lacks restaurant with patios, bakeries in the South end of town and entertainment for families and teenagers. We continually venture out to Oakville, Burlington or Mississauga for these types of amenities and we have been in Georgetown for over 10 years. We need the town to have relevant restaurants and amenities to make you want to stay and enjoy.

In this plan the town of Halton Hills plans to remove a forested area along Eighth Line across from Eaton Street and Foxtail Crescent to allow for houses to be built. This is is slated for destruction of an entire block of the Natural Heritage System. There is a significant amount of non-invasive vegetation, trees and an abundance of wildlife.
It would be unethical to remove an important natural heritage area where there is an abundant and thriving wild life habitat. This area is an important habitat to many different species of animals, birds and even deer. If you stand at the end of Eaton St, facing 8th line, you can clearly see this entire area down to 15th sideroad is thriving, to put development in this area would go against Habitat Protection. As per the current plans, a very large section of this area will be removed to allow for medium high density residential area. This is simply unacceptable.

There is also a concern is the increase of traffic, speed and safety along 8th line and the intersection of 8th Line and Miller.

I Like the plan overall as i can see alot of time and effort went into it. My biggest concern with the plan is i feel we are looking at the overall plan from the worldview of 2018. Not the future look at the plan like in 2031 it might not be the best plan and I think you need to focus some time looking at it from more of a future view then current view. You have a few description to sustainable initiatives however i think you should look at this a bit further and research what else is around and feasible to achieve in the next 15 years. Maybe another large storm water-management area with trails around it ( especially in section B)

I feel like we are focusing alot on single family homes, where we can focus on multi-density with commercial attached in areas such as the town square/library/secondary school. I also feel we are limiting the amount of commercial use in this area as we are adding to the population to Georgetown but not adding alot of resources eg. grocery stores, gyms, daycares. I currently live in goergetown north by mountainview and guelph street and i really like that i can walk to the grocery stores. Perhaps making a larger commercial area by the public square area, since their is a higher concentration of people in this area due to the mixed use.
I would focus on making this a walkable community and having all resources available at your figertips. Rather than then a spread out suburban area.

The Town of Halton Hills must reconsider its decision to allow an entire block of forest to be destroyed within the Natural Heritage System along the Eighth Line to build houses right over top. There is plenty of other open space within the development area to build on and we do not need to destroy a forest to accommodate any number of homes as they can easily be built around the existing forested area. There is an abundant wild life habitat located within the forested block that is slated to be destroyed including red tailed hawks, owls and a wide variety of interior forest birds and animals. As a representative of the people of Halton Hills, the Town must reconsider the plan to destroy the forested area. Please take a stance to protect the natural heritage systems within our town and make an amendment to the plan to build around the forest. Thank you for your consideration.

The overall concept/design of Vision Georgetown, in my opinion, is very good. I do have a few concerns:

1) Given the strategic location of the city and neighboring cities, we are way too behind when it comes to being a modern city. There are far too many amenities that are lacking in our area and far too often that residents have to travel to neighboring cities, lets say for example, to watch a movie. I can understand the desire to protect the green areas and that should continue to be the focus, but we should also embrace change. Simply resisting inevitable change will simply leave us in a position of not being prepared. So in short, in my opinion, we should speed up the development of Vision Georgetown and other similar projects.

2) Given that development in the Vision Georgetown area will significantly increase traffic, I dont believe that 8th line (from Steeles going North) is equipped to accommodate this increase in traffic (especially construction traffic). I understand there may be plans to widen 8th line, and if there is, it should be expedited. Other than widening 8th line, the City should also add street lights and more signage on 8th line especially given that the 'Major Commercial area is going to be at 8th line and 10 side road. I also recall from one of the council meeting, that the Major commercial area will be developed sooner rather than later considering the 10 year time frame for Vision Georgetown. Once again for this reason, work on 8th line should be expedited and start asap.

3) There are many rural homes that are immediately adjacent to the upcoming Vision Georgetown area and its appalling to know that even though we are in 2018 and planning this wonderful new community, those rural homes adjacent to Vision Georgetown still dont have reliable internet. Companies like Standard Broadband quote $649/month for 50 mbps of dedicated service. Xplorent offers 25mbps for almost $300/month for their new, allegedly more reliable, satellite service. My request to the City and its officials is to force the big telecommunication companies that will be making millions from Vision Georgetown future residents to also provide reliable and affordable internet to at least (if not more) the neighboring rural residents that are essentially caught in internet dead spots/grey areas i.e we are not too far in the 'boonies' for smaller companies to make big investments in fibre technology (like Xplornet is doing in Nassagawega) since they fear we may become urban areas soon and get scooped up by the big 3 telcos, and we arent too close to the urban areas for the big telcos to service us. So in short, the rural areas on the fringe get all the negative consequences of development (traffic, pollution, noise, disturbances, debri on road, etc) but none of the benefits (internet, water, gas, etc)

I am excited to see growth in Georgetown and hope that this new development truly brings more to the area than more houses. I think the library, splash pads, and parks are all good ideas. However, I would hope to also see places for the youth and adults to hang out such as coffee shops with later hours, a movie theatre, and more restaurants. Parks are great, but they are certainly not where we want our youth hanging out at night.

