What do you think about John Street subdivision? Town is looking for input on changes

When an open house held about a year ago to discuss Benny Marotta’s John Street East subdivision plan revealed strong public opposition, the developer went back to the drawing board.

The result was a revised application, submitted to the town in March, which will be the subject of a public session. It will be held virtually on June 9, providing an opportunity for the public to comment on the changes made to the
proposal.

It’s not a statutory meeting under the planning act, says Lord Mayor Betty Disero. “However it is such an important matter to the community that we want to hear from them. The public input session aims to provide the public with their opportunity to provide comments regarding the revised proposal.”

Town staff are currently reviewing the revised submission to determine their position, she added.

However, while the town continues to go through the process of seeking public input and preparing a staff report with recommendations for council, Marotta’s company, Solmar, has launched an appeal  to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) for a decision, not waiting for the town to go through that process.

Solmar’s appeal to the OLT states the town did not respond to the original subdivision application with a decision, which requires an Official Plan amendment and a zoning bylaw amendment, within the time allotted by planning legislation. Although the developer notified the town it was revising the application, the clock on a decision started ticking from the time its first complete application was received, in April, 2021. Solmar submitted its revised plan to the town in March, 2022, and in April 2022 applied to the OLT for a decision on the revised application.

The two properties, 588 Charlotte Street and John Street East, as stated in Solmar’s appeal to the OLT, were designated under the provincial heritage act in February, 2022.

The original complete application called for 191 residences, a mix of single family homes, detached and semi-detached. The revised plan reduces the number of units to 172, with a mix of 39 detached homes, 26 semi-detached units and 107 townhouses, increasing the amount of open space, the appeal states.

It preserves an original tea house in a park at the north end of the property, which will also include an “adaptive reuse” of another outbuilding, “the footprint of the former pool, and the relocation of the Bath House,” all considered heritage features.

The revised plan also
proposes a Whistle Stop (the wooden gazebo on the
Heritage Trail, also considered a heritage feature) parkette at the south end of the site.

The subdivision, as revised, “integrates spaces to commemorate the site’s cultural heritage landscape, and provides improved access to the site’s heritage areas as well as the Upper Canada Heritage Trail,” the appeal application says.

The proposal, it continues, conforms with town, regional and provincial policies, including the Greenbelt Plan, and is “sensitive to the heritage resources.” 

“From a design perspective,” the OLT appeal states, the revised proposal “takes into consideration comments received on the initial draft plan of subdivision. The proposed development will be a unique and attractive addition to the town’s building stock, well situated in relation to community amenities and compatible with existing built form.” It represents good land use planning, and is “in the public interest.”

There has been no date set for a hearing on the appeal.

When it is heard, members of SORE (Save Our Rand Estate), a group formed to protect the historic Rand Estate, also owned by Solmar and on property bordering the proposed subdivision, are seeking party status in the proceeding. 

The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario recently awarded SORE the Margaret and Nicholas Hill Cultural Heritage Landscape Award for its dedicated work to protect the significant landscapes and historical elements of the Rand Estate, and its members continue to oppose what Solmar is planning for the John Street East and Charlotte Street properties.

Spokesperson Lyle Hall told The Local in an email that “it’s entirely appropriate for the town to hold a public input session on the revised proposal,” even though it’s not legislated under the planning act.

“There are a number of changes to the original proposal that warrant public input. SORE supports the town in seeking that input,” Hall says.

SORE members have asked that the June 9 meeting, scheduled to be virtual, be changed to allow public in-person attendance. “We are all tired of living through Zoom meetings, and at this point we think the town should be moving beyond that,” says Hall. “A video public meeting is not really a public meeting in any meaningful sense, and doesn’t  give the town and council the real public input they seek. If the town were to move this to a real public meeting, we believe we’d have a repeat of the 800 people who attended the only other public meeting on the Marotta Rand plans more than four years ago, in January of 2018.” 

Marah Minor, the town’s spokesperson, however, said in an email Tuesday an in-person meeting isn’t being considered. “While the town continues to make adjustments for the accommodation of indoor gatherings as we exit the pandemic, at this time, we do not feel we are able to safely accommodate what we anticipate would be a large gathering. We continue to strive to maintain two-metre physical distancing. Recognizing the value of hearing from the public, the town has elected to use the virtual platform to accommodate oral submissions. Written submissions will also be accepted.”

That full-house 2018 meeting at the community centre was called to collect public input on the hotel proposal for the Rand Estate, which has since been dropped, and it was then that the plan for a subdivision bordering the hotel property was made public.

SORE members are not buying Solmar’s claims the revisions to the plan “commemorate the site’s cultural heritage landscape” or are “sensitive to the heritage resources on the properties.” 

“One of SORE’s principal concerns with the revised proposal is the virtual obliteration of the many cultural heritage attributes of 200 John and 588 Charlotte,” says Hall. “There is no genuine effort to restore or protect the Memorial Garden, the Pool Garden or the Coach House, just silly cartoon-like simulations.”

The Rand pool would be “a slab of differential paving,” he says.

The entrance to the subdivision “up the 200 John Street stem, a corridor lined with remnants of the Dunington-Grubb designed landscape as well as the pool complex is a complete non-starter for SORE and, we believe, the town.”   

The revised proposal is not supported by an updated heritage impact assessment, which Hall calls “a shocking omission for arguably the most important heritage estate property in NOTL.”

SORE’s other concerns, he says, “include the juxtaposition of a dense subdivision with the important cultural heritage attributes of the remaining portions of the Rand Estate on 144 and 176 John Street, compatibility of the proposed subdivision with the surrounding established residential neighbourhoods, the significant fill and grade elevation required for the proposal and the clearly inadequate traffic impact assessment.”

Yes, he adds, “there’s been some improvement on the stormwater and grade issues, but the proposal is a long way from ideal.”

SORE’s “expert team continues to review the proposal and will be ready to participate in the OLT hearing, for which we will be seeking party status.”

Town staff is expected to have an information report available to the public after 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 2 on the town’s website at https://www.notl.com/ council-government/mayor-council/meetings-agendas-minutes.

At the June 9, 6 p.m. public input session, staff will outline the information in the report.

To make a virtual oral presentation, register in advance with Ralph Walton, the town clerk, at [email protected] or 905-468-3266, before noon on June 9, and receive an email with instructions to connect on your computer, tablet or telephone.

Written comments may be submitted to the Town Clerk, at 1593 Four Mile Creek Road, P.O. Box 100, Virgil, ON L0S 1T0 or via email at [email protected].

The meeting will be available to view at: https://www.notl.com/council-government/
mayor-council/meetings
-agendas-minutes. Registration to watch the virtual meeting is not required.