Land in question not in Woodstock's or county's plan for residential
I hope city didn't waste too much time and money on land owner's silly idea
By Mark
Schadenberg
I’ve
been playing the waiting game.
A
foolhardy land speculator has also been playing the waiting game.
My
waiting was to fully read the story in The Sentinel-Review
(woodstocksentinelreview.com), the piece online at Heart FM (www.1047.ca),
the minutes from the Woodstock city council meeting of last week (Jan. 16),
plus to complete my own writings in a blog posted yesterday.
My
yesterday penmanship indicated that the government of Ontario is all about
intensification, so even if this silly proposed subdivision on the north side
of County Rd 17 (Tollgate) was to somehow and miraculously gain approval, the
lot sizes would have been dictated to be about 40’ x 100’ and not the gigantic
rural luxury lots proposed (Only 147 lots on 102 acres; Pg 72-73 of city
council agenda). Don’t get me wrong, there is always about 20% of a new
subdivision where large lots are set aside for a cul-de-sac of so-called mansions.
However, for the most part, any new neighbourhood would be (likely be) a mix of
townhouses and a tight cluster of detached homes. It wouldn’t even be the plan
of Woodstock or East-Zorra Tavistock (http://ezt.ca/CommunityCulture/AboutEZT/WhereisEZT.aspx)
township (where this acreage currently belongs and will remain for likely
another 20 years) to approve these lots sizes, and that's as much based on snowplows and garbage trucks for any lots frontage sizes.
Don McKay (pictured), who is the mayor of EZT is also the current head of government for
the County of Oxford as ‘warden’.
By the
way, the City of Woodstock refuses to supply municipal water / sewer services
(and others) to any land owner not in the City. (I agree with that idea 100 per
cent too.) Just ask the folks in Norwich Township near the 401 and edging along the
Woodstock circumference.
Woodstock
city council would defeat any motion on this subdivision based solely on bad
municipal planning.
Keep in
mind, all the land on the south side of Tollgate, which is inside city
boundaries, is earmarked for as many as 600 more houses. Why would any
supply-and-demand economist, municipal / county / township planner or engineer
(County of Oxford Official Plan), elected official, or provincial bureaucratic
member of the ministry of municipal affairs and housing (2005 Provincial Policy
Statement) even remotely think this idea of annexing (boundary adjustments) farm
land into Woodstock was timely, appropriate and sensible.
If it
sounds like I am mocking the land owner . . . you’re right, I am.
Woodstock
mayor Pat Sobeski (who is also on county council as one of three Woodstock
seats) – both in his recorded interview with Adam Nyp of Heart FM and in the
S-R story – is truly playing the role of nice cordial politician when he
indicates: all citizens have the right to apply for a zoning change of land
they own, but added: “we are just reconfirming
to them that we do not support the project.”
On the surface, residential living across from the Woodstock
Meadows golf course sounds idyllic and maybe 40 or 50 years from now Woodstock
will stretch northeast all the way to Innerkip, but not now.
I would
certainly hope that this spring has a productive focus on this farmland – crops.
LINK
Web
Chat With The Mayor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWiwKvp1X1k
Mayor Pat Sobeski
Mark
Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior
Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal
LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas
St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519) 537-1553,
cell or text
Email:
mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter:
markroyallepage
Discussion
. . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination
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