MAD Meeting With City Officials
For Millcroft Residents
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MAD MEETING WITH CITY OFFICIALS
The MAD executive met with Marianne Meed-Ward (Mayor), Angelo Bentivegna (Ward 6) and Rory Nisan (Ward 3) to talk about the City’s position and process now that Millcroft Greens has appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
The key points from this session are as follows:
The City will continue their review of the Application with the same rigor as if they were the initial decision maker.
Once the Burlington staff have completed their review then this will be reviewed, in camera, with City Council who will decide what position will be taken at the Ontario Land Tribunal appeal (hopefully this will be done in the September timeframe). The City will be a Party at these proceedings vigorously defending the position that the City Council takes.
The City Planning Department will not be making a recommendation to Council on the Application however their work and input, as well as other internal groups at the City, will be provided to Council before Council takes a position.
Everything up to the Council position will be in camera so as not to prejudice or weaken the position taken by Council. This being said, once Council has taken a position, then there will be consideration made by the Council to waive privilege so that the Community knows what position the Council is taking. MAD strongly encouraged City Council to do this.
While the City Officials were unable to declare their position on the Application until Council takes a position, MAD did confirm that it was the unanimous vote of the Council on the New Official Plan that Open Space in an established neighbourhood be protected and only subject to change during the comprehensive review process for the next Official Plan (done every five years). Further we expect that while the New Official Plan does not outline the criteria under which such a change would be made, we suspect it would be only in the situation that there are no other development opportunities in the City which would be required to meet Provincial/Regional population requirements. While this application falls under the prior Official Plan, what is in the New Official Plan is a good indication of the principals Council will use in taking their position.
The other major issue, for both the City and MAD, is in regard to Stormwater management. The City officials confirmed that the City, along with their third-party advisor (Woods Environmental), will complete their review of the revised stormwater solution being proposed by Millcroft Greens. As we outlined in our prior communication, what is now proposed is to have large stormwater storage tanks under the road and in other areas of the developed area. This is highly unusual in a residential neighbourhood raising a number of significant concerns.
We were encouraged to continue to send to City council and the Planning Department, concerns that we have in regards to the changes in the resubmission.
The first Case Management conference for the OLT proceedings (expected to take place in the fall of this year) will identify those that want to be a Party as well the issues they have with the application. While we are hopeful that the City will be fighting against this application, during the OLT process, we are unable to collaborate with the City in that we are separate parties. Consequently, MAD must be a Party to these hearings so as to be entitled to receive all material and have a voice at the hearings and support the City against the Application. To do this, MAD will require legal counsel (search is in progress) and at a minimum a third-party Planning consultant (engaged Allan Ramsay).
MAD executive are confident that Burlington City Council will turn this application down once they complete their work and fight vigorously against the application at the OLT proceedings. We strongly believe there are overwhelming reasons to do this.
Allan Ramsay, our planning consultant, is completing his review of the changes made in the resubmission and once complete, we will be communicating these to you. Once this communication is done, we will be asking you to send to MAD and the City any other concerns that should be brought forward on the changes made in the resubmission (City already has the comments and concerns on the original application so do not need to repeat these).
Marianne, Angelo and Rory have offered to have a Community virtual meeting so as to be able to tell you directly what was discussed with the MAD executive and to respond to questions. This will be scheduled in September.
