At Council on May 15th there is the statutory public meeting for the Official Plan Amendment (OPA) to allow the redevelopment of 2585 King Road to enable the  building  the new Town hall and police substation. As reviewed in the report the OPA has been required by the OMB as a prerequisite for approving the zoning by-law amendment.  One advantage of this unanticipated process is the identification of the extent to which our proposed development will result in an improved environmental footprint versus status quo.   I knew that our concept was positive in this regard but I had not appreciated how good it was. (See below for some details.) This does demonstrate how redeveloping brownfield sites (i..e where there was once development) offers valuable opportunities. Here is the report.

Here are some of the ecological improvements which are achieved by our plan for the site.

• new development is more compact than previous (i.e. Holy Name School)  it does not go beyond previous disturbed area and in fact retreats from the boundaries of disturbance.
• previous zoning was institutional and environmental protection (EP); with our development 40% of the site will be converted from institutional to EP; ultimately 70% of the site will be EP.
• playing fields are being converted to EP with a reforestation program which will improve linkages to abutting woodlands.