Adam Bramburger
Beaver Staff
Loyalist Township will continue to reserve municipal service capacity for a proposed Odessa subdivision for nine more months.
Council had previously allocated space for 36 units in the Fairfield water and Loyalist East sewage systems for a development at 315 Main Street. In May 2018, the municipality extended that designation for two years.
If it hadn’t received draft approval by this May, the capacity would be made available to other projects as the municipality faces development pressures, particularly in Amherstview.
Recently, township staff learned the property had been sold and the new owner, Ray Patel, wrote to the township asking for an extension to allow him time to plan his development.
Deputy mayor Ric Bresee was pleased to see the interest, but wondered if there was any indication on the expected timeline for a proposal to the municipality.
Director of planning and development services Murray Beckel said he’d yet to see any details on what Patel might propose for the property.
“The developer is interested in proceeding, but we haven’t seen any proposals from the owner,” he said. “They have communicated they’d like to get going.”
Bresee was encouraged by that news, but he wanted to be sure the project would progress with some pace.
“Can we put in an additional or alternate trigger timeline — something to accelerate or encourage acceleration of the project?” Bresee asked. “The capacity may be available at the moment, but we have a lot of development pressures. I wouldn’t want to tie it up without seeing any activity.”
Beckel said council could impose such a condition and suggested nine months would be reasonable to allow time for background studies to be completed. With that extension, Patel would still have the capacity reserved until about Jan. 1.
“It’s a small property and most of the studies are engineering related. The work should be able to be done in that period of time,” he said.
Bresee successfully moved to adopt staff’s recommendation to grant the extension, but amended staff’s suggested timeline of two years to attain a draft plan approval to nine months to submit an application.
Mayor Bill Lowry questioned where the township stands with system capacity in the Odessa-Amherstview service area.
Director of infrastructure services David Thompson said a full report on system capacity would come before council next month, but said the pressure is real.
“There’s actually been negative pressure on the capacity with the numbers we saw last year but we don’t expect any movement this year or next year,” he said. “The presumption is we’ve hit the long-term capacity of the plants without physical expansion.”
In other Loyalist Township news…
– Council approved a request to remove a holding symbol on a parcel of land in Bath, east of Mac’s Milk on Bath Road, to allow for the proposed development of four commercial buildings.
Members learned of an application submitted by Patrick Hulley, on behalf of a numbered Ontario company, to remove the hold, which was in place to ensure an interim stormwater management facility on the property was removed. The proponent submitted site plan drawings to the municipality, showing its plans for four commercial buildings consisting of a total of 27,548 square feet. In a report approvals planner Trudy Gravel said Loyalist’s planning staff were satisfied with the drawings and adequate securities were posted. The buildings are set to be built in phases.
The land carries a shopping centre commercial designation and the project fits the strategic plan objective to “promote and manage economic development.”
Notification of the township’s intent to remove the holding symbol was distributed March 28.