Canadian Tire defuses Essa anger towards NVCA

By Kate Harries WaterWatch
Essa committee of adjustment members were working themselves up into a fine old lather as they considered the roadblock the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority had placed in the way of Leesa Turnbull’s application for a severance of her lot at 305 Mill St.
Turnbull is the wife of Essa Mayor David Guergis.
The property is slated for a Canadian Tire store.
The NVCA appealed a committee of adjustment approval of Turnbull’s application to the Ontario Municipal Board after an NVCA request for a condition that would see flooding issues addressed was ignored.
The NVCA letter “went astray.”
Turnbull told the committee’s Feb. 25 meeting that she had proper permission to remove trees from the property and she was concerned that the NVCA objection would result in another year of construction time being lost.
“These jobs are sorely needed in our community and other communities, these jobs and valuable tax revenues,” she said.
Committee members grilled three NVCA staff members who were present at the meeting.
Bob O’Brien said that he was under the impression that the 2006 Angus Flood Study was to put an end to requests for individual property owners to provide data on flooding issues.
“It was my understanding that when this was done we wouldn’t have this problem any more,” O’Brien said.
Chris Hibbert, the NVCA’s director of environmental services, said the property needs to be surveyed again because clearing the trees lowered the grade.
O’Brien: “You know how much it was lowered by taking the trees.”
Hibbert: “What are you suggesting?”
O’Brien: “I’m suggesting you forget it and let them get on with building.”
Committee member Lee Redmayne said there was a “very, very slim possibility” that the property might flood some time in the next 500 years. “What I’m getting from you guys is it’s not so much a concern in your minds, it’s a technicality,” she said. “I hate it when bureaucracy messes things up.”
Hibbert countered that the applicant appears to be in violation of Essa’s own Official Plan as well as the two-zone floodplain management policies of the Provincial Policy Statement.
The condition requested by the NVCA was for the applicant to demonstrate that the Canadian Tire development would comply with both requirements
Enter Gary Bell, a consultant retained by Canadian Tire. He was late. He told the committee he and a Canadian Tire executive had met with the NVCA the day before.
“What needs to be established is the base data, the pre-development topography of the land,” he said. “It will be submitted. On behalf of Canadian Tire I ask that you add the condition exactly as worded (by the NVCA).”
Bell told the committee that Canadian Tire particularly wants to avert an OMB hearing.
The committee sat back.
Redmayne couldn’t refrain from a parting shot at the NVCA staff. “I would have been happier if you had been more positive in terms of goodwill for the actual project,” she said.
(WW note: It would be inappropriate for the NVCA to have “goodwill” for any development project.)