Briarwood Development Group unveils proposal for 2 condo towers, senior residence, public park, community facility at Davis and Patterson NEWS Feb 06, 2019 by Teresa Latchford  Newmarket Era   Briarwood Development Group planner Diarmuid Hogan speaks to residents about one of the two proposed designs for the corner of Davis Drive and Patterson Street at an open house hosted by the developer at the Newmarket Community Centre and Lions Hall. Feb. 5, 2019. - Teresa Latchford/Metroland   The Briarwood Development Group intends to make an offer to purchase Newmarket’s Hollingsworth lands.   The group hosted a public open house to unveil two proposed designs for the properties surrounding the Hollingsworth Arena on the corner of Davis Drive and Patterson Street. The designs feature two 15-storey condominium towers fronting onto Davis Drive with retail uses on the ground level, urban park and a public walk-through from the front of the development to the back. One of the design options include a 5,500 square-metre public park, community facility and senior’s residence that would require the purchase of the Hollingsworth property currently owned by the town.   “In a year we have had 20 to 25 iterations of these designs,” Briarwood Development Group’s Hugh Magennis said. “What we are trying to do with the project is bring something that works for everyone.”     The renderings of the park included a host of ideas including a water feature that doubles as an ice rink, walking paths, leisure green space, splash pad and would act as a community gathering place for all ages. As for the community facility, that would be up to the town to decide the specific use when the time came. RELATED CONTENT Town of Newmarket asks residents to shape future of Hollingsworth Arena Newmarket council set to pass on proposed Hollingsworth arena development   “We have not submitted a formal application to the town as of yet,” Magennis confirmed. “We wanted to reach out to the public and get some feedback before finalizing the proposed design.”   Magennis added that the proposals currently meet the town’s zoning bylaws and that Briarwood intends to tap into the density bonus allowances ranging from two to three times the floor space index (FSI).   After reviewing the proposal diagrams at the public open house, some residents had concerns while others were fully on board.   A number of residents were concerned about the height of the towers, density and additional traffic in an already congested area.   “I moved to Newmarket to get out of the city,” Frank James said. “Traffic getting off Patterson onto Davis is already a nightmare and this will just add to it.”   He fears adding more vehicle traffic to the intersection and pedestrian traffic, considering there is a proposed senior’s residence and an existing school nearby, it could become a very dangerous intersection for all. YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN... NEWS Previously convicted impaired driver charged again... NEWS Police sweep 23 more impaired drivers off York... NEWS Georgina man hands over 20 grams of marijuana to...   “Newmarket is growing too fast and I feel like it just doesn’t have the infrastructure in place to support it,” he said. “Even with the widening of Davis traffic is still difficult.”   He also pointed out that other development projects, like 212 Davis Dr., stick out like a sore thumb due to the height of the towers.   However, Gianluca Rocco feels a development like this is exactly what Davis Drive needs.     “The plans fit with the area and the direction the town is going with intensification of the corridors,” he said. “Davis needs to be redeveloped.”   Density in this specific area would not only feed the transit system but it would also help young professionals or families enter the housing market and stay in Newmarket rather than moving elsewhere to find something they can afford, he said.

If I were to summarize March, 2019 in a word, it would be "uncommunicative." I've been trying to derive some conclusions from all of the information we've got about the month, but the only conclusion I can draw is that the spring market likely isn't here yet, and if it is here, it sucks. Here are the major takeaways I've got from March, let's hope that this was all just a result of our extended dance with old-man winter: All but one price metric have moved down: average; median; price ceiling The price floor moved up: this could mean that first-time homebuyers and investors are leading the charge in the spring market, a trend that I'd honestly love to see continue as a theme for 2019.

It appears as though somewhere along the line, people remembered that real estate is actually about land. We're seeing record-setting demand and prices for all things land-niche: estate lots; severable stuff; acreage; farms; etc. This gives me a little bit of faith that we not all be stuck in the hangover from Spring 2017. So... what does this all mean exactly? Well - I guess it means that if you're planning to sell in a subdivision, your luck ran out in 2018. Generally, subdivisions "suffered" the most from the crash... but that's not exactly what happened, and I try my best to be exact, so let me try to summarize it succinctly: subdivision homes did not suffer the most, they inflated the most during the bubble, and because they include less land, they inflated on a less substantiated variable, the home itself (or as my CRE and appraisal friends call it the "site improvement"). Just examine the linguistics there. So, to conclude, niche product is evolving as the performer in volume in today's market. That doesn't mean subdivsion homes aren't a good investment... to be honest, I'm a big fan of the price suppression in subdivision and I'm pretty bullish on them as investments, especially raised bungalows or split-levels that can be converted to duplex (er... "accessory dwelling units"). As always I will maintain, if you're buying a property for capital appreciation, you better have a PHD in economics. Your primary metrics should be focused on return, not growth. This isn't Bitcoin. It's planet earth. I like looking at the highest and lowest prices in the market with that cute little average median line in the middle. It's a simple graphic that tells me a lot about the market. It tells us a lot in a market like Georgina, where there's a huge gap between the top and bottom due to our niche products (acreage and waterfront.) It can easily show us how much the luxury market is propping up the average, or in this case, how little. There's a reason I've extracted the axis values here. I'm seeing here is that the price floor in Georgina is still moving up. That's a good sign of healthy, normal growth... I mean like... inflation-level normal growth. Georgina's major competitive advantage has become affordability, rather than proximity. I'll add that this happened in spite of the fact that it takes longer to get from a house located west of Yonge Street to its corresponding access to the 404 than it does from Simcoe Landing... but that's another topic completely.  Price disparity has become a real phenomenon as a result of simultaneously being the comparatively affordable town in the Greater Toronto Area, and the expensive, accessible, historic not-so cottage country. This has led to a very weird context from the approach of commercial real estate, especially commercial tenancies, 

Now let's unpack and explore this crazy microcosm of affordable housing in York Region and figure out why we're outperforming everyone south of us (relatively, of course.) Looking at the year-over-year change, we've got growth of something like 10% from February 2018 to February 2019. I see this year over year figure used incessantly to feign market growth. Isolating a single month to create an annual growth figure is stupid. Especially considering how much the spring market plays a role in average price creation for the entire year in a market like Georgina. Georgina's average prices have bounced along a sort of predictable volatility that shows no trend upward or downward. Obviously we're down since the infamous "peak" of March 2017, but honestly, we're seeing a little bit of average price suppression, and nobody seems to be talking about it. We are seeing growth in median price which tells me that there's a bit of a selection bias here, and that we're at the onset of the spring market, because bigger, more expensive homes are selling. This is a result of the demand during the spring market, which is increasingly families targetting a summer closing. Families characteristically buy bigger homes than other buyers. Bigger homes are more expensive. House prices didn't increase from January to February, they type of house demanded changed.