Council should have listened, tribunal rules

Land Tribunal agrees with staff, rejects rezoning and severance of rural lot

Former Trent Hills Planning Manager Cristal Laanstra

Trent Hills council should have listened to its planner and rejected a request for a severance and rezoning to create a rural residential lot, the Ontario Land Tribunal has ruled.

The tribunal listened to the views Trent Hills Planning Manager Cristal Laanstra had given council and agreed she was right. Laanstra appeared before the tribunal at its hearing last November and explained her comments.

She has since quit Trent Hills and is now Director of Planning and Development Services in Cobourg.

In May 2023, council ignored her advice and approved a request from James Orr to sever a 1.11-hectare (2.75 acre) lot from his 114.92-hectare (283.97-acre) farm on Heath Drive just west of County Road 25. The severed lot was to then be rezoned to permit a residential dwelling, which already exists on the farm.

Orr said he wanted to create the separate lot to give to daughter, who lives on the property.

The problem from the planning department’s perspective was that the Orr property had two severances granted in 2016 and the municipality’s official plan only permits two severances on a property; a bid to restrict rural development and direct housing into existing communities.

“Cumulative impacts caused by additional lots impact existing agricultural operations and contribute to additional restrictions on agricultural practices, increase the lands removed for rural land uses, and detract from small hamlet and settlement area investment to maintain viable rural communities,” Laanstra wrote in her report to council in May 2023.

“Rural development typically costs the municipality in rural servicing (emergency services response times, road maintenance expectations, school bussing numbers, waste management) more than the offset to the municipal tax base that is gained; in addition, rural lots take away from potential investment of community members in settlement areas.”

The blue block is the property that was severed and rezoned, now to be un-rezoned. Heath Drive is in red.

While the province is pushing for housing to be built, its planning policy supports preservation of agricultural land and restrictions on rural development.

Residents Erik and Kim Kowal and others expressed concerns that allowing the severance would set a bad precedent for the municipality.

Council decided to reject those views and voted in favour of the severance and rezoning.

Deputy Mayor Mike Metcalf was the only member opposed. Councillor Rick English did not take part in the discussion or the vote because his nephew was building a home on the property. Councillor Rob Pope voted in favour of the severance on May 9, but was absent from the May 23 meeting.

The Kowals appealed the rezoning issue to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Orr told the tribunal he wanted to give the “property to his daughter, and her family, so that they could live next to his property, and raise a family.” There is an existing house on the property.

In her testimony at the November hearing, Laanstra urged the tribunal to repeal the zoning change. That would, in effect, prevent the severance since it depended on getting the zoning altered.

The tribunal agreed: “The tribunal finds that repealing the (zoning bylaw amendment) would result in the preservation of the agricultural uses, as well as the continued use of the residence at the subject site.”

At its meeting on Tuesday, the councillors will be asked to vote to repeal the zoning bylaw amendment.