Housing plan doesn’t score for environment, Barrie neighbours say

Barrie is poised to rezone open space and environmental protection lands (EP) to allow 131 homes to be built on a former golf course on the city’s western boundary.

Without a word of debate, councillors gave initial approval for a plan that will create a subdivision on the Pine View Golf and Country Club on Town Line Road (also known as County Road 27).

Final approval is slated for Monday.

But neighbours say the plan breaks provincial and city policies that are designed to protect sensitive areas and create open spaces in neighbourhoods, which integrate into the community.

“Their policies fly in the face of what they’re proposing here,” Humber Street resident Stuart Glass said. “Kids in this subdivision will have no way to get out other than to walk up County Road 27. Our subdivision leads nowhere either.”

The new Summitpines Estates plan will be accessible only via the county road and the plan calls for the homes to be built on three streets that will access the county road at an intersection without traffic signals.

Like the neighbouring subdivision, this proposal does not feed other nearby neigbhourhoods, which would allow students to walk to St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School, he explained. Public secondary students from Glass’s neighbourhood walk up the town line if they stay late for sports or clubs at Bear Creek Secondary School.

“It’s nothing to see 15 or 20 kids walking down that highway if they stay after school,” said another neighbour, Jim Lawrence. “It’s just a matter of time before one of them is killed.”

The city has no plans to extend transit to the area.

Glass added the Summitpines plan should have been subjected to closer environmental scrutiny because it abuts Ardagh Bluffs Park, which is part of the Allandale Lake Algonquin Bluffs Area of Natural and Scientific Interest.

The Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority recommended naturalized buffers, stormwater management and directional lighting to minimize the impact on the EP area.