Erin council is looking to get more parkland from developers, courtesy of an updated dedication bylaw.
The previous bylaw led to a lack of acquiring enough land to set up parks, explains a report to council, as it did not result in the township getting as much land as allowed under the Planning Act.
“The Town of Erin wasn’t maximizing their potential parkland dedication or cash in lieu of parkland. That means’ what we can take in terms of someone that’s not providing parkland, we can take the value of that parkland as well. If it’s suitable, right,” Jack Krubnik, director of planning and development, said after last week's council meeting that saw the bylaw approved.
“So the town could choose to take parkland on a development application or find that it might not be a suitable site for parkland and we may be better served by getting cash-in-lieu of that.”
Under the revised bylaw construction, commercial and industrial developments are required to the township two per cent of the area to be built on or two per cent of the property value, to be set aside for future parkland purchases.
As for residential development, five per cent of the land area or one hectare, whichever is greater, for every 300 units built.
Alternatively, housing developers can give the town five per cent of the land’s value or one hectare for every 500 units built.
Krubnik spoke to the changes of the previous bylaw to the new one.
“So essentially we didn’t have the one hectare per 500 units on the cash-in-lieu side.”
Krubnik spoke to what happens when an additional residential dwelling unit is created.
“And we were also able to introduce, for number three, like each additional lot created five per cent of appraised value.”
The new bylaw maintains certain features of the last bylaw but adds new aspects.
“So there is a couple things that the majority of which we did have already, a couple of those items though which we didn’t, were agreed on, the issues we didn’t speak to them, and we introduced those items.”
This is relevant now because it is expected that the Town of Erin will face increased development demands in the coming years.
As part of the bylaw change a public meeting was held on June 30. At the meeting, not a single member of the public spoke or submitted written comments. Furthermore, no town staff member put forward any concerns related to the bylaw change.
