Senior staff comment on a development application:
In recent articles in the local media, there appears to be the perception that our Planning Department has been slow on bringing a recommendation to Council for decision on this application. This is inaccurate.
• The original application from Abode was deemed to be “complete” by Planning staff on November 25, 2010.
• The Notice of Public meeting was issued accordingly on December 21, 2010 for the Public Meeting of Council held on January 17, 2011.
• An outcome of the public meeting was that staff were directed to facilitate discussions between the developer and the neighbourhood. The developer indicated to Council that they were agreeable to additional meetings with the neighbourhood, which were held on April 26, June 14, and August 4, 2011 and which resulted in revised proposals on a “without prejudiced basis”.
– Subsequently, at the last meeting with the applicant held September 2011, the applicant indicated that a revised Traffic Impact Study and a revised Parking Justification Report would be submitted to staff shortly. Throughout this time, Abode gave staff the impression that they would be revising their application, and at no point advised staff that they wished to proceed with their original application.
• Staff were still waiting to receive the updated application when we received notice on December 12, 2011 that an appeal had been made to the OMB.I hope this summary provides useful context. Staff