Wrong way

Council members will have a tough time explaining this one. Last week, a majority overruled its own planning department, instead approving a bylaw written by the development team seeking to build a new supermarket and three free-standing retail stores on the western edge of Picton.

At issue is the potential impact of adding retail space on the edge of town. What will it do to downtown? Will retailers be lured out to the edge? Who will fill their space? Or will the core be hollowed out, just as hundreds of other communities across North America have experienced over the past few decades?

Your council doesn’t care. They are not interested whether it’s positive or negative. They just want to get on with it. Fearing they might lose the potential investment offered by the developer, council has made a very bad decision. Worse, they did so with their eyes wide open.

It isn’t an abstract risk. A drive through downtown Belleville provides abundant evidence of a municipality that has failed to protect its core. Despite the efforts of individuals and some businesses, and despite the proximity to the natural beauty of the Moira River and Bay of Quinte, Main Street Belleville is a dismal experience. Trenton too.

These are the tangible results of unbridled development on the edges of our towns.

None of this is to say that commercial development should never happen on the outskirts. Some projects, perhaps even the one proposed by this developer, may be appropriate. Indeed necessary. There is, of course, the promise of 350 homes to built in the vicinity of this new development. A new neighbourhood surrounding the supermarket will help to support the new retail and downtown experience. But fundamental risk-management demands that council assess the impact. They didn’t see it this way.

The County’s planning manager, Paul Walsh, went as far as he could with the developer. The proposed development doesn’t align perfectly with the newly minted secondary plan for the town, but Walsh was willing to work toward a solution that would make sense for the developer, the town and the broader community.

Walsh first needed, however, a study to measure the impact of that new retail—in the form of three free-standing stores on the property—on downtown Picton.

The developer, Jamie Chisholm, told council that he had no wish to poach retail businesses from downtown. Besides, the larger square footage of the proposed stores was more suitable to retail businesses that wouldn’t be inclined to gravitate toward downtown.

The County’s planner largely agreed, but said the study had to be done first to understand the impact. It wasn’t just his own unease he was seeking to settle with hard information. The Provincial Policy Statement— a set of rules that guides municipal planning decisions—instructs planners to protect the vitality of the downtown core.

The developer countered that he had studied the market impact of two categories of retail identified by County planners. Chisholm said he couldn’t study every category—that time was running out.

“We can’t wait for [planning staff] to tell us what to study,” said Chisholm.

Besides, he noted, that across the street, the owners of the No Frills property were already permitted to build similar freestanding pods without planning approval.

Walsh reminded council that the No Frills developer did, in fact, prepare a market impact study and that it had been the subject of Ontario Municipal Board ruling.

Further, he added that this development represented about a 20 per cent increase to the retail space in Picton. A significant addition.

Still, Walsh and the County’s planning team were prepared to work with the developer—but they needed the market impact study. Otherwise they had no means to weigh potential adverse impacts.

But Chisholm sensed a majority of council wasn’t as fussed by the need for more study.

That was confirmed when Councillor Gord Fox equated the position of Shire Hall staff with those of a prospective developer.

“You are just arguing over opinions,” concluded Fox.

Mayor Robert Quaiff made a strong and spirited argument for slowing down to do the necessary work to understand the market impact. After all he had gone to bat for this developer last year to encourage the Ministry of Transport to create an entrance from the Loyalist Parkway. But he insisted council let planning staff do their job—namely to measure the impact of the development on Picton’s downtown core.

But in his frustration, Quaiff decided to cut off debate. When one councillor asked that the developer be permitted to rebut some of the points made by planning staff, Quaiff refused, ordering a vote.

It seemed rash. It seemed more debate and discussion might bring one or two councillors back from the brink. But time was up. Council elected to support the developer, ignoring their own planning officials.

Worse, this was a decision of council, meaning that there is little opportunity for reconsideration—for fixing their mistake.

Council is stuck with their bad decision. The night they let a developer write his own bylaw.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca