Well, coming off a huge win on Monday night, I’m back at it with your Middlesex Centre Council previews! I’m sorry this is later than intended or promised, but I hope you’ll forgive me this time given how busy the last few days of the campaign were.
Now, on to tonight’s Council meeting which has a special start time of 6:45pm thanks to a light non-Committee of Adjustment or public meeting agenda.
- We have a brief closed meeting item to deal with. I can’t say any more at this time, but I don’t believe this one will be long.
- Once we are out of the closed meeting, we take a look at the September 2018 building report. Healthy numbers, and catching up to 2017’s pace! We’re only 3 building permits behind from where we were at this time last year, and I think we all recognize 2019 is going to see building permit requests coming in at a record pace with Edgewater Estates, Kilworth Heights West, and Clear Skies all coming in full force.
- So many swimming pools!
- Then we move on to the Winter Operations Plan. Overall this all looks fine. In practice, as you may recall me being unimpressed on one particular occasion last winter, this doesn’t always work out as planned. I know the Municipality has always met the minimum standards for snow clearing, and we have legal responsibilities to adhere to when it comes to how many consecutive hours workers can be on for, and the rest periods they legally require. There is a high level post-mortem review in the report for this year’s Winter Operations Plan, but it doesn’t provide any context on the nature of the complaints received.
- The second staff report examines the request for a setback change to accommodate a very small, covered walkway being requested for the old Little Beaver Restaurant location at Glendon Dr & Komoka Rd. This is very minor and, unless I hear otherwise from residents, shouldn’t pose a problem.
Then in to Committee of Adjustment, we will hear…
- A planning application for the aforementioned staff report about the old Little Beaver Restaurant location. Again, I don’t see any issues here.
- A planning application for a variance to the maximum accessory building size on an agricultural property on Sixteen Mile Road. Given that the existing shed will be removed, and I imagine this new shed will be used to store farming vehicles, I don’t see any issues with this application.
- A variance application for a slightly-larger-than-allowed building on Sinclair Drive. I have reviewed the application and drawings and I’m satisfied with it at this time.
And then into public meetings! We will hear four of them tonight, those being…
- A severance for a surplus farm residence with a lot size of 1.5 acres. At this time, I see no issues.
- An application for a temporary permit to allow two buildings on a property at the same time. This is typically for the owner to construct a new house, and then demolish the old one.
- A severance for a parcel of land approximately 46.6 hectares (115.15 acres) from an existing farm parcel of 87.62 hectares (216.51 acres) of land.
- A request to create three new residential lots on the south side of Oxbow Dr, east of Komoka Rd and Parkview Public School. Staff are recommending this application be deferred as they have some concerns that they feel need to be addressed first.
We will wrap up with a few items, like a notice from motion from Councillor McMillan that, “Council directs staff to look at best practices as well as bylaws and/trends in neighbouring municipalities regarding large accessory buildings.”
We also have some correspondence from AMO regarding retail cannabis sales and AMO’s recommendations to the provincial government on Bill 36.
We will also review a new by-law to regulate traffic and parking of vehicles on area roads. This will be really important for standardizing everything, making life predictable, and ensuring people aren’t parking all willy-nilly especially during the winter.
And that just about does it! If you have any comments on the above items, or anything else you see on the agenda, please send them my way even if it’s after the fact, to silva@middlesexcentre.on.ca or your preferred contact method.