City planning staff are again being pushed to start implementing the anti-sprawl measures approved in May as part of the city's new 30-year plan and the province's Places to Grow legislation. The issue now is when will the city make its planning rules conform with these documents.

Brian McHattie and Terry Whitehead led the charge at last week's planning committee meeting, arguing that new development on Upper James Street should be intensified to support the transit corridor function promised in the GRIDS (Growth Related Integrated Development Strategy) document adopted by council on May 18 after five years of preparation.

The focus was the proposed development of an acre of land on Upper James between the Linc and Stone Church Road. The owners have applied to divide the long narrow property into two pieces, establishing a dental office on the Upper James side and single family houses on the back half that fronts on Forbes Street.

McHattie pointed to the GRIDS decision to intensify development on Upper James to make it viable as a major transit route and challenged the staff recommendation.

“I'm having a hard time understanding the single residential we're recommending here and the dental office where an area is supposed to be along the nodes and corridors area,” said McHattie, asking for an explanation by staff.

GRIDS manager Steve Robichaud agreed that the vision for Upper James is much higher density, and said that implementation strategies would likely be part of the staff's work next year.

“One of the factors that staff are currently working on for the 2007 workplan is to begin identifying these corridors to start the secondary planning or the land use review in order to come forward with the necessary recommendations as to how to implement that GRIDS strategy in creation of these residential intensification opportunities and these mixed use nodes.”

Robichaud also pointed to a commercial strategy document being prepared and the need for changes to the city's official plan and land use designations.

“There are cases where some low density type residences, or lower density residential development will occur during the transition, but the recommendation is that as we start moving forward we will start seeing more and more of this sort of mixed use development occurring. It will be a gradual transition. That was recognized in our intensification strategy that within the first ten years, that there be a gradual ramp-up towards higher levels of intensification occurring.”

Committee chair Maria Pearson prevented McHattie from pursuing further questioning, but Terry Whitehead picked up the issue when he spoke on the proposal, asking staff how long it's been since planning objectives on Upper James have been reviewed. No one had an answer, so Whitehead moved that the committee defer making a decision on the development application until the information was found. That was seconded by Sam Merulla and carried.

To avoid more “opportunities being lost”, Whitehead wants a complete review of whole length of Upper James.

“There's a lot of pressures on these neighbourhoods, from student housing for example,” he said. “I'd like to see a secondary plan review to allow, to make it permissible for mixed housing on these commercial lots – make the commercial lots much more viable at the same time providing affordable housing for individuals in the community.”

McHattie has been pushing for increased intensification of new development. In August, he challenged a low-density subdivision on Rymal Road – another designated transit corridor – and ran into ridicule from Whitehead.

The staff application is on the city website. CATCH has posted a partial transcript of the planning committee debate on its website.