COLDBROOK, N.S. — New Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS) and Land Use Bylaw (LUB) documents that have been in the works for eight years will have to wait longer for first reading by Kings County council.
The planning advisory committee (PAC) has recommended first reading of the most recent drafts of the documents. Council was to consider first reading at the Oct. 1 session. If given first reading, the documents would go to a public hearing before council considers final approval.
PAC and staff are both proposing the elimination of so-called pre-1994 lot and poor soil lot exemptions in the agricultural district that allow for residential development. These provisions are in the current land use planning documents.
As an alternative regulation, PAC and staff are each recommending a provision for infill lots in the agricultural district.
PAC is recommending allowing infill lots with 240 feet of road frontage and a maximum distance of 300 feet between dwellings. This could potentially create 160 new building lots on land zoned Agricultural.
Staff is recommending 240 feet of road frontage and a maximum distance of 500 feet between houses, which could potentially create 505 new building lots.
Staff is also recommending that the Port Williams growth centre boundary be extended further than proposed by PAC, which would allow for more residential development on land currently zoned Agricultural.
Director of planning and inspections Trish Javorek presented a report containing the alternative recommendations from staff at the Oct. 1 council session. Coun. Jim Winsor asked, “why are we interjecting this at this point in time without allowing the public hearing to happen?”
In a June 2018 memo from the chief administrative officer to PAC, it was stated that staff was to advise council and the municipal solicitor of any substantive differences of opinion to the PAC recommendations.
Coun. Pauline Raven said that, as a PAC member, she has consistently heard that a regional approach is to be taken when it comes to how growth centres and villages are allowed to expand. She said it seems contradictory to look at one growth centre, Port Williams.
Javorek said growth centre expansion on land zoned A1 (agricultural) would be prohibited in the future. Raven asked why an exception has to be made now.
Javorek said the Port Williams Village Commission feels that expanding the growth centre into the agricultural district to allow for residential development would be a better way to protect the village’s well fields from potential contamination, opposed to continued farming practices on the land.
Since the changes proposed by staff are considered non-substantive, they could be included in the documents and included in first reading without the municipality having to repeat its public participation process.
Deputy Mayor Emily Lutz moved to give first reading to the MPS and LUB with the alternative proposed by staff for infill lots, but not the Port Williams Growth Centre boundary expansion. There was no seconder.
Winsor made a motion to give the version of the documents recommended by PAC first reading, but there was no seconder for this motion either.
Coun. Martha Armstrong moved to table first reading and for the matter to be brought back within two weeks, because she wasn’t comfortable moving forward with any of the recommendations at this time.
“I haven’t had time to fully digest the alternatives brought forward by staff,” she said.
The tabling motion carried.
Mayor Peter Muttart said that he anticipates that, after some exchange, council would arrive at a date to call a special meeting for first reading. He said the public would be notified.
Raven asked that Javorek’s presentation be posted online as soon as possible and to get an opinion on the matter of the proposed expansion of the Port Williams growth centre as it relates to protecting the well fields.
NFNF MEMBER ‘SHOCKED’
No Farms No Food (NFNF) member Marilyn Cameron said she was “shocked” to read the agenda for the Oct. 1 council session and learn that staff was proposing changes to what PAC has recommended.
She said NFNF members were hoping that the documents as proposed by PAC would be given first reading and be forwarded to a public hearing.
If members of the public wanted the Port Williams growth centre boundary to be expanded or larger infill lots in the Agricultural zone, for example, they could have made the suggestions at the hearing.
“I thought that would have been the better, more transparent and democratic way for those issues to come up, rather than the way they did it,” Cameron said.
She said it was “quite upsetting” to some council members who didn’t know the staff alternatives were going to be introduced and “we feel like there was a little bit of backroom negotiations going on that kind of undermined this democratic process.”
Cameron said that what staff is proposing with regard to expanding the Port Williams growth centre could take approximately 10 acres out of the agricultural district.
If infill lots as proposed by staff were approved and each property was two acres in size, for example, this could eat up another 1,010 acres of farmland.
She said, in her personal opinion, if the people of Port Williams aren’t concerned with the proposal, the growth centre could be expanded and the in-fill lot provision done away with. This compromise could potentially save more than 1,000 acres for use by small farms in the future.
Cameron said members don’t want more strip development along farm roads or the potential conflict with neighbours who don’t like farming activity going on behind them.
She would also like to see more restrictive regulations for farmers and retiring farmers wanting to build homes on farm land.
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