Fast track the 407 transitway, create one transit authority and finalize a funding solution sooner.
These are some of the comments Markham will forward to Metrolinx on the transit agency`s draft regional transportation plan, which will see $50 billion invested over 25 years into 1,150 kilometres of transit infrastructure.
Council OK`d a report outlining the town`s comments on the draft plan, released in October, at its Tuesday council meeting and is forwarding them on with a number of highlighted suggestions and concerns.
1108YNEW New service could make doing business in Newmarket easier
Newmarket hopes a one-stop-shop will make it easier to start up a business in town.
BizPaL is an online service that allows entrepreneurs to become small or medium-sized businesses to find which permits and licences are required and where to get them.
The user is asked a series of questions relating to his new business or expansion initiative and automatically generates a list of permits and licences needed from all three levels of government, complete with links to online or printable forms and a description.
Local merchants got their wish from Town Council last Thursday as a new Village of Richmond Hill Business Improvement Area has been established.
Town Council`s decision was in response to a request from a committee of downtown Richmond Hill business and property owners for the return of a village business improvement area to the town`s downtown core.
In the past such an organization had existed, but had not been active since 1995.
Stouffville`s big box centre won`t be home to the smaller stores its developer wanted.
Whitchurch-Stouffville council last week unanimously rejected an application to allow small retail units at the Hoover Park centre.
The power centre, at Hwy. 48 and Hoover Park Drive in southwest Stouffville, is already home to Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, restaurants and two other retail stores.
The proposal was made by Calloway Reit (Stouffville) Inc. The property is owned by SmartCentres and Geranium Corporation.
1108DCLR
Councillor really wants staff to look into buying school site
CLARINGTON -- Regional councillor Charlie Trim really wants staff to look into purchasing the building which used to house St. Stephen`s elementary school. He reiterated his wishes for a report on the matter again and again during Monday night`s council meeting, saying he wanted an explanation for why staff had suggested declining the offer for the school.
Aformer employee of Neptune Technologies faces theft and fraud charges after water meters were tampered with, enabling some residents to cheat the City of Welland on their water bills.
Davin McLaughlin, 36, was charged with two counts of theft and one count of fraud following a Niagara Regional Police investigation that began in June.
Police learned that newly installed water meters were being altered to reduce the amount of water being recorded.
1108BTFD city councillor decries licence extension
A city councillor is crying foul over a company getting a three-year extension on a temporary licence to store low-level radioactive metals in an industrial park.
"When they got that licence, they told everyone they would have that stuff out of there in a year," Coun. Richard Carpenter said in an interview this week.
"They haven`t moved any of that out of there yet. They didn`t keep their word."
From a former bank to a small performing arts centre, in five months flat.
That`s the story of the former Scotiabank site at the Five Points, in downtown Barrie. The centre officially opens tomorrow with its first event, the Barrie Arts Awards.
Rudi Quammie Williams, Barrie`s culture director, said the facility has quickly become important.
"Even in its interim use, the facility has become an icon and the centre-piece of a tremendous effort on the part of the performing arts community and city staff," he said.
Innisfil could be considering a second wind farm proposal for the town, if a rezoning application is approved.
A public meeting was held Wednesday night regarding the application by Skypower Corporation to construct meteorological towers on two plots of land west of Yonge Street and south of County Road 89. The towers would collect data for at least one year to investigate the feasibility of constructing industrial wind turbines.
The application requires the lands to be temporarily rezoned for three years from agricultural general to agricultural general exception.
ESSEX - The bid by the Town of Essex to buy out its municipal partners in ELK Energy Inc. for $12.8 million has run into delays at the Ontario Energy Board.
Essex Power and an organization that represents school boards across Ontario have applied for intervenor status, and Enwin Utilities has requested observer status.
Essex Deputy Mayor Richard Meloche said the town isn`t aware of any significant objections being raised yet to the purchase.
1108OTWA Claridge presses condo bid after portrait gallery failure
The developer behind Ottawa`s bid for the Portrait Gallery of Canada is seeking to back out of key details of its agreement with the city and press ahead with two massive, 27-storey downtown condominium towers.
The company is pushing ahead even though the federal government has cancelled the bidding process for the gallery. And perhaps even more contentiously, Claridge Homes appears to want to use the ground floor of what was supposed to the portrait gallery for commercial uses -- in direct contradiction to the understanding it had with the city.
1108OTWA Analyst cuts Nortel stock outlook to zero
TORONTO - A dwindling supply of cash and an environment that is making asset sales increasingly difficult has analysts suggesting Nortel Networks Corp. could eventually be pushed into bankruptcy. Without government intervention or a major financial sponsor stepping up, the company may run out of cash before $1 billion U.S. of debt comes due in July 2011, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue.
"The world moved on while Nortel was stuck in restructuring mode, and the lack of financial flexibility means Nortel has to rely on asset sales to fund future operations," he told clients, cutting his price target on the stock to zero.
The boom the housing industry has enjoyed for the past two years is about to moderate, slipping below 200,000 housing starts in 2009, for the first time in years.
Still, high employment, rising incomes and low mortgage rates have provided a steady foundation for the industry nationally, said Bob Dugan, chief economist for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
1108YPIK Landscape facelift coming with Big Pipe to Markham
Markham and Pickering will undergo landscape enhancements alongside the construction of the southeast collector trunk sewer.
The Big Pipe project, set for construction between 2010 and 2012, will include $15 million in ecological, recreational and infrastructure improvements in Bob Hunter Memorial Park and Rouge Park.
Prioritized projects were whittled down from a list of 140.
Has the "Barack effect" taken the chill off Toronto`s housing market?
While the United States basks in the warm glow of a new president-elect, many Toronto real estate agents have noticed a pickup in sales in November after a truly dismal October.
Jeffrey McCann, a real estate agent with Sutton Group-Bayview Realty Inc., says Barack Obama`s rise to the Oval Office appears to be one reason people are feeling more sanguine.
"There`s definitely more momentum in the market," he says. "I think there has been so much negative news out there that anything positive has no border."
1108CATH
Economic spinoffs from Port Place unsubstantiated, PROUD lawyer says
The Port Place development planned for Port Dalhousie seeks to skirt heritage guidelines in return for unsubstantiated promises of economic spinoffs, an Ontario Municipal Board hearing was told Friday.
The developer hasn`t provided the board or city planning staff any concrete evidence, such as a business case, to support the types of economic revitalization it contends the development will generate, said Jane Pepino, lawyer for anti-tower citizens` group PROUD (Port Realizing Our Unique Distinction).
"If there are to be changes to the heritage character of an area ... presumably to advance the goals of revitalization, it has to be shown that it will happen," she said, delivering final arguments to hearing chair Susan Campbell.
Now is the time for the City of London to create jobs and speed future economic recovery by investing in public works projects, a construction union official says. Jim MacKinnon, president of the London District Building and Construction Trades Council said the city should join in federal and provincial efforts to renew infrastructure such as roads, bridges and sewers.
"Now is the time to do it. You can get it done cheaper and we are going to need it anyway," he said.
