A $100M Rogers downtown office with 3,000 staff will be a game changer but why shut Brampton out of planning it?

Brampton’s elected municipal officials are once again rubber stamping a developer’s request to sidestep the traditional planning process that ensures local residents will have a direct say on what gets built in the places where they live. 

On Wednesday, two new requests were prompted by a potentially transformative plan to open an office for 3,000 Rogers Communication staff in the downtown area, next to the GO Train station.

It’s widely viewed as a huge opportunity—for the troubled telecommunications company which has recently been all over the news due to a Hollywood-style fight for control at the board level, and for the city, which has seen its downtown wither away from neglect over the past two decades. 

“The bottom line is Rogers wants to relocate our office to downtown Brampton,” John Mallovy, the company’s vice president of corporate real estate, told council members. “It's a place that works for us, it's a place that we believe will continue to be a great location to recruit technology employees and, on that basis, that's why we want to invest over $100 million in that location.”

The telecom giant asked Brampton to submit two requests for Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZO) to the Province. If granted, an MZO allows developers to bypass the traditional public planning process. Instead of engaging in detailed negotiations with residents, the business community, environmental groups and the City’s urban planners, builders are able to get shovels in the ground almost immediately, with far less involvement by all the other stakeholders.

The first MZO request is to help spring Rogers’ plans to build a new corporate office at Brampton’s downtown GO station on land the company does not yet own. The second will allow it to flip its old Brampton campus site on Dixie Road in Bramalea and transform that area into a residential and commercial development.

Metrolinx currently owns Rogers' preferred parcel of land in downtown Brampton. A spokesperson for the provincial transit agency confirmed it had not received an official request from the company to purchase the land.

The provincial government, under Doug Ford’s leadership, and the City of Brampton, under Mayor Patrick Brown, have pushed through a series of MZOs, which were previously rarely used, as they are only intended for extreme circumstances when a development permit has to be expedited to address something like unexpected damage due to a natural disaster or to avoid a severe economic loss. 

The argument from both leaders has been a need to rapidly increase the housing supply, while critics call them gifts to politically powerful developers who simply want to maximize profits by avoiding a public process that often curtails developments and forces requirements, such as pollution mitigation or traffic calming that eat into their margins. 

The two requests council endorsed Wednesday, forwarding them to Queen’s Park on behalf of Rogers, were the eighth and ninth MZO proposals supported by Brampton since late-September.

Prior to the current PC government, there was approximately one MZO issued per year by Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, which oversees the process.

Brampton, under its new mayor elected in 2018, has effectively ignored the decades-old publicly driven planning approach for major projects, meant to protect residents and their communities from the types of developments that can negatively impact entire neighbourhoods.  

The latest two requests highlight misleading comments Brown made in October.

“The Minister of Municipal Affairs said that they really wanted to have these dealt with, any final request in by the fall,” he told council at an October 20 meeting. He claimed the direction was by Queen’s Park for municipalities to get MZO requests into the provincial government before the winter.

The rush to apply for these Orders, Brown said, came because the window to submit requests for an MZO to Queen’s Park was rapidly closing.

The provincial government said it did not know why Brown would make such a claim to justify the flood of MZOs he was pushing, to benefit developers. 

“No deadline has been communicated to the City of Brampton with regards to Minister’s Zoning Orders,” Conrad Spezowka, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing,  told The Pointer at the time.

Brown has since supported three more requests for MZOs after claiming an end of fall deadline was looming. The latest two, both brought by Rogers, represent crucial planning decisions for the city’s future.

The site where Rogers hopes to build its new downtown office is currently owned by Metrolinx.

(Image from Rogers/City of Brampton)

The first request is to support a project that could be transformational for Brampton’s struggling downtown. The project would move around 3,000 jobs from Rogers’ current Brampton campus on Dixie Road into the downtown. A suggested motivation behind the request is Brampton’s place on the Kitchener-Toronto GO Train line, a route that connects the tech-hub of Kitchener-Waterloo with downtown Toronto. 

It’s unclear what specific advantage this would hold. The telecom operations currently carried out by Rogers in Bramalea, after its former manufacturing operation (where a Nortel plant used to be located) was converted to office space in 2006 and has housed about 5,000 employees, focus on areas such as client and business support and sales, with major call-centre features and other 24/7 operations.

"Our existing office at 8200 Dixie... is actually a repurposed factory,” Mallovy said. “It will not meet Rogers’ requirements in the long-term. The site itself is underutilized." 

When the former industrial building was converted for office use by the company in 2006, a significant investment was made to ensure the space was energy efficient. But the retrofitting and lighting upgrades apparently were not enough to make the facility suitable for all the office needs long term.  

