Planners wanted $1 million +; developer thought he could slide by for $9,000 - a majority went for the developer.

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

June 10th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

It was an arm-wrestling contest worth watching – except you couldn’t see the contestants.

With city council meetings now viral – we don’t get to see the players – we can hear them though.

Yesterday, Dana Anderson, of MHBS, a planning consulting firm, was before council delegating for an extension to the development application the Emshie interests had before the city.

Street and lot GArden Trails

The original plan of sub-division for what has been named Garden Trails looked something like this. Conservation Halton had some issues.

The problem with the application is that it came out of an Ontario Municipal Board hearing in 1958 when Tony Millington and Associates was representing the Emshie people.

It had languished for years – with as much as five years passing with nothing being done.

The city planners had issued a number of extensions – they felt the one had reached the end of the line. They asked council to force Emshih to file a new application, partly because all the technical reports would have to be updated.

In the Staff Report planners concluded that:

Staff must confirm that the draft approved lot configuration is able to achieve compliance with the current policies. Given this uncertainty, it is not appropriate to grant an extension request for the draft approved plans. Staff are of the opinion that the current proposal should be reviewed against current policies, regulations and standards as part of a new application.

The policy framework has changed substantially since draft plan approval in 2001, and given the ecological significance of the lands, it is important that current standards and regulations are considered and maintained. It is not appropriate to assess the proposal using outdated policy framework given that the applicant has not actively been working toward clearing conditions. In the opinion of staff, these requirements are not minor and should not be considered as part of an extension request; but rather, be more appropriately comprehensively reviewed as part of a new plan of subdivision application.

Dana Anderson planner

Dana Anderson – MBHS

The problem was that – creating a new development application file carried fees that approach 1 million dollars – whereas staying with the current application the fees would come in at around $12,000.

You can see what the issue was – Council spent more than half an hour debating that one with the Mayor saying that if the planners have to do the same amount of work on the extension as they would have to do on a new file – then she wanted them to be paid for the work they were going to have to do.

Councillors Stolte and Nisan agreed with the Mayor but the other four felt that Emshie should be give some time to do what they could to get the issues resolved.

Councillors Galbraith, Kearns, Sharman and Bentivegna voted for an extension to not later than December 31st.

The planners left the meeting feeling they were being taken – the city manager wasn’t happy.

When this gets to a Council meeting one of the four who voted for the extension might flip.

While discussing the fees involved we learned that the city take a bundle, the Conservation Authority takes a bundle and the Region takes a bundle – then they all take an additional fee per house built.

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