Hello Save Save Beachwood petition supporters (2616 signatures)
Following up on last update, here are the latest bad news.
We found out that the developer did submit new material to the Town on December 8, 2023.
I took a very quick look at this extensive material, which includes new Site Plan, Environmental Assessment, Engineering, Geological, Hydrological, Landscaping, Noise, Traffic, Planning (Official Plan and Zoning By-Law amendments requests), and Urban Design, almost a full new application. The site plan is very similar, the main change is that they replaced the few detached houses with more townhouses.
For what I saw, my main concern is about the wetlands as:
- The new site plan still covers all the wetlands (despite NVCA not supporting it)
- The environmental assessment declares that the wetlands in this lot are not “provincially significant” , which could be expected based on government new regulations and policies and new wetlands evaluation point system, but the wetlands still need to be measured and evaluated,
- The EIS claims that the wetlands included in this lot are NOT Coastal Wetlands, and therefore are not protected as such, despite the fact that NVCA did confirm in writing that they definitively are Coastal Wetlands,
- NVCA has lost most of it’s authorities with government new regulations and policies, they don’t have authority anymore to comment on land use, wetlands, Natural Heritage etc, only on Natural Hazards (flood, erosion etc).
I contacted the Town Planning Depratment to follow-up and ask a few question and here is a summary of their responses:
- This is a second submission of material, not a new application,
- The second submission material is available at this link https://wasagabeach-my.sharepoint.com/personal/matt_ellis_wasagabeach_com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?ga=1&id=%2Fpersonal%2Fmatt%5Fellis%5Fwasagabeach%5Fcom%2FDocuments%2FRomanin%2F%28P%29%2F2nd%20Submission%20%28p%29
- The new material is still being reviewed by the Town staff and external agencies such as NVCA
- NVCA has not yet been providing it's comments and recommendations
- The Town is using a planner consultant to review the EIS (environmental assesment),
- "At a minimum, a third submission of the materials that pertain to the applications is required, which has not been received."
- "To this day, Town staff have not taken a report to Council regarding a decision for these applications and we are unable to provide a timeline for when such a report is anticipated."
This development project has been revived and we need to keep fighting it.
Two others high density developments are also planned and in progress on Beachwood Road in wasaga Beach, for a total of 930 new units on Beachwood Road (almost 2,000 additional cars) which is absolutely unsustainable fort this West End area, I will keep you posted about those in another update.
Meanwhile you still can promote our petition (2,626 signatures) as it may become useful in the future: https://www.change.org/SaveBrocksBeach