A significant development proposed for 174 Earls Road—one that prompted Huntsville planning staff in 2019 to ask for a moratorium on new development in the northeast urban area of Huntsville to come up with a plan to ensure the area is developed in a ‘comprehensive manner’— is moving forward.
Because a final decision was ordered by the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), no public meeting has ever been held on the proposal.
According to a written decision rendered by the Tribunal on January 26, 2023, the lands which comprise 99 acres with 317 metres of frontage on Earls Road can be developed with a total of 782 residential dwelling units. These dwelling units would comprise 276 single detached lots, two townhouse blocks, five multiple-storey residential buildings, and one 5-storey mixed-use building.
In 2019, attempts by planning staff to put a moratorium in place for all new development in the northeast urban area of Huntsville, including the 930 dwelling units proposed at the time for the 99-acre property off Earls Road, were met with resistance.
“I don’t think that this is fair. I purchased these lands with certain conditions that were established in the Official Plan and I’m not going to accept any additional onerous conditions to be implemented here. I am willing to work with the municipality, but I would like the application to proceed. Thank you very much,” said Gregory Defreitas, president of the Earls Road development, at the 2019 meeting.
In 2021, planning staff told Huntsville’s planning committee that the applicant had taken the file to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) because both the Town and the District had failed to render a decision on time, although planning staff said the applications were incomplete.
This winter the LPAT rendered a written decision.
“Mr. Robinson [on behalf of the applicant] informed the Tribunal that the proposed settlement has been revised to address many of the District and Town concerns. The revised proposal would permit a total of 782 residential dwelling units. These dwelling units would comprise of 276 single detached lots, two townhouse blocks, five multiple storey residential buildings, and one 5-storey mixed-use building,” according to information in the written decision released by the Tribunal in January 26, 2023.
“In determining this matter, the Tribunal accepts and adopts the uncontested land use planning evidence and expert opinions provided [by] Mr. Robinson. The Tribunal is persuaded by the evidence that the proposal promotes efficient development of land, accommodates a range of appropriate mixed uses, intensifies uses within the settlement area, and contributes to the range of housing options, that is supported by existing municipal infrastructure,” it states.
The LPAT also ordered the Town of Huntsville and the District Municipality of Muskoka to grant the zoning amendment and plan of subdivision approvals for the development to proceed. The decision also noted that each party shall bear its own cost of the appeal.
A public meeting has never been held on this development.
You can find the Tirbunal’s decision, HERE (pdf).
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What Drew Hutcheson fails to realize is these new houses are still 700-900k which puts older homes around 600k still way beyond the reach of most young families. For 2 people making minimum wage or slightly higher affordable housing means $300-350k. Unless they want to put all their money into a mortgage. Never going to happen.
What Drew Hutcheson failed to recognize is that Europe has more social based governance unlike our unabashed capitalist system that rewards greed!
Drew Hutcheson. The contention then, is we build lots of expensive (they are expensive) new housing. Then, monied people from the south buy these homes, and live in them ’til they are old. Both the houses and the people I suppose. Once the houses are old, they become cheap and now young families can afford them.
During the intervening years, I’m sure lots of those younger people have grown older and moved on.
Kinda’ novel concept, but I wonder how many young people are willing to invest years of their lifetime, waiting for that once expensive house to become old and cheap. Where do they live in the interim? I can’t imagine many young families are becoming hopeful, just seeing how this should work.
And I don’t think there is, locally, any plans for assisted living or low income housing in our future.
But maybe there are lots of retirees in these new homes, that will take jobs stocking shelves and getting parts and clearing snow , and volunteering. We might not even need those younger families loitering around.
I’m kidding right! But it’s not very funny!!
When there is enough land available for housing, land becomes cheap. When there is enough new, good housing being built, old housing becomes very cheap. Those principles allow even tiny European countries to provide affordable, good housing. They call it planning.
Our form of “planning” has made land and therefore housing scarce. In enormous Canada! What is scarce is expensive. To catch up we need to build thousands of good houses and we need to make it easy. We should not build ghettoes.
Some of us will remember back when we stated something like “I’m gonna do it man! It’ll likely cost me my first born, but we need our own house.” It was a sort of grim humor; we would do it come hell or high water. Most of us did, though some crashed and burned and tried again.
So I read the Drew Hutcheson comment about the “generation of child bearing age” having a problem being able to afford a home. Then the humor part of the previous statement is lost today, and only the grim remains. It’s not just the availability of housing, but also the price. A young family, two parents with less than lucrative jobs and a little child; they will surely find it impossible to deal with todays market.
With the announcement of the new build of Earl’s Rd. Development, does there seem to be inference in the Drew Hutcheson comment, that those young families might find a home within their reach, there? But I haven’t heard of any part of that development being earmarked as ‘low income’ or ‘subsidized’ housing.
