Special Council

Amherst · · More Amherst meetings

View original source →

Transcript

Download: Text · SRT
AI TRANSCRIPT

This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person — it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.

[0:01] Okay, great. Well, welcome, everyone, and I just want to make sure that we've got a sound check here for councilor Furlong. You can hear me? Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you. And Councillor Davidson, you can hear as well. Yes, I can. Great. Thank you very much. And welcome, everyone, to our meetings this afternoon, our special council meeting today. First, we'll call the meeting to order and do our territorial acknowledgement. I would like to acknowledge that our gathering today is taking place in McMaggi.
[0:28] the traditional unseeded and ancestral territory of the McMaw people.
[0:33] I would also like to acknowledge that Nova Scotia has another unique people, the people of African
[0:37] descent, who's legacy in contributions date back over 400 years, predating
[0:42] confederation of this land.
[0:44] We are all treaty people.
[0:46] Included in the package is a number of items in the agenda.
[0:52] First we'll get a, we're going to proceed with the development agreement, synopsis,
[0:58] and Council Wells, you're going to take us through that.
[1:02] Thank you very much.
[1:04] So, development agreement, second reading of One Albion Street.
[1:08] The YMCA Commerland has applied for development agreement to permit the construction of a 36-unit residential development on the property located at One Albion Street.
[1:17] A public participation opportunity was held on March 30th, where verbal and written input was submitted, both in support for and in opposition to the proposal.
[1:27] The Planning Advisory Committee reviewed the revised proposal on June 1st, but failed
[1:33] to make a recommendation on the application.
[1:36] Our public hearing was held on July 8th, where verbal and written input was provided to
[1:41] counsel both in support for and in opposition to the proposal.
[1:45] The attached development agreement contains the terms and conditions intended to address
[1:50] the relevant policies of the Municipal Planning Strategy.
[1:52] this infill development addresses the high demand for affordable housing and would be located
[1:58] in a central location in the downtown core area. The motion is that council gives second reading
[2:03] of the development agreement for one Albion Street to permit the construction of a 36-unit
[2:09] residential development. Thank you. Do we have a second or further?
[2:15] Deputy Mayor? Second
[2:15] out. Thank you. Just before I call for question, I know I'd like to thank Councillor Furlong for
[2:22] For a number of clarifications that were provided to Council this week, and I think all of Council
[2:28] had received those and read through those very important points to make with respect
[2:33] to this development.
[2:35] Are there any other questions with respect to this motion?
[2:41] I'll share a comment, if I may.
[2:43] Absolutely.
[2:44] Go ahead, Councillor Ferdinand.
[2:46] Most of my questions were thoroughly answered by the Planning Department, so I very much
[2:51] Thank them for the the strong response and citing a lot of useful information to help us make our decision there.
[2:57] I am still a little unclear around policy 5.7 around amenity space.
[3:03] It uses the strong language that Council shall ensure adequate on-site amenity space.
[3:09] It doesn't say on-site space can be replaced or supplemented by parks or other off-site spaces.
[3:14] So, I'm a little unclear on how we meet, this proposal meets our policy and whether any
[3:23] exemptions need to be explicitly made in order to comply with that policy.
[3:31] Okay.
[3:32] I'm going to ask the CAO if you want to ask Andrew, you want to come up and just speak
[3:38] to that question and provide any clarification that you can.
[3:42] Thank
[3:53] you for the opportunity to answer the question.
[3:58] I guess ultimately that policy talks about ensuring that there's adequate amenity space.
[4:05] As I attempted to answer in the questions that Councillor for a long and post, I attempted
[4:12] to put that into context.
[4:13] First, there is 3250 square feet of outdoor amenity space on site.
[4:25] And I guess the other part would be if they did provide a 20 square foot balcony, which
[4:33] is not very big for each individual unit, that would satisfy the landies bylaw requirements.
[4:42] But I'll reiterate that under a developed agreement, those hard and fast rules of the
[4:49] land use by our negotiated.
