Welcome

ART-EXPO & FESTIVAL MARKET

Sponsored by The Richmond Hill Arts Council & The Elgin West Seniors Association & York Region Open Mic & The City of Richmond Hill. 

• FREE Entrance, FREE Coffee & Cookies 
• DONATIONS to the RH Food Bank appreciated 
• ONE OF A KIND original gifts. 
• ENTERTAINMENT & dance to the music. 

Date: December 3, 2023 Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm 

Address: The Richmond Centre for the Performing Arts, 10268 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill 

Heat Pumps Unveiled 

Keynote Speaker will be Erik Janssen, a Research Scientist with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.

• information about the pros and cons of heat pumps and how they work
• time to ask questions from experts and municipal representatives
• to learn about available rebates and incentives for green retrofitting

Date:  Saturday, December 2, 2023, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m

Register for the event:  Heat Pumps Unveiled Registration Link , https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/heat-pumps-unveiled-tickets-695547219457?aff=oddtdtcreator%C2%A0

Location: Richmond Hill United  Church, 10201 Yonge Street

Art Workshop 

Saturday, December 2, 2023 10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Acrylic Pouring Techniques,  Rouge Woods CC - Aspen Room.

Boynton House Artisan Shop and Gallery

Address: 1300 Elgin Mills Rd E, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 1M5.

Date: 

• Friday, December 1, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm,
• Saturday, December 2, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Sunday, December 3, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Wednesday, December 6, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Thursday, December 7, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Friday, December 8, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Saturday, December 16, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Sunday, December 17, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Wednesday, December 20, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Thursday, December 21, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Friday, December 22, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Thursday, December 28, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Friday, December 29, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
• Saturday, December 30, 2023 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Merry Marketplace

• Saturday, December 9, 2023 4:00 pm - 9:00 pm, Richmond Green Park
• Saturday, December 16, 2023 4:00 pm - 9:00 pm,  Richmond Green Park

Prime crime category includes Arson, Assaults, Attempt Murder, Break and Enter, Drug Violation, Firearms Violations, Impaired Operation, Robbery, Sexual Violations, Theft of Motor Vehicle, Theft Over $5000, Weapons Violations etc.  The following chart only listed 7 of the categories.

https://community-safety-portal-datayrp.hub.arcgis.com/. 

Provided is the link to the 2024 Draft Budget https://www.richmondhill.ca/en/shared-content/resources/Budget/2024-draft-budget-book.pdf. It includes the City’s Department Operating Budgets, as well as the Capital Budget and Forecast. The Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Management Services Budgets will be available in advance of the respective BCW meeting.

The following is a list of the scheduled BCW meetings

• November 21 (Tuesday)  2024 Draft Capital Budget & Forecast.
• November 28 (Tuesday) 2024 Draft Operating Budget (Office of the City Manager, Planning & Building Services, Community Services).
• December 5 (Tuesday) 2024 Draft Operating Budget (Corporate & Financial Services, Corporate Accounts, Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Management Services, Richmond Hill Public Library, RH Business Improvement Area).

The operation budget of the tax increase is 4.76% for 2024, 5.7%  for 2025, 4.72% for 2026 and 4.43% for 2027.

• The 2024 Blended Tax Rate is 3.17% including Region, School Board and  City (4.76%);
• The 2024 Capital Asset Sustainability Levy is 1.5%;
• The 2024 Water and Wastewater  is 4.0%;
• The 2024 Stormwater Management Services is 9%;
• As an example of detached property $1, 146,000,  the bill will be $342.53 increased in 2024. 

Winter Snow Service

RICHMOND HILL – Winter is coming and City staff are ready to respond. Our crews work hard to clear the snow and ice as quickly and efficiently as possible to help keep our community moving safely.

The City maintains 1,100km of roads, nearly 750km of sidewalks and clears snow windrows - the pile of snow left behind by road plows - from the end of 44,000 driveways. Weather conditions trigger the following services:

• 0-5 cm of snow/ice – Salting of roads; salting and plowing of sidewalks as required
• 5+ cm of snow in forecast – Winter Event declared and on-street parking is prohibited
• 5+ cm of snow accumulated - Plowing of roads, sidewalks and windrows
• 10+ cm of snow – Significant Weather Event may be declared; operations may take longer than 

How residents can help support winter operations

• Don’t park on the road, across the sidewalk or near the bottom of your driveway when it’s snowing or expected to snow 
• Do not place anything within one meter of a road, curb or sidewalk that may obstruct plowing operations (e.g. sports equipment, landscaping etc.) 
• On waste collection day, place bins away from the curb on the right side of your driveway (if you’re facing the house). Do not place them on the road
• Do not shovel snow onto the road or sidewalk

Winter parking rules

• There is no on-street parking between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. from December 1 to March 31 unless you have a permit
• On-street parking is also prohibited when a Winter Event is declared. It takes effect in advance of any snowfall. This applies even if you have a permit

Q&A:

1. Last year,  many small streets only received a single lane cleaning, the snow piles were on both sides of the street and restricted the traffic on many small streets. This year,  are we following the same process and SLA?

Salting will occur at the crown (centre) of the road and this will allow snow to melt from the centre to the edges as vehicles drive over. Plowing on roads has always been in both directions, and we make every effort to push snow as far back to the curb depending on how much snow has fallen or the number of events. Sometimes streets may be a little narrower however they still remain safe and passable.

