Sarnia dropping appeal of Bright’s Grove urban boundary decision

Sarnia is dropping a land court appeal against Lambton County, making way for Bright’s Grove landowners to seek a boundary expansion.

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Council voted recently, with Coun. Bill Dennis opposed and Coun. Dave Boushy absent, to withdraw the city’s Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) appeal filed in early 2023.

It follows last month’s council decision to leave it up to landowners in Development Area 3 — a 215-hectare (531-acre) parcel south of Lakeshore Road — to seek a minister’s zoning order to expand the city’s urban boundary there, a city staff report said.

Ontario Municipal Affairs Ministry officials have aided any appeals must be resolved before a zoning order process is initiated, the report said.

The MZO process is new under the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, issued June 6.

County planning staff in late 2022 rejected the urban boundary expansion proposal in the city’s official plan because it didn’t mesh with provincial policy requiring municipalities to build on lands within their boundaries before adding new.

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Sarnia appealed.

Sarnia has more than 400 hectares (988 acres) of employment lands elsewhere that could be converted to residential, but Bright’s Grove boundary expansion proponents say land there is more desirable and could increase city population growth by more than the projected 12,650 by 2046. Current projections are Sarnia will reach 87,000 people by then.

The appeal process had made limited progress, given looming provincial policy changes, the city ​​report saidnoting “the Planning Act still requires a lower-tier municipality’s official plan to be consistent with the upper-tier (Lambton’s) official plan” and no changes to that are anticipated.

Council decided to drop the appeal or resolve the matter without a hearing.

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What follows next is a technical process involving city lawyers, said Eric Hyatt, Sarnia’s planning and development services manager.

But the city’s role in actively pursuing the urban boundary expansion is essentially done, he said. Withdrawing the appeal “kind of closes the loop on all things related to (that).”

The framework to develop Area 3 remains in the city’s official plan, even though the lands remain outside the settlement area boundary, he said.

Property owners who paid for a now-defunct community infrastructure and housing accelerator (CIHA) process for land boundary appeals have been issued refunds, he said.

Hyatt said he hasn’t heard from landowners about any plans for a minister’s zoning order application.

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Messages left for one landowner last month were not returned.

A Plympton-Wyoming landowner opposed to the expansion also has appealed to the land tribunal, Hyatt said, noting he doesn’t know all the details.

“Certainly there’s still a component related to it there,” he said.

Coun. George Vandenberg, year advocate for the Bright’s Grove boundary expansionsaid he voted to drop the appeal “if it means we can move ahead with the (minister’s zoning order) and maybe somebody will develop this property.”

Neighboring communities are seeing more development than Sarnia, he said.

About 2,400 units approved by council for development, some more than a decade ago, remain unbuilt, city officials have said.

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