On Council 6/27 agenda there is a Staff report on the severance application on Snowberry in Kingscross. The technical assessment made by Planning Staff is thorough. As I consider this application I keep coming back to two philosophical points. i) Our villages are comprised of mature neighbourhoods and new subdivisions in locations defined in the community plans. The “look” of the mature and the new is very different. The former are not meant to be frozen in time. But, changes needs to occur in a manner which supports the principles behind the original plans. ii) I have concerns with an amendment to an Official Plan providing improvement/benefit to only the proponent (i.e. the individual property owner) and not the community at large.
The principles behind the subject subdivision are clearly quite different from the other mature subdivisions in King City. In the subject division zoning by-law calls for minimum acreage of .8 hectares (2 acres) and minimum frontages of 60 meters. Throughout the subdivision there are wetlands, ponds, watercourses and very mature trees. Given this an application to reduce acreage of 2 lots by shifting the property lines and hence create the opportunity for a new 3rd lot is a significant proposal. Complexity in assessment is added by reality that many of the current lots do not conform to the zoning by-law because they were created before the by-law existed.
To confirm process at Council on Monday: if you want to make a deputation on this report (i.e. to express your point of view) you need to sign in. (As you enter the Council Chambers you can sign in on the left.) As the report is first on the agenda it will be considered soon after 6 PM.
I live in on Kingsworth Rd in this subdivision and I oppose this severance. Once this reduction of acreage is accepted by Township, there is no stopping further severances in this subdivision. Purchasing of two lots side by side of varied acreage will create the opportunity for further severance based on this application. Although I understand the Township looks at each individual case, a precedent will be set.
As you know I made the motion at Council to not approve the recommendation by Staff which was to approve the application. As I said I don’t believe an Official Plan should be amended to simply facilitate a project benefiting the individual property owners. Kingscross is a very unique special estate subdivision which is already nearly 60 years old; I don’t believe we should be taking action to jeopordize its continuation as such; rather we should be protecting it for the next 50 years. It cannot be replaced. This decision was not about building bigger, better, more up-to-date homes; this is about the lots.