By Ken Rahl
Hi Legacy Neighbours! It has been a busy few months since the last Legacy Voice, which came out just before the Ward 7 By-Election. We now have a new Ward 7 Councillor, we will (eventually) be welcoming over 700 new neighbours to high rise towers next to Longo’s, and with relentless snow this winter, we have also come to learn and love the word “windrow”!
This Co-Chair Corner will cover all those topics and more! Please be sure to scan this entire copy of The Legacy Voice to learn more about the exciting events coming soon.
By-Election & High-Rise Towers in Box Grove
In October the LCRA welcomed longtime friend of Legacy and the LCRA, Nimisha Patel, as the newly elected Ward 7 Councillor of the City of Markham. “Newly elected”, because Markham City Council, despite having the ability to simply appoint Ms. Patel or other qualified candidates, instead chose to exercise the democratic process and spend more than $200,000 to hold a By-Election. After a spirited election process and several additional months of elapsed time, Nimisha came out on top with a decisive win, demonstrating that her strong second place finish in the previous Municipal election was no fluke. Councillor Patel will now see out the remainder of this term, ahead of the upcoming regular election cycle later this year. The LCRA looks forward to working with Councillor Patel and wishes her the best in her new role!
Councillor Patel’s ‘honeymoon period’ did not last long, as she went right to work for Ward 7, calling to light the need for a community meeting to discuss the proposed high-rise residential towers adjacent to the Longo’s Plaza in Box Grove. If you recall Legacy Voice articles from about two years ago, City Council sent the proposed zoning changes to city staff for further work with the developer, promising an additional community meeting later in the process. The City staff recommendation came out in the summer of 2025 and the City scheduled the vote to approve the zoning changes for October of 2025, but the additional community meeting never happened. Councillor Patel noticed this oversight and ensured the community meeting would occur before council’s vote.
Despite happening on an evening coinciding with parent-teacher interviews, the hastily arranged community meeting was well attended, and included very interesting perspectives shared by residents, developer representatives and members of city council. The purpose of the meeting was to review and discuss the updated changes proposed by the developer for the site, which continued to include two high-rise towers surrounded by an assortment of townhomes. Many neighbours expressed concern about the ability of local infrastructure to absorb 700+ more residences, particularly given the amount of local congestion already existing in Box Grove. Most contributors to the meeting spoke in opposition to the proposed changes and to the idea of introducing high-rise residential buildings to Copper Creek Drive at all.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that came to light in the meeting, however, was how little, in the grand scheme of things, the community meeting actually mattered. City staff had already made its recommendation to approve the zoning changes, and in the week following the community meeting, council voted unanimously to accept the staff recommendation and approve the zoning changes.
Exactly nothing at the community meeting was going to change the vote of council, given staff’s recommendation, and with good reason. Lurking behind the scenes in all of this is the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT), a developer-friendly, Provincially appointed body that resolves disputes related to land use planning, development, and property matters, ensuring decisions align with provincial policy and legislation. Put simply, a developer can appeal to the OLT, and the OLT can overturn a municipal decision, and even override municipal decisions as they see fit.
A recording of the community meeting is available on the City’s website, and I’m paraphrasing, but Regional Councillor Joe Li basically put it all together for everyone in the meeting: suppose Markham City Council were to go against staff recommendation and vote to oppose the zoning change permitting two 20-ish storey towers next to Longo’s. Going against staff recommendation would give the developer a strong case at the OLT to override the council vote. And while appealing, the developer could even ask that the tower heights should instead be changed to 40-storeys, and get that approved too! With this immense leverage, city staff and council were willing to accept and move forward with the building height already agreed.
What does this realistically mean for Box Grove? In the community meeting, developer representatives estimated that if everything goes well, there could be “shovels in the ground” by late 2026, to develop the first phase which includes just a single tower. With one building planned for rentals and the other units for purchase, there also needs to be enough market demand to fully secure financing, and sagging demand alone could push timelines out significantly.
From a Legacy perspective, we will continue work with Councillor Patel to ensure that two things happen: one that the broader Box Grove traffic patterns be very carefully evaluated in light of the additional congestion from both within and around Box Grove, and two, that some Legacy roads become serious contenders for traffic calming, to discourage what will be even more traffic infiltration through Legacy.
