The current city council has earned a reputation for greenlighting what some might refer to as urban sprawl.
This, according to Sudbury.com’s review of the current planning committee of city council’s first two years of meetings, which revealed a consistent pattern of approvals.
During this time, city council members have consistently gone against their own policies to greenlight developments outside of established settlement areas, despite city staff recommendations to deny these applications.
“We’re disappointed to see this trend of approving developments that go against good planning, and against the Community Energy and Efficiency Plan,” Coalition for a Livable Sudbury chair Naomi Grant told Sudbury.com in reaction to these consistent approvals, which she added is something the group has also taken note of.
Expanding outside of current developed boundaries in Greater Sudbury is costly, Grant said, citing a greater municipal expense to expand and maintain infrastructure. Transportation costs must also be factored into the household budgets of those who live in rural areas, where public transportation is more difficult to come by.
“That’s why we have planning policies that focus on (developing) where we have infrastructure already,” she said. “It’s also important to add housing that’s adding to affordable housing options for people to use. Adding large rural estate lots, or adding where there’s no public transportation, is usually not helpful for that.”
Made up of 37 meetings beginning on Jan. 9, 2023, the current planning committee of city council is at the halfway point of members’ current four-year term.
During these first two years, there were eight development applications which staff recommended for outright denial, per their interpretation of existing policies and bylaws.
In all but two of these cases, the planning committee greenlit the applications.
These six applications were all for the development of lands in rural areas outside of well-developed settlement areas.
Every one of the six applications were approved in spite of staff’s recommendations to deny applications to expand into rural areas, primarily in Hanmer. In five of the six cases, they were for residential developments. Applications included:
- The creation of three additional partially serviced rural estate lots on Deschene Road in Hanmer.
- A new rural lot to be created at Bodson Drive West, Hanmer.
- The creation of two additional lots from the parent parcel at 3891 Hydro Road, Hanmer.
- Seven new rural estate lots to be created on CKSO Road and Goodwill Road, east of Sudbury’s South End.
- The rezoning of 25.5 hectares of vacant rural property with approximately 337 metres of frontage on the north side of Municipal Road 35 east of Chelmsford to accommodate industrial uses.
- Six new residential lots will be created on the west side of Dominion Drive in Hanmer.
The planning committee was unanimous in approving all six of these applications, except for the Dominion Drive application, for which Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc was absent for the vote. All six approvals were later ratified by city council as a whole.
The planning committee of city council includes chair Fern Cormier (Ward 10), Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre, Ward 5 Coun. Pauline Fortin, Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc and Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann.
In municipal reports accompanying each of these proposals, city staff cautioned the committee that greenlighting them wouldn’t adhere to city policy, and would not be consistent with the Community Energy & Emissions Plan (CEEP).
The CEEP is the city’s long-term plan to hit net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Deschene Road three-lot expansion in Hanmer, for example, will result in the creation of partially serviced estate lots outside of the urban boundary, which a municipal report cautions, “undermines a key objective of the (CEEP) to create compact, complete communities.”
Similar sentiment is echoed in municipal reports for the five other proposals.
A city report on the most recent of these applications — six residential lots on Dominion Drive in Hanmer — also notes that expanding further beyond settlement area boundaries would also “create undue pressure to upgrade infrastructure, which undermines the city’s ability to implement cost-effective service delivery with the intent being to reduce net costs.”
Variants of this caution are echoed throughout the reports.
The CEEP was adopted after a unanimous city council declared a climate emergency in 2019.
The plan includes 18 goals. No. 1 reads: “Achieve energy efficiency and emissions reductions by creating compact, complete communities through infill developments, decreasing dwelling size through an increase in multi-family buildings, and increasing building type mix.”
“Infill and compact, complete developments provide greater support for transit services,” the plan notes. “They also allow more trips to be made through active transportation, as places of work, play, schools, and services are close by.”
The Provincial Planning Statement similarly prioritizes growth and development “within urban and rural settlements that will, in turn, support and protect the long-term viability of rural areas, local food production, and the agri-food network.”
The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario emphasizes the importance of intensification in “strategic core areas,” including such places as major roads, arterials, downtown areas and brownfield sites.
Despite approving all applications for developments outside of settlement boundaries, city council has also moved toward urban intensification, including allowing a fourth unit per residential property as-of-right.
They’ve also been shoring up municipal lands for potential affordable housing developments within existing residential neighbourhoods, worked on the city’s Nodes and Corridors Strategy, which aims to increase density along the municipality's main corridors (which some people have conflated with the 15-minute city conspiracy theory), and Community Improvement Plan and incentive programs which incentivize developers to build in targeted areas of the municipality.
“Our land-use policies have been improving over time, and there’s more to do,” Grant said. “We can always do better, and we should do better.”
While the city has been moving toward allowing fourth units per residential lot as-of-right (meaning they will be allowed without rezoning, but all other requirements remain), Grant wants to see further loosening of parking requirements.
More driveways “makes neighbourhoods less attractive, hotter and more at-risk for flooding,” Grant said.
Meanwhile, recent provincial legislation has made it easier for residential developments to get approved in spite of whatever rules municipalities put in place.
Bill 185, “Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act,” limits Ontario Land Tribunal appeal rights regarding official plan and rezoning applications to specific stakeholders only, which strikes private residents previously allowed to appeal decisions from this opportunity.
This is why a Sudbury resident’s appeal of city council’s approval of a six-storey retirement complex on Algonquin Road was thrown out by the province last year.
As the province put it, the bill will “focus third-party appeals for official plans, official plan amendments, zoning by-laws and zoning by-law amendments to key participants (i.e. applicants, public bodies, First Nations and utility providers) to reduce costs and delays and help build homes faster.”
Sudbury.com reached out to city planning committee chair and Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier for comment, but did not receive a response. reThink Green was also contacted, but executive director Leigha Benford declined to comment.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
