Bright’s Grove’s housing supply could grow significantly if Sarnia’s new official plan holds up.
In the neighborhood of 500 farmland hectares in the lakefront Sarnia community, which city staff Monday estimated at around 5,000 people, could be included in the city’s urban boundary for development after council voted 6-3 to add in a parcel south of Lakeshore Road and between Waterworks and Brigden side roads to the document.
That’s pending more community consultation, council decided after voting 8-1 to approve the official plan in principle but have another public meeting. Mayor Mike Bradley, recapping the decision, said Coun. Terry Burrell’s was the sole vote opposed.
Ron Palmer of The Planning Partnership recommended the extra public meeting, despite one being held earlier this year on a previous draft, given the substantial change.
Ultimate approval still lies with Lambton County and the province, he said, and could hinge on whether the addition is deemed acceptable given provincial policy on where municipalities prioritize development.
Palmer said before the vote it would be his job to make the new plan successful whatever council decided.
“I want the official plan, whatever it is, to work,” he said.
count. George Vandenberg, who made the motion for the Bright’s Grove urban boundary extension, said the addition doesn’t replace an existing proposal in the official plan to convert about 35 hectares of the city’s glut of employment lands for new residential.
The area affected would be research park lands southeast of Wellington Street and Modeland Road
Regardless, it’s going to take years to build, Vandenberg noted.
“This is a gradual process,” he said. “It’s going to go through city staff and it’s going to take a while.
“I’m just asking (council) to accept this, move it forward, so that these good folks in this crowd have something to look forward to,” he said to applause from a packed gallery.
land owners and others in the community have called on city council to expand the boundary in Bright’s Grove.
Vandenberg earlier this year resigned from the city’s planning advisory committee after he said arguments to extend the boundary were falling on deaf ears.
Palmer noted building in Bright’s Grove will require constructing at least one major east-west roadway, and questions remain about whether the sewage lagoon system has enough capacity to accommodate the proposed growth, city engineering general manager David Jackson said.
There is some spare capacity, he said, suggested there may be enough for 1,000 more homes.
“We haven’t looked at this size and scale and how many homes and what that looks like,” he said.
An amendment from Coun. Nathan Colquhoun to prioritize mixed use instead of just single-family home development in the area also passed. That vote count, though, wasn’t immediately clear.
Burrell voted against the Bright’s Grove motion, saying the suggested land area was too big.
count. Brian White said he was “awestruck” at the size and noted he was considering voting in favor of a smaller land parcel.
“But this would require just a huge investment infrastructure,” he said, calling it a “Ponzi scheme” from a municipal services perspective.
“And it’s going to be my kids and my grandkids that are going to be paying for that infrastructure.”
Palmer said it will take another two weeks to tweak the plan to add these changes.
“It’s not just a map change,” the planning consultant said. “I need to put a policy framework in place to manage the comprehensive planning.”
The draft presented Monday already incorporated changes based on more than 100 people offering feedback since the last time the plan was presented, he said.
Major changes include how agriculture is designated, which now more closely aligns with Lambton County’s official plan, and a clarification that a growth management review, including the population-increase projections the urban boundary decisions rely upon, is required within five years and can happen at any time. Another change updates how the differences between natural features and hazard lands are recognized, Palmer said.
How to manage those natural features and hazards in the Bright’s Grove area targeted for boundary extension and development could be part of a longer approach to creating the neighbourhoods, he said.
“At the end of the day, it’s the beginning of a process,” he said. “It’s not the end.”