Neighbours of a commercial area on Wellington Road 124 near Brisbane have expressed concern about what they see as a lack of details about the future of the property.
At a public meeting on June 20, county planner Sarah Wilhelm said owner Rick Sova of Cornerstone Development was looking to expand the permitted uses on the property.
Currently it is zoned highway commercial site specific, which permits a nursery, garden equipment sales, eating establishment, motel and commercial recreation facility. The expansion would allow 35 other highway commercial uses.
Wilhelm said the land use designation is secondary agricultural, even thought it seems part of Brisbane.
“It’s actually rural and it does benefit from a highway commercial site specific zone, but the reality is the land use designation over time has changed,” she said.
“Originally in 1985 it was highway commercial, but now we have a situation where they’re out of sync with one another.”
Commercial uses on the four-acre property date back to 1985 and it has been a garden centre and auction house.
Now the owner wants to expand in order to attract different types of businesses.
“We’re asking that the majority of those uses be applied to this property such that the owner is well positioned when he has vacant space to look at a variety of potential tenants as opposed to now, there’s probably not going to be another nursery interested in this property,” said Nancy Shoemaker, planner for the proponent.
The range of uses and the lack of a plan for the property concerned neighbours.
“I moved my family up to Erin because of the serenity and beauty, and not to have possibly, a truck repair facility, or a truck stop or anything of that nature in my backyard,” said Marco Fernandez.
He asked what the plan was for the property.
“There’s no plans at this moment, we’re just looking to have options,” said Sova, adding a future site plan would have to be approved by the town.
Resident Giselle Scanlon said the list of options in the report does not fit with the residential area or conform to the town’s goal to develop tourism.
Councillor Jeff Duncan urged residents to relay concerns with any of the uses on the list, but he also asked them to be reasonable.
“We are trying to promote business in town, so we’re trying to be flexible that we don’t have as much site-specific zoning,” he said. “You do want to be able to have a flexible range of things for landowners.”
Fernandez replied, “I think if there was a clear plan as to what was going to go in that space, we would be less concerned.”
Wilhelm said she would take the comments into consideration before coming back to council with a recommendation.
