CATCH News – September 23, 2009
Residents take apart twin towers plan
Dundas residents flooded yesterday’s planning committee meeting to oppose the two 10-storey condo towers proposed by St Joseph’s Villa that has been endorsed by city staff. But the outcome suggests that a modified proposal may be approved without another similar opportunity to receive citizen input.
Sixteen different individuals addressed the committee, frequently citing both provincial documents and the city’s own written policies, including the Dundas official plan, to challenge the staff report and the arguments made by the proponent’s representatives. Councillors subsequently lavishly praised the presentations as &ldq uo;exceptional” and the “best we’ve ever received”.
None of the committee members spoke in favour of the proposal, but rather than reject it, they voted overwhelmingly to defer a decision until late November to give time to Dundas councillor Russ Powers to come up with a compromise.
Yesterday’s statutory public meeting on the issue was scheduled for 9:30 am, but didn’t get underway until after eleven and then took up a full four hours. More than 100 residents, most of them seniors, stayed for the whole process, politely applauding at the end of each citizen presentation.
City planning staff have formally endorsed the St Joseph’s proposal despite over 130 letters and emails, and a 1200-name petition in opposition. The staff endorsement complicates the decision of the councillors on the planning committee, and leaves them “between the rock and the hard place” according to Ancaster councillor Lloyd Ferguson.
“I have no doubt that the applicant will take us to the OMB when he’s got a positive staff report,” he predicted. “But if we approve it, of course, we go against the will of the neighbours and the will of the communities, which is very difficult.”
He went on to forecast that the city “we’ll easily spend a $100,000 and probably lose” in the OMB process, pointing to a February committee decision to reject staff endorsement of another controversial Dundas proposal – to build self-storage units on environmentally sensitive lands adjacent to the Desjardins Canal – which is now under appeal by the developer.
“We have to hire outside planners and outside professionals to argue council’s case, because staff will actually testify for the other side,” Ferguson explained. “But if somehow you can come back with something that’s compatible with the community and compatible for the developer, we avoid all this unnecessary expense and all this cost and going off and letting a third party decide what’s good for Dundas rather than we decide.”
Ferguson’s views appeared to be shared by nearly all the other councillors on the committee, but they didn’t convince Brad Clark who voted against the deferral motion put forward by Brian McHattie and Terry Whitehead. He pointed to the arguments made by numerous citizens that the proposal violates city and provincial policies.
“It would be a very interesting hearing, to have the OMB go against us when we have such a litany of policies that clearly would indicate that this is not the appropriate development for this particular property,” he suggested.
Other councillors, including Scott Duvall and Bob Bratina, made clear that they oppose the St Joseph’s proposal as it now stands, but endorsed the motion to bring the matter back to committee in November.
Tim McCabe, the general manager of economic development and planning made clear that new meeting won’t be advertised and won’t be a statutory public meeting where citizens have an automatic right to speak before the committee – a point emphasized by both Ferguson and committee chair Maria Pearson.
“I just want to be clear that the public meeting’s over now so there won’t be another public meeting,” said Ferguson, leading Pearson to announce that formally.
“This closes the portion of the public meeting on this application,” she stated. “When it comes back in November, whenever it comes back on the agenda, it will be a matter of dealing with the report that comes back for committee and the recommendation to go forward to council.”
Residents will be able to observe that process, and if they ask in advance, may be permitted to speak for no more than five minutes each to the committee, but the rights guaranteed to them under the provincial Planning Act will not apply, apparently even if the proposal is significantly altered.
Winona residents experienced a similar situation this summer when their intervention at the statutory public meeting on June 2 helped convince the planning committee to vote 6-1 to defer a big box power retail centre on Fifty Road. But negotiations with the developer after the meeting led to the issue being raised twice more – once at t he July 6 planning committee when an approval motion lost on a tie vote, and again at the city council meeting of July 9 when a modified proposal was adopted by a 10-6 vote.
CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) updates use transcripts and/or public documents to highlight information about Hamilton civic affairs that is not generally available in the mass media. Detailed reports of City Hall meetings can be reviewed at
www.hamiltoncatch.org. You can receive all CATCH free updates by sending an email to
[email protected].