Councillor Cui is Member of:
2023 Main Objectives:
2023 Community Activities:
In November, Richmond Hill received a $31 million investment from the Federal government that will help set the stage for more affordable housing options in our city. This is a historic investment to help strengthen our community, as it will help incentivize builders to create affordable homes for people who work in Richmond Hill, seniors who want to downsize and multi-generational families who want to live close to one another in our community.
This month, the City has started the 2024 budget review meetings including the City’s Department Operating Budgets, as well as the Capital Budget and Forecast. The Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Management Services Budgets will be included.
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. Please review the winter event notice before you park your car on the street, please see details in the newsletter in case that you may be ticketed.
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. Please engage me if you face any street light issues.
We also have some traffic related changes including speed reduction, all-way stop sign, traffic monitoring, please see the newsletter for the details.
Holiday season is coming, and I have been engaged by some residents for House Break-in and Robbery recently. I checked the YRP web portal and summarized the crime statistics in the past 4 years’ information for your awareness. I will contact the York Regional Police and hope that the police department can take further actions to control and reduce the crime rate.
We had a meeting with YRP for the neighborhood watch program. In January 2024, we will host a public meeting with all block leaders, street leaders and residents to have another presentation. Then YRP will work out with block leaders to determine the location of the signs and others. Please stay tuned for the final time and location.
City also passed OPA 18.5 Yonge and Carrville/16th Avenue Key Development Area and OPA 18.6OPA 18.6 Village Local Centre.
Thank you for your continuous support.
Simon Cui
Richmond Hill Ward 4 Councillor
Cellphone: 437-326-0206
Website: https://simoncui.ca
Email: simon.cui@richmondhill.ca
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.
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.
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:
Merry Marketplace
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.
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
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.
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:
How residents can help support winter operations
Winter parking rules
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)
Traffic related news:
All-way stop control intersections:
Speed reduced from 50 km/h to 40 km/h:
Westbrook community :
Parking Restriction:
Mill Pond Community:
Jefferson community:
Traffic Monitoring related news:
Westbook Community:
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.
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).
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.
85% of the vehicles on Leyburn between Brookside and Stancroft are traveling at 50km/h or less in 2022.
Mill Pond Community
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.
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.
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:
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.
It will be under the 2024 traffic calming plan and will monitor the traffic issue.
Waiting for more information for the following streets: