Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood INFORMATION

The upcoming Bayview and John Visioning exercise opens the door to pursue the opportunity to improve our neighbourhood and to create a vibrant urban focal point for the surrounding community as intended in the Markham official plan.

The Bayview and John visioning exercise opens unique opportunities including:

• The creation of a vibrant Town Centre to serve Ward 1 community. It will provide much-needed amenities  where people can get together to interact, to celebrate, to stroll, or just to enjoy day-to-day living.  Check out this document about creating a Town Centre

•  Aileen-Willowbrook neighborhood becoming a more complete community (a modern urban concept to address the issues faced by commuter communities).  All levels of government support Complete Communities development. This includes Ontario, York Region, and City of Markham

• Better community services sized to serve our growing communities

Visit our webpage about creating a new vision for the future of Aileen-Willowbrook.

 Ward 1 amenities and Community service levels are already overloaded according to City of Markham standards.  Recently approved developments will raise our neighborhood's population by at least 15%. Service deficits need to be addressed!

These services reach beyond the AWRA community. They serve all Ward 1, whose population will double in the coming years due to developments in the Yonge North Subway Extension, the Bridge TOC, and the Langstaff Gateway area.

Yet, regardless of the foreseeable increase in demand, Commercial and Retail services will be drastically reduced if Thornhill Square is redeveloped as per the 2023 settlement agreement (for more info visit our Thornhill Square webpage).

Urban intensification exacerbated by decades of housing supply deficits has lead to one of the biggest housing affordability crisis.

"Emergency" responses to the housing crisis  had lower many urban planning development "barriers" leaving urban development susceptible to abuse and overdevelopment which in turn threatens the quality of life of our area. 

While Shouldice lands overdevelopment was adverted, Thornhill Square redevelopment (currently on hold due to sanitary capacity constrains) poses the biggest threat to the area livability. 

We need to ensure our community to be a vibrant place to live, work, shop and play!

Busy lives make challenging for residents to get involved until a crisis comes knocking at the door; unfortunately by that time is usually too late to change the outcome.

We leave a great amount of our future on the hands of our elected officials and city staff but without oversight and involvement of the residents many key local aspects get lost in the bureaucratic  process leading to unwanted results like the settlement on Thornhill Square. 

If you are interested to help in the urban future and quality of life of our area visit our 

 Get Involved webpage