“Our workplace demographics are rapidly changing as well to predominantly millennials and gen zees, many of whom don’t have a car and many of whom don’t even have a driver's license,” Mallovy said.

The addition of 3,000 employees would bring new customers to downtown restaurants and cafes, and would also increase the demand for local residential real estate growth. It would also support Brampton’s push to extend the Hurontario LRT from Steeles Avenue into the downtown. 

“We cannot imagine a better project to ignite the revitalization of our city core,” Rick Evans, executive member of the business advocacy group New Brampton, told councillors Wednesday. 

His excitement was echoed by Clare Barnett, the City’s head of economic development and culture. Suzy Godefroy, speaking for the downtown BIA, said the proposal would enable the “whole City of Brampton to be more competitive across the GTA''. 

Rogers wants to relocate to Brampton’s downtown, which could potentially bring 3,000 employees to the city centre.

(Image from Isaac Callan/The Pointer)

The Brampton Board of Trade is also in favour of the move.

“At various times, stakeholders, businesses, and other associations will bring forward requests for Council to consider supporting the use of MZO’s to spur economic activity on specific parcels on land,” Todd Letts, the organization’s president, wrote in a letter to councillors. “Absent any extraordinary circumstance that would justify specific consideration, The Brampton Board of Trade is of the view that these requests should be given serious consideration by City Council, and that Council should look to support their use to accelerate job-creation.”

For an area of the City that has seen its redevelopment plans consistently scaled back and delayed, good news is welcome. 

Many business owners in the downtown area have yet to recover from the pandemic and now face years of disruption as the Region of Peel begins work to replace outdated underground infrastructure. That work could be followed by more construction to accommodate a higher order transit extension if council members and staff can find a way to fund a tunnelled LRT vision that could cost $1.7 billion. 

The new Rogers office would be located across the road from Brampton’s planned Centre For Innovation, which has seen its own funding thrown into disarray by Brown, who has refused to expand the City budget for fours straight years, which also led to the cancellation of the Downtown Reimagined plan, which would have been completed by now, had Brown not pulled the plug as soon as he was elected. 

His refusal to make capital investments, in favour of keeping taxes down, has thrown numerous downtown plans up in the air, including the Centre For Innovation, the revitalization plan and the Riverwalk vision, to reshape the Etobicoke Creek corridor while finally addressing downtown flooding issues. 

Instead, major investments have been pulled, postponed or cancelled, while potential developments in the floodplain have been hard to pursue due to restrictions that can’t be lifted until money for major flood mitigation is committed. 

City staff enthusiastically pointed out the 3,000 jobs would help reach much of the goal around creating a downtown innovation economy. Rogers would be an anchor tenant for the entire area.

It could make up for some of the devastating loss when the planned downtown Ryerson University satellite campus was killed, after the PCs, in 2018, pulled $90 million of funding for the project committed by the previous Liberal government.

Rogers now wants to use the same footprint of land next to the GO station for its office vision.

“For Rogers to continue its recruitment strategy for technological talent and maintain a strong employee base with a focus on Network and Information Technology jobs in Brampton, Rogers requires offices that are accessible to retail, cultural, recreational and social amenities and education facilities,” a brief planning note submitted by Rogers explains.

A rendering of the Innovation District.

(Image from City of Brampton)

The proposal, if realized, could help save the crumbling downtown, which has seen dozens of business closures in the last few years, and has experienced a wave of crime, driven by the growing homeless population in the area.

During a lengthy series of delegations and discussions at Wednesday's council meeting, potential benefits were highlighted.

But a question hung over the celebratory conversation: why does Rogers need an MZO to accelerate the proposal? 

A spokesperson for the company did not address questions about the urgency of the proposal or how the corporation planned to acquire the Metrolinx land. “I’ll refer you to our public submission with details on the project,” the company spokesperson told The Pointer, offering no specific reason for avoiding the usual public planning and approval process, which would involve meetings with residents, the need for environmental studies, height reviews, traffic studies and other requirements before a project of such magnitude could move forward. 

Because Rogers does not own the land it hopes to build on, it is unclear if an MZO would actually speed up the delivery of a corporate office. Buying the land could be a complicated process and the MZO would only circumvent certain aspects of the public planning process meant to protect community interests. 

As a provincial agency, landowner Metrolinx is governed by the Ontario Realty Directive. This policy sets out, in detail, the steps that Metrolinx and Rogers would have to go through to agree on a deal. 