2. For our online system, is there any way to show up the uncompleted road with an expected time?  Thus residents know how long they can wait. 

There are many factors and challenges that sometimes affect how long it takes to plow the roads. The online system will not provide time for how long before the plow goes by.

Street lights issues:

Richmond Hill has about 12,000 LED street lights installed between 2017 and 2020 as well as 4,000 of the older decorative high pressure sodium (HPS) lights in some neighborhoods.  The neighborhood in question has the HPS lights but is being impacted by the backlog in replacing defective LED lights.  

The backlog in LED  street light repairs result from a manufacturer defective driver found in about 8000 LED lights purchased in 2017 as part of the LED Conversion project.  We have been working with the manufacturer and the general contractor from the LED conversion project to swap out the drivers in the failed fixtures at no cost to the City.  In addition, our streetlight maintenance contractor, Guild, has also been replacing failed fixtures.  To date, we’ve replaced about 4000 of the 8000 lights that are known to have this defect. 

Mill Pond community: ( the following lights have been replaced.  If you observe more issues, please engage with me) 

Westbrook Community: ( the following lights have been replaced.  If you observe more issues, please engage me) 

• 84 Palomino Dr. 
• 3 El Dorado St. 
• 41 Brookgreene Cres. 
• 163 Rothbury Road (Front door). 
• 97-99 Eagle Peak 
• 130 Canyon Hill Ave ( with Alectra for an underground power fault repair) 
• 98-100 Alamo heights dr 
• 2 Los Alamos Dr. 

Traffic related news:

All-way stop control intersections:

• Westbrook community :   Aikenhead Avenue/Shallot Court at Colesbrook
• Mill Pond Community :  Lucas Street at Trayborn Drive

Speed reduced from 50 km/h to 40 km/h:

Westbrook community :

• Colesbroook Road from  Gamble Rd [E] to Gamble Road [W]
• Cooperage Crescent  from Shaftsbury Avenue [N] to Shaftsbury Avenue [S]
• Palomino Drive from  Canyon Hill Avenue to  Shaftsbury Avenue

Parking Restriction:

Mill Pond Community:

• Arten Avenue from Creekview Avenue to Regent Street
• Creekview Avenue from Arten Avenue to Elgin W

Jefferson community:

• Napanee Street  from Walter Sinclair St [N] to Walter Sinclair St [S]

Traffic Monitoring related news:

Westbook Community:

• Lacewood Drive and Nottingham Drive

Staff have completed our review of the All Way Stop Control (AWSC) at Lacewood Drive and Nottingham Drive and determined an AWSC is not currently warranted. However, we will continue to monitor traffic volumes at this intersection through our regular traffic count program and recommend STOP signs, should they become warranted in the future. 

• Lacewood Drive and Gamble Street

As per the second issue regarding Lacewood and Gamble traffic volumes/speed testing, we do not have the specific data as this is a regional intersection. However, we did check ATR data on Lacewood Drive itself- from Gamble to Royal Chaplin (2015); the 85th percentile is 43 km/h which is below the posted speed limit of 50km/h. We will keep this street in mind for future data collection as we look to expand our data collection program as part of the upcoming Traffic Safety and Operations Strategy (TSOS).

• Trillium woods Public School traffic update.

Alamo Heights Drive is currently being reviewed as part of our City Wide Community Safety Zone (CSZ) assessment which we anticipate to be completed by the end of the year.  In addition, Alamo Heights Drive will be reviewed as part of the network wide screening for traffic calming in 2024 as a recommendation of the upcoming TSOS report. 

• Leyburn Ave: We will focus on those streets as high priority in 2023.  The speed limit is 50km/h

85% of the vehicles on Leyburn between Brookside and Stancroft are traveling at 50km/h or less in 2022.

Mill Pond Community

• Mill Street and Pleasantville PS:

With respect to traffic calming, we are finalizing an enhanced traffic calming policy, with guidance on how to conduct City-wide reviews to proactively identify candidate sites for traffic calming, based on a data-driven approach. These new policies are expected to reflect the needs of our residents and the public, and Staff expect to bring to Council the resultant recommended policies on completion of the Strategy, in the next few months. We will certainly include Mill Street, Ellery Drive and Neighbourly Lane in this review.

• Regent Street and Elgin Mills Road West Intersection.  

Staff have completed our review of the current speed limit signage on Regent Street and have determined additional signage is required.  Staff have created a work order to install additional posted speed limit signage on Regent Street and we anticipate the signage will be installed in the next few weeks pending weather and utility locates. 

• Neighbourly lane / Easy street intersection.

Staff have completed our review and at this time no changes are recommended as the existing “Stop Ahead” signage meets Ontario Traffic Manual guidelines.  However we will continue to monitor the intersection for safety performance.

Jefferson Community:

• Tower Hill  Road  and Alhart Street ( Cross street light )

Due to the proximity of the proposed Tower Hill Road and Alhart Street pedestrian crossing (PXO) to the signalized intersection of Tower Hill Road and Bathurst Street, staff were coordinating with York Region to ensure there would be no operational impacts.  We have confirmed with York Region that they have no operational concerns and this has been added to our 2024 PXO program for design and construction however it is unlikely it will be installed in Q1 of 2024.

• Selwyn Road and Beyond Field PS. 

It will be under the 2024 traffic calming plan and will monitor the traffic issue. 

Waiting for more information for the following streets:

• Arten Street speeding data;
• Gracedale street speeding data;