Attainable housing will get you 20 points.
Key infrastructure? Five points.
And it could all add up to a successful development proposal in the Town of Collingwood.
During Monday night’s development and operations standing committee meeting, councillors received a first draft of the land-use planning study from Meridian Planning Consultants, which seeks to outline a path forward for the town in regards to how new developments could be approved after the interim control bylaw (ICBL) is lifted, while keeping water allocations under control.
The ICBL currently in place puts a pause on new development building permits because of limited available capacity at the town's water treatment plant.
As part of the report, the study team completed a jurisdictional review of comparable municipalities for the land-use planning study, obtaining best practices in water capacity allocation to create a draft Water and Wastewater Allocation Policy. The consultants concluded that the town should pivot away from servicing capacity allocation on a first-come-first-serve basis and move to a merit-based approach based on a points system.
“I look forward to seeing the outcome of our community and stakeholder involvement in regards to the point chart,” said Mayor Brian Saunderson. “There are large philosophical issues there in terms of what we want to promote.”
“This is an important evolution for our community,” said Saunderson.
The merit-based system would allocate points based on the inclusion of elements in a development proposal such as green technology, affordable housing, mixed uses, water conservation measures, employment generation, natural heritage protection, walkability, active transportation and intensification. Up to 100 points are available under the merit-based system, and any development proposed must score at least 75 points in order to proceed.
Coun. Kathy Jeffery raised concern that as attainable housing is worth 20 points, every development could theoretically skip the attainable housing component while still getting the 75-point minimum.
“That bothered me, because I don’t think that should be able to happen,” said Jeffery. “Would a minimum point structure within the categories be prudent to consider?”
Nick McDonald, president of Meridian Planning Consultants, said it was a concern the consultants could take back and reconsider.
“If the town believes that affordable housing is the number one issue, then considerable focus can be put on that criterion,” he said, while warning that not every development could include affordable housing but may have some other valuable assets.
“Restricting yourself in that way may have an impact you didn’t foresee,” he said.
Coun. Deb Doherty asked whether points should be given for the architectural design of a development.
“What we were trying to avoid is too much subjective criteria, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said McDonald. “I was trying to include things that were more measurable.”
As part of their work, Meridian is also recommending changes to the Official Plan and zoning bylaws, which will also be part of the public consultations.
If lands have been approved before the water and wastewater allocation policy comes into effect, the town would review the status of each plan and make a determination on whether approval should be withdrawn or the conditions of draft plan approval changed. Developments already granted an exemption from the ICBL would not be impacted by the new policy, should it be implemented.
Saunderson talked about when the ICBL was first passed on April 26, 2021.
“I think we had 27 delegations that night telling us how the sky would fall down and we would freeze development, and I don’t think we’ve seen that happen,” he said. “Tonight, we’ve heard a good map forward in terms of the steps we have to take to amend our bylaw.”
“These changes are important for us moving forward to make sure we’re promoting and approving projects that will contribute to sound and thought-out planning principles,” said Saunderson.
McDonald indicated that the consulting firm plans to complete the study as soon as possible and implement the recommendations in advance of the expiration of the one-year ICBL study period.
The recommendations passed at Monday’s committee meeting will need to be ratified at a regular meeting of council later this month before they will go through a public consultation phase at the end of November with area developers and residents.
