It’ll take another two months or so to update where things like roads and parks will go in Sarnia’s development area two, the city’s community services general manager says.
Stacey Forfar said that estimate is based on the additional time to hold a request for proposal process for the secondary plan work in the roughly five-square-kilometre, largely undeveloped block for new residential and commercial between Modeland Road, Blackwell Sideroad, London and Confederation lines.
Actually crafting the plan can take anywhere from three to eight months, including public consultation, she said.
“Ideally it’s just going to provide far more visibility into what and how those lands can open up in the future, and where those future connection points are intended to go,” she said.
City council recently voted against a recommendation to award the work directly to the Planning Partnership for $250,000.
The Toronto-based landscape architecture, planning, urban design and communications firm has been helping lead the work crafting the city’s new draft official plan, currently out for public input. A public input meeting is planned with city council March 21.
Part of that process has included a comprehensive review of the city, resulting in estimates Sarnia’s population could grow by more than 12,000 residents in 24 years, and a need for more residential land to accommodate that growth.
The amount of work the firm has invested already in that process gives it a leg up on the secondary plan work, a report to council from the city’s planning department says.
But the price tag is too steep to award without a competitive process, council decided.
“I really don’t like to give out that kind of money without a competition of some kind, to see whether or not somebody else maybe has another idea,” Coun. Terry Burrell said.
Council voted down 7-2 – Couns. Brian White and Nathan Colquhoun were on the losing side – a motion to accept the Planning Partnership’s bid, then 8-1 in favor – Coun. George Vandenberg was opposed – of putting the secondary plan work out to tender.
The work will also include a commercial needs assessment that Forfar said will “help us put to bed what is the demand for commercial across the city.”
She didn’t specify whether it will resolve whether to convert commercial zoning to residential along a stretch of Confederation Line.
The secondary plan will also accommodate whatever council decides about converting research park lands south of Wellington Street into new residential, to accommodate the projected residential growth, Forfar said.
Deliberation on that is expected in May, she said.
“If they stay employment, they’ll stay employment; of if they are converted to residential, they’ll go to residential.”
Guidelines looking at subdivision design and residential infill will also be reviewed as part of the secondary plan update, she said.
It may cost more to have other firms take on the work, given they’ll have to play catch up on comprehensive review and official plan work already done, the report to council says.
“The pricing can vary significantly with these types of processes,” Forfar said.