Dysart approves residence site plan 

By Chad Ingram


Dysart council has approved the site plan for the proposed retirement residence at 1 Sunnyside St. in Haliburton Village and is entering into a site plan agreement with the developer.


As previously reported a series of complicated technical requirements has caused some delay in the project for which council heard the initial pitch a year ago. Central to those complications is a holding provision on the property that was issued by the Ontario Municipal Board years ago in the wake of a former condo proposal on the site.


While the developer and planning consultant Greg Bishop approached council in July requesting that holding provision be lifted it was the opinion of the municipality’s solicitor at the time that the provision not be lifted until a site plan agreement between the municipality and the developer had been signed.


Councillors for Dysart et al approved that site plan at a special meeting on Monday Sept. 9.


“Once the agreement and the site plan have been approved the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal will be asked to issue their final order on the zoning” Dysart et al senior planner Sue Harrison explained. The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal replaced the OMB in 2018.


Bishop asked that the municipality’s solicitor contact the tribunal and request that order be issued as soon as possible.


“This will at least put it back in the hands of the township” Bishop said.


“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this” Mayor Andrea Roberts said regarding the complex situation. “Usually Ontario Municipal Board decisions are final and very clear and so this was very murky.”


Councillors unanimously approved the site plan. Its execution requires a securities deposit by the developer “and that will take place right after this meeting” Roberts said.


Once the tribunal has issued its order for the lifting of the holding provision the matter will come back to the council for the approval of the zoning which will allow the project to proceed. Roberts said a special council meeting could be called for that approval as soon as possible.


A two-phase project scheduled to include 120 units its first phase will contain 70 units.