Grey County council passed a staff recommendation to extend the lapsing date for the approval of draft plans of a development in the Town of Blue Mountains, after the lower-tier municipality did not support it and concerns were raised by residents of Lora Bay.
A report was brought forward by Grey County’s Manager of Planning Services Scott Taylor at county council’s Nov. 12 meeting to consider an extension and proposed revisions to the draft plan for the development known as Cottages of Lora Bay.
The developer asked for a one-year extension to its current draft approval at the county level. County councillors heard these extensions are usually handled by staff, but because the extension was not supported by the Town of the Blue Mountains it required council approval.
Resident Lyn Logan spoke at Grey County council’s meeting on behalf of 15 Lora Bay property owners, and several concerns were raised in regards to the height of the residences, land compatibility and drainage/flooding issues.
One key issue which sparked further council discussion came after Logan spoke about how the development was marketed and portrayed to existing homeowners before they purchased. She said it did not reflect the current situation and buyers were not fully informed before they purchased their properties.
Logan described how some parts of the community had changed from what they were initially promised, and some of the homes on higher elevation have different set backs compared to the other surrounding properties.
“The newer homes will have a set back of only 3.9 meters, or just 13 feet. Certainly a far cry from the 20 feet that we were told at the time of purchase,” said Logan.
Logan brought a petition signed by more than 100 residents of Lora Bay and requested council repeal the extension. The petitioners asked for the extension to be nixed as they believe the work going on deviates from the natural grade, does not embody the original concept of green open space corridors and negatively impacts the value and enjoyment of their homes.
“Our community enjoys all that the Cottages of Lora Bay and surrounding neighbourhood have to offer. However, once shovels are in the ground, there is no turning back. Please consider the long term effects of proceeding with a plan that that offers no sense of privacy and a darkened corridor. This will be a permanent blemish on the municipality’s planning and development record,” she said.
Initial draft approval for the development was granted in 2006. Revisions were approved in 2007 and 2008. Structures have been built in the first four phases, but the fifth and any future phases would lapse without the extension of draft plan approval.
In 2018, a three-year draft plan extension was given to October 2021.
An emergency extension was approved by the county in September to facilitate the staff reports at the town and county levels. The current lapse date for the draft approval was set for December 2021.
Ravio Uukkivi, a representative of Reid’s Heritage Homes, Sherwood Homes and Blevins Developments spoke to county council to ask for the request to be approved and to address the comments made by Logan.
Uukkivi said the situation is unprecedented as they have a legally compliant subdivision that is currently in its fifth phase of development, and there are no underlying planning instruments that have changed, as none of the official plans have changed.
He said the only major change is an improvement to the storm water system.
“The subdivision as noted, was never intended to be at the same elevation as the lots behind it. There is a natural slope from the tree line to the subdivision,” said Uukkivi. “The current design proposed is actually an improvement, it has twice the storm water capacity than the previous 2008 design without changing any of the proposed elevations.”
Addressing the concerns about the height of the houses, he said some are higher and some are lower, but on average they are all relatively the same.
Council discussed the issue both in open and closed sessions on Nov. 12.
Grey County Warden Selwyn Hicks: “From a planning perspective, the request from the developer was not unusual. The other side of the issue, was maybe false advertising or promises made and not delivered or what exactly was promised by the developer, versus what they are delivering. Council was struggling to deal with that because we were trying to get to what exactly was promised and what would have been delivered to prospective buyers.”
County council ended up granting an extension to the lapsing date of the draft plan to Dec. 12, 2022.
