This Page: Traditional Subdivision Process used by municipalities in Ontario
Clickable Links: (click each in the below list)
March 22, 2021, Council accepts donation from Cachet Developments
January 4, 2022, Special Council Meeting Agenda & Attachments
YouTube video record of Jan. 4, 2022 meeting (4 hrs)
My notes as a Delegation to Jan. 4th meeting
Development, Developers, Builders, Buyers, Taxpayers – my view
Changes to MZOs and the Planning Act
Questions Submitted to Wilmot for Response By Cachet Developments (NH) Inc.
There is an acknowledged need for additional residential development in Wilmot Township, including “affordable” accommodations.
The definitions of “affordable” are numerous and depend on who is speaking, where is the potential site located, when you do the calculations, what are the comparators used for “relative affordability”, and who is supposed to subsidize the construction costs. [More about “affordable housing” on a separate link on this site.]
Most recently development in Wilmot has been in the larger urban areas of New Hamburg, Baden, New Dundee, Mannheim, Petersburg and St. Agatha. This development has been carefully managed so far by Wilmot Council subject to its professional staff’s skilled advice.
The traditional practice, which has been a successful process so far, has reflected the size of the planned project being applied for. The application could be a renovation within an existing building, an addition/add-on to an existing building, another building added on an owner’s existing property, new construction of multiple units of 2 or more buildings. The process has traditionally involved applying for a permit describing what type of project is planned, complying with the requirements specified by the Development Services Department. This process of ‘due diligence’ ensures that the finished project complies with all provincial and municipal regulations and codes, and is compatible with the ambiance of the location in the Township.
Larger projects of multiple units require an application for a zoning approval or change for the property being considered, and the submission of a formal plan of subdivision which is thoroughly vetted by close, detailed scrutiny by Municipal and Regional professional staff. This approval process involves ongoing consultation with the general public/citizens/taxpayers.
I have chosen an Ontario municipal region for comparison purposes with Wilmot. Stormont – Dundas – Glengarry United Counties, is located along the St. Lawrence River, southeast of Ottawa, and at the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. It is mostly rural, and Cornwall is its largest urban centre. The three counties had a combined population of 113,429 in 2016.
Below is a representation of Ontario’s traditional “Subdivision Process“, using a schematic from the Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry Planning department. [I couldn’t find anything similar on the Wilmot Township site.] These steps are an accurate representation of STANDARD PRACTICE and intended to ensure that DUE DILIGENCE occurs at all stages from “vision” to “handed over to the Municipality”. A Municipal Council and its professional staff are legally accountable through Provincial legislation, including the Ontario Municipal Act, to its citizens/taxpayers, and NOT to a developer.
That accountability is the reason for the ‘traditional’ process as outlined below.
Based on the fact that this project has passed review by Wilmot Professional Staff and has been put to the public via a Special Council Meeting, one would think that this project is between Step 5 (Complete application & circulation) and Step 6 (Response from commenting agencies).
However, if one studies what criteria are required to be completed at each step, this project is still awaiting criteria from Step 1 to be completed and only the application has been submitted (Step 2) without criteria having been completed.
There appears to be some stumbling about in the fields regarding this application. As Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland, “The hurrier I go the behinder I get!” Are we going down a rabbit hole with this MZo proposal?
STEP ONE
On December 20, 2021, Cachet Developments received its last documentation from a consulting/advisor company. That same day Cachet Developments submitted an application to Wilmot Township staff requesting that Wilmot Council pass a Bylaw authorizing a Minister’s Zoning Order permitting Cachet developments to bypass whichever of the following nine steps it could. The rationale, given by the Director of Cachet Developments, was at an impasse with the Region of Waterloo in some of its compliance standards, didn’t want to wait to see the results of an MCR – Municipal Comprehensive Review – and Cachet didn’t want to have to go through all that delay with Wilmot. [Or, maybe it didn’t want to take a chance that the review would conclude that its development would not be compliant or compatible?]
Cachet Development Partners Inc. is located at 361 Connie Crescent – Suite 200, Concord, Ontario, L4K 5R2. Concord is within Vaughan, within the Greater Toronto Area, 120 km from Baden. There is a significant difference between urban Concord and urban Baden that a reasonable person might observe in geography and streetscape views normally experienced. In Concord one looks ‘up’, in Baden one looks ‘afar’ – so far?