[4:53] So I guess at the end of the day, there is over 3,000 square feet of outdoor amenities
[4:59] space on site and I guess our opinion that that is better than providing a six, a 20 square foot
[5:10] balcony for each unit. There's an opportunity to gather, to have perhaps a swing setter for
[5:16] children to play together in that in that common outdoor area. So in our opinion, I guess in staff's
[5:22] opinion that the intent of that to provide adequate amenity space is being met.
[5:31] Ultimately, it's Council's decision to make, whether that is adequate.
[5:37] Right.
[5:37] Okay.
[5:38] Council, for a long.
[5:39] Does that provide any further clarification for you?
[5:43] It helps.
[5:45] I'm a little on clear, the land use and the difference between the land use and our municipal
[5:49] planning strategies.
[5:50] So the policies 5.73s from the MPS, that's where the languages from from the Shell provide adequate on-site
[5:58] and many of these space. I'm a little on clear on
[6:02] the minimum, I think we talked about a six foot balcony space and the gap between 6 and 20 and if you do the math
[6:10] the the green space on the property is roughly eight
[6:13] so then I'm trying to close the gap here and I'm still a little on clear why
[6:17] by the minimum standards of the land use bylaw
[6:23] when the environment is coming from the NPS
[6:26] and just trying to cover my bases there.
[6:32] Would you like to respond to that, Andrew?
[6:33] I'll try.
[6:34] So the municipal planning, the development agreement
[6:37] must meet the intent of the municipal planning strategy policies.
[6:41] It is not required to meet the standards
[6:45] of the land use bylaw.
[6:46] So, if we were doing a different development that didn't require a development agreement,
[6:52] you would be held fast to the minimum requirements of the land use bylaw because the development
[7:01] is by a development agreement, those land use bylaw minimums are not a steadfast requirement.
[7:09] We rely on the intent of the policies and we use those requirements that might be relevant
[7:16] from the land use balla as a sort of measuring stick to evaluate the proposal.
[7:22] Okay.
[7:23] Would it be fair to say the adequate on-site square footage that we're using?
[7:29] That's coming from our land use bylaws, those numbers, the 20 square meters.
[7:35] Yes, the 20 square meters, the 20 square meters of outdoor manatee space requirement is from the land use bylaw.
[7:44] Which is what we're kind of saying as our baseline for adequate base give or take based on the attend of the MPS
[7:52] Correct
[7:57] Just to wrap up my thought there
[8:04] I'm good. That's pretty much it
[8:05] We talked about the traffic congestion in the area Andrew provided some some great
[8:10] Tangible stats on the current flow of the area the number of cars and how the
[8:17] Development would impact that my only question that the number you gave me
[8:21] about an expected increase of around 20 to 24, I forget what the term was, but that
[8:29] increase is that inclusive of service delivery vehicles, visitors and all that stuff, would
[8:38] that just be the residential impact of that 36 units going up and that's where we think
[8:44] the numbers would generate?
[8:46] But that's really a, that's kind of a generic plug-in, you know, what is a 36 unit apartment in a downtown setting using affordable housing with no public transit and 18 square feet of office space.
[9:04] So, if you kind of, like, literally, it's as simple if you Google that traffic manual,
[9:12] the traffic demand manual, and you put, you key in those conditions, that's the number
[9:17] it gives you.
[9:18] So, yeah.
[9:23] All right.
[9:26] That's all I have, I guess, I've been on the receiving end of policy where I thought I
[9:30] met the intent before, so just being a little extra cautious, I didn't get the results I wanted,
[9:34] So I just want to make sure I'm ensuring the consistency in the application of our policies is also.
[9:40] Thank you. Certainly understand. We'll thank the Council for a long. Are there any other questions?
[9:46] Councillor Wells, do you have a question?
[9:47] Oh, no. Sorry.
[9:48] No, okay.
[9:51] Everyone good, okay? I'll call for a vote. Now, all those in favor of the development,
[9:56] approval, please signify by saying aye.
[9:58] Aye.
[9:59] Aye.
[10:00] Those against?
[10:01] Aye.
[10:02] Okay. One nay. Two nays. Council for a long and councilor Ripley.
[10:07] The motion has passed. That completes our actions for today. Thank you very much, Council,
[10:12] for being here and folks for attending. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
[10:19] Councillors.