Development freeze

Council freezes new applications for development in Wellington

At last Tuesday’s council meeting, council voted 9 to 5 in favour of creating an interim control bylaw (ICB) that freezes new applications for development in the village for one year. The hope is that it will allow municipal staff time to assess how and when developers will get water, sewer and other services they need to go ahead with development.

The volume of proposed development in Wellington has created planning and infrastructure nightmares within the village. But for Paul Greer, a landowner in Wellington, having his land captured in an ICB is not a new occurrence. Greer and his family own 116 acres north of the Millennium Trail. It has been owned by the Greer family since 1925. In recent years, the land has been put up for sale, and it has already been captured in one ICB. “Half of our property was already subject to an interim control bylaw between 2016 and 2018. Now staff want the other half to be subject to another control bylaw,” said Greer. “We are in the process of selling the property to a developer who is interested in investing in the community. The ICB would potentially result in the deal falling through.”

Greer also noted that the developer’s planning staff has been dealing with County staff since February of this year. On June 25, the developer made a conditional offer, which was accepted by the Greer family on July 2. On September 24, the conditions were to be waived and the hope was for the property to close near the end of October. Ultimately, Greer wanted to know the purpose of the ICB. “It seems to us that staff may not like or want the current secondary plan for Wellington. Beyond affecting us directly, what are the costs to taxpayers to go through another extensive planning process for Wellington that was finished just five years ago? What message does this send to those that want to build and invest in Wellington?” asked Greer. He also explained that his family are not developers, and as long as the land is owned by the Greers, it would not be developed.

Neal DeRuyter, a planner with MHBC Planning, who is working with the developer and the Greer family also felt that the ICB was unnecessary. “This bylaw doesn’t just temporarily prohibit development for one or two years, from my perspective, and more significantly, it would provide the planning tool to substantially redo the Wellington Secondary Plan,” explained DeRuyter. “The plan isn’t outdated or irrelevant. It was approved only five years ago. It had extensive community and landowner consultation. It had several steering committee meetings, several council meetings, open houses, an external consulting team, and it also involved the review and approval of the province. And most importantly, it wasn’t appealed,” he said.

DeRuyter went on to say that the County already has the appropriate tools in place without the ICB to review and assess development proposals, as any vacant land north of the Millennium Trail has to prepare a master plan to address servicing, road improvements and land use. “Such a plan has to be prepared by the developer and is subject to County review and approval,” said DeRuyter.

Councillor Mike Harper said that he felt for the Greer family, but that Wellington has been growing at a steady pace. “The residents of Wellington are concerned about how much growth is being entertained and how quickly it is going to happen,” he said.

Michael Michaud, Manager of Planning, agreed with Harper and explained why the ICB was needed. “It seems that the amount of growth in this area is unprecedented and this would give us a bit of a pause to deal with those individual landowners that are chomping at the bit to move forward, and try to get some sort of an agreement from a servicing point of view to allow them to move forward. Without the ICB, there might be the opportunity where other players come to the table later in the game and now you have to fit someone into the pie that perhaps just doesn’t fit at that time,” explained Michaud, who said it also allows staff to look at the Secondary Plan to see if there are any tweaks that make sense from a servicing point of view.

Jamie Forrester wanted to know how it ultimately effects the Greer deal. “In this case with the Greer property, we know this could scrub the deal. How do we deal with that? People have invested money and time, and then it just comes to a halt.” Michaud told council that when staff was moving forward with the idea of an ICB, they weren’t aware of any deals that were present with any of the landowners.

Councillor Brad Nieman wanted to know what areas of the Secondary Plan have caused concern, seeing as it is only five years old, and if this only puts new development on hold. “In a lot of ways all development is on hold. We have all of these plans of nice subdivisions, but there is no capacity to actually allow them to be developed. Until we get a plan in place on how we are going to service all of these lands, everybody is on hold,” said Michaud.

Councillor Harper asked if there was any way to still accommodate the Greer property. CAO Marcia Wallace explained that council could amend the bylaw to exclude the property, but the move might still leave the deal at risk as that developer is also looking at lands adjacent to Greer’s. “Michael and I did meet with the buyer of the Greer property, and he is interested in purchasing two adjacent properties and proposing a large block development that would cover all of the land,” said Wallace. “It might not solve the core problem, that the Greers had a buyer on the line.”

Mayor Steve Ferguson closed the discussion, worried about the late changes. “My concern is at the 11th hour changing the game when they have already gone through this with the other property two years ago. It bothers me that we are changing this and other rules can be changed quickly without consideration of what might be in the hopper,” said Ferguson.

In a recorded vote of 9-5, council chose to apply the ICB to development in Wellington.