First, Metrolinx would have to determine if the land Rogers wants is not needed by the transit agency, before circulating it to ministries and provincial agencies for possible non-direct use of the property (not tied to providing government services). It would then need to offer the land to public entities outside the provincial government, including the federal government, municipalities, school boards, universities or non-profits. If there is still no interest in the land, only then could it be sold on the open market. 

There are some caveats in this policy. If a ministry were to recommend a non-government buyer that could speed the process up, but, even then, that option would require a business case. It would also rely upon approval from the Treasury Board/Management Board of Cabinet.

If government bodies who get first right of refusal do not make an offer, Rogers could then acquire it by paying market value. However, government processes for any real estate transaction involving public lands would have to be carried out, meaning even a successful purchase by Rogers would likely take some time. 

A Metrolinx spokesperson said the organization would look at any proposal from Rogers “carefully” and “thoroughly”. 

“I did get a call from Phil Verster [CEO] of Metrolinx to express his support for this project with Rogers,” Brown told councillors after questions were raised about rezoning land the telecom company does not own. The Metrolinx spokesperson confirmed Verster regularly speaks to municipal leaders but said his support would not negate the need for any proposal to move through the standard process.

Brampton’s latest MZO requests come a week after Councillor Martin Medeiros, who is chair of the City’s planning committee, confirmed municipal planning staff were uncomfortable with council’s reliance on the planning tool being pushed by Brown, his PC Party associates and developers, which often cuts municipalities out from many of their usual planning responsibilities. 

“I will say [in] public, on-record, staff has advised council many times [that] they’re not really in favour of MZOs themselves, they really want to go through the planning process,” he said last week. Medeiros, who is one of the few councillors to confront criticism of Brampton’s MZO requests head-on, framed the City’s reliance on them as a political decision to advance economic opportunities and increase the housing supply.

He has said his own support of some of the MZO requests, including ones he pushed forward, was either due to special circumstances or non controversial requests that would not lead to key issues of public concern being ignored.

Rogers’ John Mallovy presents to councillors virtually on Wednesday .

(Screenshot from City of Brampton)

Rogers' second MZO request received almost no scrutiny from councillors. 

Area resident and keen City Hall watcher Peter Bailey requested to have a communication added to the next planning committee agenda for its January 31 meeting, which he forwarded to The Pointer. 

“Rogers' intention to re-purpose their sprawling Dixie Rd employment lands and relocate to downtown Brampton is promising,” he wrote. “It's too bad the latest buzzword in urban development is MZO. As designed, the MZO route effectively removes both the public's and to some degree the city's input into development proposals with a municipality.”

He suggested Rogers might be intentionally trying to avoid dealing with City Hall because of a series of controversies involving Brown and his hand-picked CAO David Barrick.

“The overall mistrust of the Patrick Brown/David Barrick approach to governing the city hasn't inspired confidence or trust in municipal matters that affects thousands of constituents. Until the current culture of secrecy is eliminated and a culture of transparency and accountability is restored at city hall, a dark cloud of suspicion and mistrust will continue to hang over the entire city. Perhaps that is why Rogers has decided to go the MZO route that bypasses not only the public involvement process but can remove city hall as well.”  

If it succeeds in securing lands in downtown Brampton, Rogers hopes to flip the land its current office sits on. It has proposed a mix of residential towers, townhouses and industrial uses in the MZO request approved by Brampton City Council Wednesday.

“Rogers is seeking an MZO for the lands it will be vacating at 8200 Dixie Road,” a letter from Mallovy, the Rogers VP, explains. “Rogers is seeking to permit up to 1,200,000 SF (square feet) of industrial logistics uses and up to 25 acres of residential development along Dixie Road to be built out with a range of housing types.”

Council has already upset businesses based in Brampton by rushing through MZO requests without scrutiny. 

Representatives for Canadian Tire and Choice Properties appeared at a virtual City Council meeting in December to say they had been completely blindsided by an MZO request to rezone lands they own for a massive residential project proposed by another property owner. The development has the potential to impact companies in an area that employs some 2,500 people. 

Rogers’ second request, if approved, will allow the company to rapidly rezone and redevelop its current land after a move downtown. 

The benefits of a rapid process with little scrutiny and few to no costly conditions are evident for the corporation, but the need for speed or how it will benefit residents who could be cut out of the consultation process is unclear. 

The Rogers spokesperson did not address questions from The Pointer asking the company to articulate why redevelopment of its old office needed to be expedited through an MZO. 

Both of the new MZO requests will be sent to Queen’s Park where Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, will decide whether to grant them or not.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @isaaccallan

Tel: 647 561-4879

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