News on North Oakville Development: OMB Gives Approval for Greenbelt
January 20th, 2008 Categories: Green Trends, Halton Real Estate, North Oakville Development, Oakville Town Planning & Development, Why Move to Oakville?
As an interested resident and local REALTOR, I attended some of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearings for the North Oakville Secondary Plan in October at Town Hall.
This week the OMB gave approval for the preservation of an extensive network of linked natural heritage corridors as the “first priority?. This ruling means that 900 hectares, or more than one-third of the 3,400 hectares of developable land, will be preserved as green space.
The planned system of linked open spaces, woods and wildlife corridors, along water systems such as Bronte Creek and Sixteen Mile Creek and their tributaries, preserves an area 20 per cent bigger than New York’s Central Park, bigger also than Vancouver’s Stanley Park and almost double the size of Toronto’s High Park.
The OMB ruling marks the end of a decade-long battle by town planners and environmentalists who fought to ensure the proposed development would adhere to the planning principles of “new urbanism,” particularly in being more transit- and pedestrian-friendly.
The town has won a series of successive, hard-fought victories over developers who initially tried to fight the Natural Heritage System idea of planning at the OMB a few years ago and then abandoned the battle.
Most of the developers settled with the town in August, but a handful continued to fight, asserting their right to develop lands the plan had designated for green space.
Until now, the notion of “linked natural heritage” corridors has typically been an afterthought in planning GTA developments – or at least secondary to the goal of putting in as many housing units as possible.
The OMB ruling is expected to have ramifications across the GTA, especially in other high-profile developments in the works such as the provincially planned community for about 70,000 people on the Seaton Lands in north Pickering.
Some believe it may also play a significant role in how the province’s internationally lauded Places to Grow Act is implemented. The act is an attempt to contain urban sprawl by promoting intensification and growth in already built-up urban areas in the Golden Horseshoe.
Much of the information in this post came from a longer article in The Toronto Star entitled Hard Won Green Victory for Oakville, January 17, 2008.
Should you be interested, the Town of Oakville website contains full details of the proposed North Oakville Secondary Plan including maps.
Stay posted for upcoming article: The Oakville Buzz Interviews Planning Director, North Oakville, Town of Oakville
Related Posts:
Oakville Development North of Dundas: What?s Happening?
Do You Remember When We Ate The Fish in Lake Ontario: New Memorial in Bronte
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How to Ensure a Quick Sale for Top Dollar? Contact Hilary Shantz, Halton Real Estate Agent
December 26th, 2007 Categories: Client Stories and Testimonials, Halton Real Estate, Oakville Real Estate News, Real Estate News
Even over the yuletide season, the wheels of real estate continue to turn.
Here are photos from a home sold last week by Hilary!
How to ensure a quick sale for top dollar?
1) Home Staging: Let Hilary bring in her expert staging consultant Karen Kostyshyn of Home Interior Transformations to prepare your home to wow potential buyers. Karen brings in “props” and with her eye for detail and current decorating trends takes an ordinary home and transforms it into one that looks like a “model home”. (Hilary includes the cost of professional staging in her services offered.)
2) Decluttering: If you are downsizing or have a lot of unnecessary items in your home, talk to Hilary about including a declutttering session in your home selling strategy. A professional organizer can help in sorting stuff out and taking extraneous items away for donation, dump or even resale. Editing your home professionally will make it look more spacious and appealing! (Refer to my article on how buyers buy: you need to have them at hello.)
3) Professional Photographs: Then let Hilary bring in aprofessional photographer to provide just the right lighting and multiple shots to showcase the home to advantage, virtual tours, slide shows. This attracts those who are shopping on the internet. Nowadays some 80% of home buyers start their search online.
4) A Savvy Marketing Plan Unique for Your Home, including exposure to multiple home selling sites on the internet and advertising in the Real Estate Book. Your home will have its own url for “rich detail” so that buyers can be sold on the home even before actually viewing it.
5) Pricing it Right: To price a home right, you need to know what has sold recently in the neighborhood and for how much, current economic factors that affect the forces of supply and demand, number of other homes currently for sale in that category, and how they have been priced (competing homes), aseasonal factors and their impact on the market, and just basic “intuition” gained from experience, and a “feel for the market”.
Did you know that “Real Estate Spring” begins the second week of January?
Call Hilary 905–257–3633 and her Home-Selling Team to talk about preparing your Halton home for sale!
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Santa Brought Me a New Home for Christmas! / Burlington Real Estate Agent
December 24th, 2007 Categories: Burlington Beat, Client Stories and Testimonials, Halton Real Estate
It’s Christmas Eve and Kim has signed off today on an almost new Branthaven home in Burlington.
Burlington based Branthaven Homes are synonymous with quality and craftsmanship.
The kitchen has dark cherry wood cabinetry, with brushed nickel knobs, a sunny window seat, breakfast counter.
A fully finished basement with walkout to a private patio, two spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms. Upgrades everywhere, including quality berber carpeting, 9 inch ceilings, high efficiency furnace, water conserving toilets, stylishly contoured dark wooden banisters. Walk to Go to transit, and a stones throw from Starbucks, and other amenities. 
Brian Kuch, home inspector from Global Property Inspections and Boris (my assistant bee) gave the home two thumbs up: “This home is in mint condition”.
Congratulations Kim! Happy Birthday!
I look forward to seeing you in your classy pad in the New Year.
It was fun getting to know you and to have the chance to sell your home and help you relocate to Burlington.
Kim’s testimonial:
Dear Hilary,
I found you to be very patient and professional, even when times were extremely hectic and unstable.
I truly appreciate your dedication and commitment to my home selling and searching process, as I am sure all your clients do.
I know there are sacrifices you make to provide such great service to your clients, and you always seem to be available to us. Your negotiation skills and market knowledge allowed me to find and finally get this amazing home!
Many thanks and have a great Christmas!
Kim
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