Going against the recommendation of staff, the city's planning committee has approved a plan to split a rural lot on Deschene Road in Hanmer, a move that will require an Official Plan amendment.
The Official Plan, which is the city's main guide when it comes to making land use decisions, restricts the creation of lots in areas zoned agricultural or rural. The policy adheres to provincial guidelines, which requires municipalities to gear residential development in areas zoned for residential homes.
The goal is to prevent urban sprawl, where development spread out across a large area, which places a larger burden on taxpayers. By having more people living closer together, the cost of maintaining water, sewer and other infrastructure is shared by more people, and transit, snowplowing and other services are more affordable, as well.
However, the policy has meant families with large properties zoned rural or agricultural can't sell their land, or create new lots to build homes.
“Rural lot creation policies are intended to mitigate the pressures inherent to unserviced development and the environmental impact of private septic systems,” the staff report on the Hanmer application said.
“Development is to be concentrated in fully serviced communities and limits on location, size and the number of lot severances in the rural designation have therefore been established.”
More recently, however, the planning committee and city council has shown more willingness to allow the lots to be split if the land is located near existing services.
On Monday, Ward 6 Coun. Rene Lapierre asked how close the Deschene Road property was to the area's commercial zone.
“The lot we're looking at creating would be about 297 metres from (land zoned commercial),” said Eric Taylor, the city's manager of development approvals.
“Is there any flexibility there for something that is so close to urban and commercial land?” Lapierre asked. “Does that make a difference at all? Is there any leeway there?”
Taylor said the land is clearly in the rural zone, and more lots than is normally allowed by the Official Plan have already been created. Normally, three new lots are allowed in addition to the original lot. In this case, six new ones have already been permitted.
“And here we're talking about an eight lot,” he said. “There doesn't seem to be any clear rationale of why yet another one, if we're trying to limit the number of lots.”
And Jason Ferrigan, the city's director of planning services, said the city has a 20 to 40 year supply of rural lots.
“We have about twice as much land as we need to suit our purposes,” Ferrigan said.
But Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann said there is already water running to the property, and natural gas.
“We have garbage pickup … close access to a town centre that is being developed adjacent to these lands,” Landry-Altmann said. “I have no problem with this.
The services are all there, it will have no impact whatsoever our services, in terms of having to add services.”
Lapierre agreed.
“I support this 100 per cent,” he said. “As the ward councillor, I have no concerns.”
The rezoning was approved unanimously. Read the full report here.
