An updated design for a proposed subdivision left Bradford councillors speechless.
During the regular meeting on Tuesday night, council approved without discussion a request from Bradford East Developments Inc., for an official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment as well as provided draft approval for draft plan of subdivision for 3.22 hectares across eight properties at the southeast intersection of Simcoe Road and Danube Lane.
Those include 53, 39, 31 and 23 Danube Ln., plus 735 and 743 Simcoe Rd., according to a report from Mana Masoudi, senior planner for the town, in which staff recommended the approvals.
That’s all part of plans to create a new residential subdivision with 93 new homes, across the street from Marshview Public School, between the Danube Seniors Leisure Centre and the Portuguese Cultural Centre of Bradford, and abut another development by the same owner.
The subdivision is planned to have a mixture of 61 townhouses with frontages of 6.2 metres, 24 single detached homes with frontages of 11.6 m and eight semi-detached houses with frontages of 9.2 m — all of which would be accessed by a 373-m long street looping through with two access points to Danube Lane.
To allow that, Bradford East Developments asked to have the properties rezoned from future development (FD) and environmental protection (EP) to various forms of residential one (R1) and residential two (R2), both with exceptions to reduce lot areas and increase heights.
The town held a public meeting on Nov. 28, at which time no members of the public spoke, but some did provide correspondence before and after with concerns about development close the Holland Canal, insufficient amount of parking, increased traffic and the orientation of some yards.
To address those concerns, the developer updated the plans to reduce the size of some yards and increase the number of units with three parking spaces to 62 from 48 as well as re-oriented one block of homes to front Simcoe Road.
Previous studies show that the existing roads have capacity for the expected increase in traffic and that there were no environmental constraints for the portions of the properties planned for development, according to the staff report.
Being so close to the canal, the eastern part of the property currently known as 53 Danube Ln. contains floodplain mapped by the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority. As such, a 0.2 hectare portion is planned to be dedicated to the town as green space.
No internal departments or external agencies have expressed objections, according to the report.