Windrows and Snow Removal
A quip from a local chat group noted that complaining about windrows and snow removal are an annual rite of passage in Legacy, and this year has been no exception.
On windrows: as someone living on the busy part of Legacy Drive, I share the frustration of having a freshly tended driveway ruined by a giant windrow from an aggressive plow, and for me this can happen multiple times in a single storm. (Let us also not forget that the sidewalk plows repeat all of this again.) I am also deeply frustrated to know that some of our neighbouring municipalities offer all their residents windrow service and, in some cases, have done so for many years. So why not Markham?
The cost of windrow service for all residents is substantial, and comes from the city budget, which City council members, elected by Markham voters, must approve. Quite frankly, single-family homeowners and others affected by windrows are a dying breed in Markham. The city has nowhere left to expand but upward, and with each year, the ratio of those moving into a high-rise to those moving into a place with a driveway will continue to increase. For consideration: the proposed towers next to Longo’s will house approximately 700 residences. Legacy has 851 homes. It does not take a lot of building height to match the vote of an entire neighbourhood! And condo owners will not want to divert a dime of taxes toward driveway windrow removal.
The time to approve windrow service for all was 15 or more years ago. With population growth happening via high-rise in Markham, expanded windrow service is unlikely to ever get approved going forward. (Please remember that if you are 60 or older or have other special needs, you may qualify for free city windrow service. Head to the City website for more details or email us at info@legacynet.ca.) That said though, the LCRA remains interested in facts and data and will be working with Councillor Patel to collect more specific information around the costs and implications of rolling out windrow service more broadly, and we will let you know if anything comes of it.
More realistically though, if you have trouble shoveling the windrow, you might be best served to consider a snow removal service or a snow blower. The battery-operated snow blowers hold up surprisingly well and are a breeze to use.
On snow removal: the first most important thing is that the City’s contractor does its job to the agreed standard. During some recent storms, some streets were poorly serviced, and others were missed completely. This is a problem. The LCRA has encouraged residents to reach out to Markham customer service and the Councillor Patel when this happens, so that the City can hold the contractor to standard. We understand that Councillor Patel is working on this, and that service is improving. Hint: complaining in a chat group may get you a response from Councillor Patel, whereas emailing her directly at nimishapatel@markham.ca will almost certainly get you a response and follow up.
But what about when the standard is met, but the snow is just too heavy or it feels like far too long before the plows come? In those cases, we need to trust that the “city mathematicians” have done their number-crunching and developed optimal service levels for Markham given weather patterns and city budgets. Yes, if you live on a street in Legacy that’s considered a “secondary road, local road, or rear lane” you may be waiting for hours to get your street plowed even if mother nature has gone berserk with snow. While the extended time without a plow on your street can be painful, so can the cost of adding way more plows just to incrementally improve service on those “occasional bad days” or “occasional bad years”.
We can also think back to those warm summer days, where living on “secondary, local or rear lanes” worked out very well, allowing basketball, hockey, cricket, and other games to spontaneously break out on the street. On the flipside, a 2019 traffic study on Legacy Drive near Honeysuckle Drive indicated that about 1,400 cars went by on Legacy Drive every day, in each direction (that’s nearly 3,000 cars going past a day, and yes, often speeding too). This is why the snowplow comes every few hours on the busy section of Legacy and other main routes in Legacy. It is also why there has never been a successful street hockey game at this location.
Alas, everyone in the neighbourhood, and the city, for that matter, has a different experience with their property, and no one solution is ever going to be perfect for everyone, especially not over the course of all four seasons.
Coming Soon
Please be sure to attend the LCRA AGM, on Sunday February 22, 2026 at the Rouge River Community Centre, starting at 4:00 p.m..
Also, there has been a lot of media recently about the Alto high-speed rail project, designed to connect Toronto and Quebec City with 300+ kmh rail service, where the potential exists for leveraging the Havelock Line, also known as the train line that runs along Don Cousens Parkway from Steeles to the 407. Alto (www.altotrain.ca) is visiting Markham TODAY, Wednesday, February 11th, at Markham Civic Centre, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and again from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Drop in, learn, and share some feedback! Can you (or maybe more realistically, your kids, or grandkids) just imagine? A short bike ride from your home in Legacy to a train station that can whisk you to Montreal in 3 hours? Awesome!
That is all for now. See you soon once the thaw sets in and we all break free from hibernation!