Not impressed that another library is going in we already have a good sized one considering the high schools have their own and college students use their colleges for the library. We need a movie theatre honestly everyone in Georgetown has expressed the need and want for something else to do in this town other than go to other cities to entertain themselves and their kids. I know I hate driving to Milton all the time to go to the movies and drop off and pick up. Also I have lived in Georgetown for 22 years and if long term residents had it there way we’d stop the constant building of houses considering the lack of commercial property and lack of things to do. No one can compare us to Milton or Oakville because all that is being put in is always houses houses houses houses and more schools. No restaurants. No theatres. Nothing to do here other than sports and hiking which is awesome but if that’s all our town can offer then make sure we are getting more of those needs. We can’t even keep a bowling alley going in this town because there is no support coming from the town in this area it’s always about more houses equally more property taxes going into their pockets.... yay.....

One of my concerns is parking in the commercial areas. Unfortunately, that was not taken in to consideration when the library in the old part of Georgetown was configured and it can be a nightmare to attend an event there depending on the weather conditions. Great for people who live in town but I would hate to see that scenario again at a 2nd library. I seriously doubt we even need a second library but I'm sure that is a done deal.

My other concern is the style of architecture being used for these medium density and high density buildings. If you drive along Dundas Rd in Oakville you will see what happens when an architect is allowed to plan a modern space. Those townhome/condos are very reminiscent of the war time housing in Munich, Germany. They are darker in colour and certainly not in keeping with the feel of an old historical town like Georgetown. Quaint, warm and inviting with a cozy feel would be better suited, in my opinion, to our area. Let's not get caught up in all the pretty glass that is so common these days.

Thanks for listening.

I am very excited with Vision Georgetown. Its needs to be expedited and something more in near future. I believe Georgetown has a lot to catch up specially comparing with neighbor Oakville and Milton. Lots of job opportunity, school, community center and big Hospital. I can see lots of revenue to Municipality from development. Georgetown is years behind compare to neighbor city. Most of peoples are still old school thinking, need to wake up and look around. Georgetown is way behind in progress. I don't want this community to be known as retirement community.

The plan is very good. It's an effective balance of the small-town feel that existing residents of Georgetown value, while incorporating some additional amenities (community centre, library, new town square, more retail) that are needed to engage the growing number of children and young adults in the area. There is a good deal of foresight in the plan. For example, planning for future transit in the streetscape make sense, as more people will use transit to get to the GO station as the train provides more frequent trips in the years ahead (http://www.metrolinx.com/en/greaterregion/projects/kitchener-go-expansion.aspx). I'm also glad to see an additional high school has been added to the plan. There seems to be a genuine desire to make this new section of town a pleasant place for residents.

I'm excited by the flexibility of the major and local commercial areas (areas for entertainment, esp.), and mixed use areas. I also like the variety of walkable spaces and the trail connections (it's a little unclear if/ these will connect to Hungry Hollow trails).

My major concern is that details of this plan might be altered/deleted by the Southwest Georgetown Landowners Group. My other concern is that some of the ultimate uses of the spaces will be determined by what kind of businesses choose to lease the spaces, but that is not something that can be controlled.

I think protecting green space and farm land is still a major concern for Vision Georgetown. As a long term resident I feel Georgetown has had a balance between residential space and green space. My concern is there is not enough green space to balance the vast number of houses and people that will be increasing in the next 13 plus years. We are at risk of turning into a span of tarmac and a built up community of houses and commercial space. Similar to our neighbors not too far down the road. I would like to see more protected green space as part of this plan.

My biggest concern is the increase of traffic volume, the speed and specifically people safety at the intersection of 8th Line and Miller.
Currently, the speed limits are not adhered to on either 8th Line nor Miller.
I cannot imagine how much worse this will be with the increase in volume/population.
A plan needs to be incorporated in the plans as a solution to volume and speed of traffic that is already a problem prior to the development.
I would like to see a round-about for that intersection in order to improved traffic flow in all directions and reduce traffic speed. It is proven to be safer, more efficient and to improve the flow of traffic
Roundabouts :
- a way to keep traffic flowing and reduce serious accidents
- road capacity and traffic flow can be increased without adding lanes
- despite the higher numbers of minor fender benders, roundabouts are still are the safer bet with considerably reduction injuries and no fatalities
- as time goes by, people learn how to drive in roundabouts, the number of fender benders drops
- Typically (with roundabouts) we see lower speeds
- Head-on collisions are completely eliminated
- they mean less travel delays, lower speeds and “fewer conflict points between vehicles
- roundabouts require less maintenance and have no electricity costs

I hope this would be a consideration to incorporate in the current plans.
Thank you
Kristin Gorteman

I was not that impressed. It was like okay we need to have another meeting so we are here doing it.
Nothing new and still no allowances made for a dog park. With all these extra people coming in, in the future there should be allowances for dogs. Not impressed.