Council approves Argyle Street development in Simcoe

Norfolk County councilors have approved plans for a condominium development in Simcoe.

Councilors on Wednesday approved a zoning bylaw amendment to allow the proposal to go ahead. The development, by Boer Homes Construction, calls for six semi-detached homes on a .76 hectare parcel of land at 210 Argyle Street near the Norfolk Golf and Country Club.

The proposal was approved unanimously but not before a great deal of discussion between council, county staff and John Vallee, president of Vallee Consulting Engineers, Architects and Planners.

At issue was a holding provision with conditions that had to be met prior to the county issuing a building permit for the project.

The conditions were included as part of a staff report that recommended approval of the project. One required confirmation of enough water and sewer capacity to accommodate the project.

Normally, such conditions are included in a site plan approval process.

But under recent provincial government changes, site plan control no longer applies to developments under 10 units.

That put county planning staff in a tough spot.

Their job is to protect the municipality’s interest and ensure their is enough water and sewer capacity to accommodate the project. But the tool they had to do that – site plan control – wasn’t available to them for the Argyle St. development.

Moreover, water and sewage capacity and the ability to support development has been an issue throughout Norfolk in recent years.

“This is something we’re quite concerned about,” Vallee, speaking on behalf of Boer Homes, said. “We have a number of these files (developments) coming forward and some of them have been on the books for a couple of years.

“Those clients are saying to me ‘shouldn’t we pull our project out of the site plan control process because they’re only eight units?’.”

No one wants to see all the requirements under one process – site plan control – rolled into another process – holding provisions, Vallee said.

Mayor Amy Martin acknowledged Valle’s concerns but defended county staff.

“We’re in a really unique position here,” Martin said. “We have provincial legislation that has just come down and our staff is trying to juggle and find ways to manage it and meet the timelines.”

Martin said county staff are still trying to figure how best to work with the new rules so that development isn’t held up.

Staff aren’t trying to slow down developments or create more red tape, she added.

Vallee agreed but then pointed out that studies meeting the holding provision requirements have been completed and submitted to county staff.

Vallee said it seems ridiculous to have to re-submit information that already addresses concerns highlighted in the holding provision. It would add more work to both the developer and county staff and further delay the protect, he said.

Councilors voted in favor of the proposal and agreed to drop the holding provisions contained in the staff recommendation.

“I don’t see that there is a worry with this developer who has been in line for two years,” Coun. Chris Van Paassen said. “It’s a local developer, a local consultant work on this and I think I can trust that the allocation should be OK for this six-unit development.”

Van Paassen said unless there was some great concern by staff, he’s happy to move the project forward without the holding provision conditions in place.

Plans call for construction of the new homes to begin sometime this year.

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