GORE BAY—Gore Bay town council has passed a bylaw that will allow it to control any development on property where the Woods Lane Apartment building is located for at least a year, to allow time for the town to have a planner to do a study of the best housing use for the property. It is owned by Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services (OAHS). The apartment building was extensively damaged in a fire on April 1.
At a special meeting of Gore Bay council on Monday, July 14, “we gave direction to staff in order to control what will happen on that property, to draft an interim control bylaw, which is good for a year,” said Gore Bay Mayor Ron Lane. “With this bylaw we control any development of the property and the owner (OAHS) will not be able to rebuild during that period,” he said, noting OAHS had taken out a demolition permit for the building after the fire.
“We have to do a planning study to determine the best use for the property and can amend our current zoning bylaw to allow for the possibility of other types of use other than the current one,” said Mayor Lane.
As council has raised previously, “social housing is needed, but is not the best for the town in that location,” said Mayor Lane. He said the action taken by the council was after getting legal advice and the actions taken are all included in the Planning Act.
“We had reached out to the OAHS CAO several times,” said Mayor Lane. “Harry (Schlange) former town manager/clerk and I both sent several messages to the CAO to have a meeting. But he would never agree to have a meeting. We even told him at the end that if we did not hear back from them (OAHS) in a week we would be forced to take action. We did not hear back after the last attempt, so council took action to protect the best interest of the town.”
“The interim control bylaw freezes development for a year, so we can study the best use for the property,” continued Mayor Lane. “A tender for hiring a planner, which we need for other things, will be going out shortly.”
He explained that OAHS cannot oppose the interim control bylaw in court during the first year. “We want development, but we want to be sure it is the type of development that the town needs. There is a huge lack of attainable residential housing in Gore Bay and council needs to take steps to address that. Given the location of this property is within the centre of our downtown, we need to be sure this particular property is re-developed in a manner that is in the best interest of the town.”
