Seguin Township has opted to defer the creation of a master plan to guide development of a 763-acre parcel of land until a development charge bylaw is in place.
A staff report, presented to council on June 17, recommended the Township shell out nearly $900,000 to cover the costs of environmental studies and infrastructure engineering design work.
Jason Inwood, Chief Administrative Officer, said costs would be fronted by the municipality and then recovered through area-specific development charges.
Coun. Tim Collins voiced concerns about the fact the municipality has yet to approve development charge bylaw, and that the path to cost recovery wasn’t clear.
“How is this money going to (come) back through development fees? Is it through building permits? Is it going to be subdivision permits? I think we are a bit premature at this time to even be voting on this until we have (more) information,” said Collins. “We don’t even have development charge fees. I think we are putting the cart in front of the horse at this time.”
Inwood stressed the importance of a master plan, stating that development wouldn’t be able to proceed without it.
Preliminary work was done to establish the feasibility of a Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO), which was granted in March 2023. The MZO re-zoned the lands to permit a wide variety of residential, commercial, recreational and institutional uses.
According to Inwood, a detailed analysis is now required.
“The broader development goals of the MZO lands include not just one parcel, but all parcels,” he said. “Planning for that requires a longer-term master plan, a secondary plan that ensures the infrastructure and roads are considered to the scale of the development. Without that type of planning work done in advance you could end up with fragmented and problematic development, which we certainly want to avoid.”
After a lengthy discussion, council voted to defer an approval and wait until they had more information on how the costs would be recovered.