If there were, then that really would be “refreshing”.
We do not need an Earl’s Road village within our town comprised of high-priced housing that is beyond the financial means of the average worker/citizen.
We do need: more doctors, more healthcare workers, affordable and safe housing, an improved public transportation system – to name a few immediate needs.
As we continue to develop new neighbourhoods, why are there no multi use trails or sidewalks connecting them?
Collingwood, Southampton and Port Elgin are perfect examples of how this could be done. They have multi-use, all season trails connecting neighbourhoods.
270+ single lots on 99 acres+ two rows of townhouses as well as other large buildings…..when did we become city suburbs? Until the town changed its own laws to make more tax money off new builds,it used to have a 10’ from lot lines….your lucky if there is 10’ between houses now.As far as we need housing,yes we do!!! But not 500-700k homes!!!! We need affordable housing you greedy son of a ………..
The concerning fact here is that this was approved (well, the municipality was directed to proceed) without any real input from elected officials. Seems to me – at least according to what’s written here – that because the town and district couldn’t get their shit together on this, the project will just be rammed through.
Kinda summarizes the state of local government at this point.
As always, if you have the money and know the right people. All this building is not doing anything for the housing crisis here. The average person will not be able to afford the hundreds of housing units being built. So when all the well off city people buy them and move up here, the problem of staffing businesses will get worse. More people, more restaurants and stores but no one to work them. The average worker cannot afford to live here anymore and it is getting worse, not better.
If some remote tribunal has the power to bully a small town already overwhelmed by development into accepting the terms of yet another 780-unit development, that tribunal should also have the power to mandate that development be done using now available climate-responsible technologies. By now, no one should be oblivious to the need for using climate-responsible technologies.
Under former Mayor Scott Aitcheson, and now Mayor Nancy Alcock, Huntsville just finished an extensive 2-year effort to update Huntsville’s Official Plan to include environmental sustainability as a major feature. Obviously, a development of 780 units will take several phases over 10 years to build out. The technologies I will mention are all available now and will be commonplace by 2033.
Every unit could and should be pre-wired with provision for bi-directional charging whereby the home can charge the electric vehicle, or in the event of a power failure, the EV can power the home for 2 to 5 days, depending on whether you have a small Kia EV6 or a Ford 150 Lightning electric truck. Solar assist can be added to the home minimize the use of grid power for charging during daylight hours.
Every unit should also be equipped with modern and energy-efficient cold-climate heat pumps for both space heating and water heating. That covers the two biggest energy users in the home. Cold climate heat pumps are already exceeding 50% of sales of new heating units. The new homes should also be equipped with electric induction stoves for cooking. Induction cooking eliminates the less than healthy emissions from gas and propane cook stoves inside the home.
If the developer wanted to be really up to date, he could hire Calgary’s Eavor-On (Pronounced Ever On) company to make the development entirely self-sufficient in electricity and heat by building a deep geothermal well to co-generate both electricity and heat for district heating. The Ontario grid would be very happy to buy any surplus electricity. Several European countries have used efficient and clean district heating for many years, but geothermal now offers enormous potential for much better systems. Eavor-On built such a system using precision drilling technology from the oil and gas industry to tap into the infinite carbon-free heat from the earth’s core, and has been running their system near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta for over 4 years. Geothermal companies are planning massive expansion in several countries.
The developer will likely do lots of clear cutting to get started. He should plant lots of new trees ASAP. “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago”
This development offers an opportunity to deploy these now-available technologies at significant scale but in a smaller community. Big cities will have to get their clean energy from big hydro and nuclear for the foreseeable future. These technologies offer the possibility of putting both the developer and Huntsville on the map as the most sustainable builder and community in Ontario and possibly Canada.
Most of the generation of child-bearing age is being denied affordable access to good housing because of the shortage caused by overzealous “planning” (which is mainly non-planning, to do nothing). It’s an emergency!
This is very refreshing.
At a time when global warming is rapidly advancing and conservation of forests is of utmost importance another subdivision eats into the enviroment. When the last bit of forest is gone will developers finally be happy!
I can’t wait to see the outraged comments from the usual NIMBYs.
Huntsville needs homes and despite Council’s best efforts to simultaneously pay lip service to “housing” while completely capitulating to the NIMBY crowd at every opportunity, it looks like we’re getting much needed new homes.
It’s unfortunate that every new development in this town seemingly has to go to appeal to get done.
The planning dept is a total mess. It’s being run like a little fiefdom. Council thinks they serve the staff and not the other way around.
We need change in this town and starts at Council and Town Hall. The fish rots from the head.