Sarnia and Lambton clash again over city planning

Sarnia and Lambton County are again at odds over city planning.

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And Sarnia is again appealing a county decision that stymies proposed city changes.

The latest salvo is over the secondary plan for Sarnia’s Development Area 2.

The plan lays out where things like roads and different types of zoning would go in the 570-hectare (about 1,410-acre) area in the city’s southeast, poised for development.

Council in February voted to change light industrial or “prestige employment” zoning for the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park lands — part of Development Area 2 — instead opting for general employment zoning which permits heavy industrial operations and “noxious” emissions, including odors.

The research park has been described as a place for companies to test ideas, before, if successful, moving on to build plants elsewhere.

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With residential in area two planned nearby, consultant Ron Palmer with The Planning Partnership recommended, in a report, maintaining the research park’s light-industrial zoning, noting the research park already has operations on site considered noxious that technically shouldn’t be there.

Palmer, in his report, called the area between the offending operations and proposed residential to the south an adequate buffer.

Rezoning to general employment would allow more heavy industrial uses closer still to residential, Sarnia’s planning manager Eric Hyatt said.

Lambton County, as the approval authority for council’s official plan, Sarnia’s proposal rejected to make research park lands general employment, and approved the remainder of the secondary plan.

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Sarnia July 8, 7-2 approved appealing the county’s decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

“The intent of the park is that everything be set up so businesses can go in there and try to develop something,” said Coun. Terry Burrell, adding making prospective research park clients go through a rezoning application defeats the purpose.

“They might as well go somewhere else,” he said, in support of Sarnia fighting the ruling from county infrastructure and development services general manager Jason Cole.

It takes about five months for rezoning and official plan amendment applications, Sarnia community services general manager Stacey Forfar said; While research park executive director Katherine Albion has said companies often want to move faster than that.

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Environmental permits are still part of the process, Albion said.

It also doesn’t make sense to have companies pay for that process when there’s a chance they won’t get approval, Burrell said.

“Let’s make our park available to do what we want to do: incubate businesses,” he said.

Coun. Anne Marie Gillis said she’d rather err on the side of caution.

“When we look at our overall city, the safety of our air quality is paramount,” she said Sunday, adding “we see that playing out right now in real time down in (Chemical) Valley.

A provincial air quality report earlier this year found benzene readings have been elevated historically in Sarnia’s south, and in Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

Aamjiwnaang more recently has called attention to people’s continued exposure on its territory to high levels of the carcinogenic chemical, emitted from nearby industrial operations.

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“It’s just I think irresponsible, in my humble opinion … allowing heavy industrial into a residential area,” Gillis said.

A pending city zoning bylaw update also needs to be approved before any changes can take effect, Hyatt said.

A statutory public meeting during a council meeting is expected this fall, city officials said in a report.

Gillis, who, with Coun. Bill Dennis, who voted to accept the county’s decision on area two, didn’t provide her rationale at the council meeting, though Coun. Adam Kilner asked for her thoughts.

She was waiting for Mayor Mike Bradley to call on her, she said.

Bradley instead called the vote.

“I don’t think there’s any intention at the research park to look at heavy industrial,” Bradley said, noting industrial parks in the city’s southwest exist for those uses.

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“But we wanted to have the freedom to operate that way,” Bradley said.

Bradley chairs the research park’s board of directors.

Coun. Brian White, the county’s deputy warden, also sits on the board.

Both voted for the appeal, along with five others.

An appealing city report notes will mean paying for external legal and planning services.

“It’s not going to be as easy as people would like it to be,” Gillis said.

Sarnia recently dropped an appeal against The County of Lambton, filed in late 2022. after county staff rejected an official plan clause to expand Sarnia’s urban boundary for the proposed Development Area 3 — 215 hectares south of Lakeshore Road in Bright’s Grove.

The rationale was that existing lands in the city’s existing urban boundary, of which Sarnia has more than 400 hectares, are supposed to be used first before expanding the boundary, according to provincial policy.

Fighting for change anyway, via a minister’s zoning order application, recently fell to landowners in area three, after provincial policy changes.

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