It may be probably assumed that this application and supporting documents were not delivered in person to the Wilmot Township offices from Concord, 120 km away, and thus were transmitted electronically. Thus, the first time Wilmot Township had custody of the application and support documentation was on December 20, 2021, and there was NOT a “pre-consultation meeting with the County, Local Municipality and Conservation Authority to discuss this application” prior to December 20, 2021.
Thus, there was no pre-consultation meeting that the County Road Engineer would have been in attendance at? The Cachet application addresses property on Nafziger road, which is County Road #5. When was the County Road Engineer needed to be consulted and where is that report?
Wilmot staff pushed ahead with some degree of apparent intensity, and within 4 days had prepared an eleven (11) pages’ report for Council and the public. Public announcement of the receipt of the requested MZO application was by publishing it as an item on the agenda for a Special Council Meeting scheduled for January 4, 2022, the day students returned to school after the Christmas holidays.
It is unknown at this point whether staff and/or individual Council members were previously aware that this application for an MZO was “coming down the pipe”? It has been publically noted that Councillor Pfenning has recused herself at the January 4, 2022 meeting from discussion and voting on this application, as per agenda item #4, under the “Disclosure of Pecuniary Interest Under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act”. The Cachet maps submitted indicate that the applicant’s property and the Pfenning family property appear to be in direct proximity.
Due to the 4 day turn-around between receipt of application and producing a report did Wilmot staff have an opportunity to perform fiscal due diligence on the applicant; communicating with other municipalities where the developer has done business, confirming that it has financial resources to provide a guarantee (surety bonds) that it can perform ALL of the work, over the period of years it will require for successful completion, as described in its application?
If citizens do not make it a practice to check the Wilmot website, on Christmas evenings, looking for agenda items on previously unannounced Special Meetings of Council, then you all would have been unaware. You could be excused by any reasonable person for having priorities that do not include having to check what developers and councillors are doing at Special meetings. A reasonable person might conclude that putting an item, on Christmas eve, on an agenda of an unscheduled meeting, and posted solely on a website, may not comply with required ‘appropriate notice’ duties?
From the information publically available it would appear that: 1) the application was submitted to Wilmot on December 20, 2021; 2) there was no pre-consultation meeting held among Wilmot staff, the County Road Engineer, Cachet Development (NH) Inc., 3) the Special Council Meeting of January 4, 2022, served no legitimate purpose within the traditional process itself?
The January 4, 2022 Zoom meeting gave a perception of consultation that had not even occurred between staff and the applicant at that point.
Again, it appears that any proposed development along an Ontario County Road requires the County Engineer to be present. Thus the conditions for completion of Step One in the traditional process have not yet been fulfilled? Therefore, the Cachet application for an MZO is premature.
Thus it appears to a reasonable person that this MZO application is an attempt to avoid all the conditions of Step One and Steps 2 through 10 in “The Subdivision Process”?
The reporter at the Kitchener Record is to be congratulated for discovering this obscure website posting and bringing it to the attention of its readers!
To the credit of local citizens, numerous people spent significant portions of their Christmas holiday doing research and preparing presentations at the January 4th Zoom / YouTube recorded meeting. Council scheduled an Educational Session with its lawyer to learn about MZOs. I asked, in writing, that an educational session about the MZO process be scheduled as a Zoom meeting for all citizens to attend virtually. That request was ignored, and Council scheduled an “in camera” / private meeting to learn about MZOs. Council and its lawyer wanted to maintain its lawyer/client relationship of confidentiality and didn’t want the public to know what was discussed. There has been no opportunity for education of the public re. MZO process.
STEP TWO
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP THREE
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP FOUR
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP FIVE
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP SIX
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP SEVEN
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP EIGHT
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP NINE
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
STEP TEN
There will be additional information added to this section when the actions described actually occur and are publically reported.
A recent application for development was submitted to Council a few days before Christmas, 2021, asking for approval by Council for a high-density housing project on Nafziger Road. The application was for Council to pass a Bylaw approving a Minister’s Zoning Order to “fast-track” the development and bypass a lot of the time-consuming steps that have been successful in Wilmot’s development so far.
A Minister’s Zoning Order is an application process that allows a potential developer to bypass a lot of the time-consuming details, including public consultation and approvals before development can be initiated.
[Cachet withdraws MZO application]
[March 22, 2021, Council accepts donation from Cachet Developments]