PUSLINCH – The township is one step closer to granting a zoning bylaw amendment to legalize an existing business at 4010 Concession 7.
Gallo Contracting Limited has applied for a zoning bylaw amendment to establish site specific zoning on the property to permit the existing mat storage business.
However, the bylaw also includes additional regulations related to accessory outdoor storage and accessory shipping containers, their setbacks and requirements for buffering.
Currently, 4010 Concession 7 has a garage/shop with an attached dwelling, a mobile trailer used as an office and an outdoor storage area consisting of equipment/machinery, shipping containers and materials.
The business has been operational for 20 years and the application received five letters of support from neighbours, with no letters of objection. Nothing would be changing on the site.
The proposed zoning bylaw amendment, prepared by Wellington County senior planner Meagan Farris, recommends a five-metre setback for outdoor storage.
“My client doesn’t have an issue with that but he does have an issue as it relates to an interior lot line next to a property that’s also family-owned,” planning consultant Neal DeRuyter said.
“And that 5m, I know it may sound like a small amount, but there’s a lot of material and equipment that would then have to be moved about 10 feet over.”
DeRuyter said the neighbour on the southern lot line (where the equipment is stored) sent in a letter of support.
“They’re comfortable with what’s there,” he said “We’re really not sure what that would accomplish.”
Councillor Matthew Bulmer reminded council that a zoning bylaw amendment is on the property and not the people.
“The zoning isn’t attached to who owns this property or who owns the adjacent property,” he said.
“The zoning applies to the land regardless of who owns the two properties.
“The 5m setback is to ensure in my mind that when a family member doesn’t own the neighbouring property or when Mr. Gallo isn’t operating this business it still fits in this site.”
Farris explained she determined the need for a 5m setback because the requirement ranges anywhere from 2m to 15m in the bylaw.
“I’ve looked at all of these different potential setbacks that could be applied and I’ve come up with kind of that middle ground number to help provide some buffering of these uses,” she said.
“Pretty much there’s a lot of storage that’s almost directly along that lot line.
“There’s various items that are almost delineating that interior lot line.
“So my hope is to push that out, establish a setback for storage and shipping containers, hopefully then through the site plan control process get some vegetative buffering and fencing in between there to divide those two particular uses.”
She said she envisioned fencing and a vegetative barrier.
Councillor John Sepulis asked whether it was possible to reduce the setback to 2m but Mayor James Seeley said it doesn’t make any difference how much the equipment had to move, it still needed to move.
“That’s not my understanding, Mr. Mayor. If he had to move everything by 10 feet [that is] three metres,” Sepulis said. “So if we had a two metre setback, you don’t have to move anything.”
Later in the meeting Bulmer clarified that both properties are zoned agricultural and even though it’s an option to build a dwelling on the adjacent site, at this time it’s not zoned residential.
“This is a common issue that people buy a property in the countryside, it’s still zoned agricultural, the property next door is still zoned agricultural … they’re buying it … they should have the understanding that they don’t get the protection of a residential area,” Bulmer said.
“So I must admit understanding the policy framework we’re working with here, I’m more comfortable with the … 2m setback understanding that it’s an agricultural next to a site specific agricultural.”
At the end of the discussion all of council agreed to ask staff to bring back a report about the impact of a 2m setback.
DeRuyter also questioned why site plan control was necessary.
“We’ve gone through quite a process to get to this point, having to add site plan on top of that adds additional cost and time,” DeRuyter said.
“We’re not sure what it accomplishes and I’m sure you can see from what my client has gone through recently, and getting to the point where we’ve got the conservation authority signed off, there’s no further agency concerns and you can see the site specific bylaw has a lot of detail to it.”
All of council recognized DeRuyter’s perspective on the site plan control, however, they all thought it was still necessary for consistency in the township.
“To be blunt I think that by allowing for this to not have site plan control what we’re essentially saying is you can start a business without the proper permission and ask for forgiveness later and you might not have to pay the things you would have otherwise had to pay if you had gone through the correct process to begin with,” councillor Jessica Goyda said.
“And I don’t mean that to sound crass in anyway but … we have to be consistent and we have to apply the same standards and guidelines to everybody throughout the township.”
Bulmer also pointed out that some of the requirements, like screening and natural environment parameters, aren’t on site now and do require site plan control to ensure they have been installed.
All of council also asked that the site plan control process be less complicated if possible for Gallo Construction Limited.
CAO Glenn Schwendinger said the township likely already has the bulk of the information needed.
Another factor to consider, said Sepulis, is the fact that site plan control fees are for greenfield, new builds. But the site in question is already built.
Council directed staff to look at the possibility of a 2m setback for interior lot lines and to look into the costing of standard site plan application fees and reduced site plan control fees.
Next meeting
Consideration regarding this application was scheduled for the Oct. 21 council meeting.
