The Blue Mountains council has put off a decision on approving the town’s updated official plan.
At a committee of the whole meeting on Dec. 10, council voted unanimously to ask staff for a follow up report on the draft of the updated official plan.
At the meeting, staff presented a report that recommended the committee approve the draft update in order for council to make the final decision on the updated official plan at its upcoming meeting on Dec. 16. Once council does approve the official plan update, it will be sent to Grey County for review and final approval. A 20-day appeal period follows that process.
The town has been working on an update to the official plan for the past three years. The two-phase process has involved extensive public engagement and multiple update reports to council.
At the meeting, three of seven councillors were absent (Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon and councillors Gail Ardiel and Alex Maxwell) from the meeting and were not able to participate in the discussion.
The appearance of the official plan report on the agenda generated plenty of public commentary. Council received a number of public comments about the draft plan update.
Primary concerns included:
- Building heights and density
- Environmental protections
- Affordable/attainable housing
- Embedding other town plans (example: the upcoming master drainage plan) in the official plan
- Protection of trees in the community
Town staff presented the draft update of the official plan and took council on a tour through the process to reach the final draft product.
“This is quite a momentous day today,” said Shawn Postma, manager of community planning. “This is the culmination of three years of work.”
Notable changes in the draft update include:
- A limit on the height of new buildings in town will remain at three stories. However, an existing exception at the Village at Blue allowing five stories will remain in place. Five-storey buildings will also be allowed in limited places along the Highway 26 corridor in Thornbury, but outside the downtown area. The policy includes setback increases to push taller buildings back from local roads to ensure taller buildings don’t appear to be as tall.
- Housing density targets have been increased across the town in response to the province’s desire to see more homes built.
- The draft official plan sets a target to have 30 per cent of all new homes built in the community are affordable/attainable and includes provisions for ground-level housing to include mandatory design concepts for additional residential units (basement apartments).
When it came time to make a decision, council removed the approval section of the resolution and instead voted to receive the report only.
Councillors Paula Hope and June Porter expressed concerns that the community’s concerns about maintaining the town’s unique character and not allowing buildings over three storeys had not been reflected in the draft plan update.
“There are still some things I don’t see,” Porter said in reference to the community character issue. “It is the number one item.”
Hope said that three-storey buildings are a defining characteristic of small towns and said the community wants to see that preserved.
“That small-town character is really, really important,” she said. “I definitely feel this is where the community is coming from.”
Rather than approving the draft update, council voted unanimously to ask staff for another report that would include more commentary on a number of areas of concern including:
- Building heights
- Parkland dedication fees
- The time and budget invested in the official plan review process
- Attainable/affordable housing
- Language surrounding how new developments would approach accessing the Georgian Trail