The proposed Canadian Tire development was before Huntsville’s planning committee on Aug. 15, looking for site plan approval.
The 2.18 hectare Canadian Tire property has 105 metres of frontage on King William Street and 150 metres of frontage on Rogers Cove. The applicant is proposing to expand its retail store to where its garden centre is currently situated. The gas bar will be removed and decommissioned and in its place a new garden centre will be built. See more about the plan here.
Huntsville Senior Planner Elizabeth Reimer told committee that the property’s existing storm water management pond will be removed in order to create more parking. That statement prompted questions from committee.
Deputy Mayor Karin Terziano asked for clarification. Reimer said that in place of the pond an oil-grit separator would be installed under the parking lot. “No open pond is required to address (run off) quality concerns,” she said. “So that’s how they’re mitigating the removal of the quality pond.”
Site plan for Canadian Tire expansion.
Councillor Jonathan Wiebe asked how storm water flows in the area. Reimer said the water travels from the parking area off site to a headwall that is currently in disrepair. She said the headwall would be reconstructed at Canadian Tire’s expense. From the headwall the flow meanders through the abutting property, through to a culvert and then out to the lake.
“It would still travel that same way. The headwall is proposed to be reconstructed in a better design so that it doesn’t fail,” said Reimer. She also noted that flows from the Town as well as the District follow the same path and the Town is requesting an easement on the Canadian Tire property.
“So we have requested that through this application an easement for our drainage is granted, but we will have no responsibility to maintain the system. That will still be at the responsibility of Canadian Tire, as it is now; however, if for some reason they fail to maintain it, we have the ability to go on site to make sure that it is always in an operational state.”
Reimer noted that through the site plan approval for the abutting property (Muskoka Landing), a land conveyance is also being requested. Staff is asking that block 27, where the water before it reaches the lake, be conveyed to the Town so that the flow is going through public rather than private property.
Committee concurred with Town staff and approved the Canadian Tire site plan.You can find the full report and drawings here.
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The stormwater management pond was required to address quality AND quantity concerns. The quantity concerns, therefore, are no longer addressed; so a significant storm event will remove “quality” runoff from the Canadian Tire lot; may or may not destroy the new culvert headwall; but will drag silt from beyond that point, and deposit it on the fish spawning grounds in the lake. The report does not address how the lack of 49 required parking spaces is being addressed, nor is there a recommendation to relocate the Thursday market to the lot across Rogers Cove Drive. Furthermore, I believe that the site plan for the relocated gas bar has already been approved; when it would have been a more sensible exercise to consider them in concert, with their attendant traffic flow implications.