The Blue Mountains council has given a year’s extension to a long-planned development in Thornbury.
At its meeting on April 30, council approved a staff report that recommended a year’s extension for the Matesa development proposed for a property located at the corner of Lansdowne and King Streets.
The development was originally approved in June 2013 and has been slowly working its way through the design process for the past decade. Town planning staff have been giving the development extensions over the past decade under delegated authority, but with the development approval now exceeding 10 years it was required to come back to council.
The proposal was subject to an Ontario Municipal Board (now the Ontario Land Tribunal) decision, which retains the authority to grant an extension to the approval. The town’s permission is required.
The draft plan approval expires on June 12, 2024 without the extension. The development would see 17 townhomes built on the property.
Shawn Postma, manager of community planning, said the proposal has progressed slowly, but is now nearly the endgame.
“Various agreements are nearly finished,” said Postma, who said the development does have a water/sewage servicing reservation in place.
The development’s planning consultant, Kristine Loft, made a brief presentation at the meeting and urged council to approve the extension request.
“While the draft approval has been in place for some time, the owner and development team have been continuously working on fulfillment of conditions. The draft conditions of approval established by the Ontario Land Tribunal (formerly the OMB) were extensive and included several conditions that took extended amounts of time to complete including Phase 1 and 2 Environmental Assessment, soil remediation and obtaining a record of site condition, among others. In addition, the engineering design requirements were also extensive,” Loft said in a letter to council.
Council voted 4-2 in favour of the extension, with councillors June Porter and Gail Ardiel opposed. Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon was absent.
“In 2013, there were a lot of people around this table that did not like that development,” said Ardiel.
Mayor Andrea Matrosovs said the extension was good business.
“Both sides are confident a year’s extension will be enough time. I would think this is a good arrangement,” she said.
