Homeowners in the Birchs Road, Legault Street area of West Ferris will learn in two weeks if North Bay City Council will approve a rezoning application that could have a big impact in their neighbourhood.
See: Residents oppose rezoning application for an industrial subdivision in West Ferris
“A lot of times in my personal experience, people try to convert industrial land to residential. So, this is a very unusual application in that we are going in the other direction. We see this as a natural, logical extension of Gateway Business Park,” said Leo DeLoyde of Leo DeLoyde of DeLoyde Development Solutions on behalf of his client.
“The extension of Legault to Birchs would produce the same kind of development that you see in that whole area. We think it will be an asset to the community.”
DeLoyde says businesses have already expressed an interest in the property.
“We have at least three businesses that are ready to go in 2020, and some a bit later. It will be a challenge to get through the detailed engineering this year, but we’ll do our best,” said DeLoyde who expects the businesses to be light industrial and small manufacturing.
“We would cater to incubator businesses. Somebody’s got a small business and they want to scale it up, this would provide a very affordable option to create industrial development and provide the space that people are looking for.”
With that would come employment opportunities, he argues.
“We think well over 100 jobs would be created and we’re looking forward to developing the site and bringing jobs and prosperity to the city,” said DeLoyde.
“The proposal is to take 44 acres of land and dedicate about 12 acres of natural heritage features, there is a pond there, and give that as a condition of approval to a public authority.”
DeLoyde went on to say, “Some of the neighbours are almost 250 metres away, so they’re a good distance and with that ecological land dedication, it provides a very solid buffer, and we’ll plant trees and enhance the buffering as the project unfolds.”
Residents have expressed concerns relating to the potential increase in traffic and noise levels, future operations, environmental impacts, and blasting.
“We worked with the owner to address each of those ranging from hours involving blasting activities, to environmental protection, to bringing the site into compliance,” said DeLoyde.
“There are no restrictions on blasting hours in the city. We were agreeing to 7 am to 7 pm, but 8 am to 4 pm is fine, and that is during normal business hours. And we would provide a lot of notice for the blasting and work through the normal protocols.”
Bedrock would be blasted to get a road and services to the area.
“So, there’s water and sanitary lines that have to go in and so you have to level that out and make sure the roads aren’t too steep. We’ll be extending the services up to the new intersection at Birchs, so people that are below that would have the right to connect into the services. So, they could under the municipal legislation, get off their wells and connect to the main city services coming up Birchs,” said DeLoyde.
McDonald says there is a need for additional industrial land in North Bay, of varying parcel sizes.
The mayor says the airport industrial park is almost at capacity.
“We need additional industrial land. We can as a city invest more money in the airport industrial park to create more serviced land up there. But having more industrial land in our community takes some of the pressure off for us to try and replace those lands up there as quickly as possible. It helps when there are private operators looking at developing industrial land.”
Chair of community services Johanne Brousseau says city staff has been very thorough in making its recommendations.
“Staff did address the issue of blasting. They did address the issue of site plan control. So whatever compliances this business presently is experiencing, they will still be there even though it is rezoned to industrial. The rules are still there. They still have to abide by the rules of the Ministry of the Environment and also the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority.”
The matter will go before council at its next regular meeting in two weeks.
