One of the more interesting things to learn from Council meetings is the status of projects going through the Planning and Development Department.  The Councillor with the Planning portfolio is Nicole Beatty and once again she gave a comprehensive report at Monday’s Council meeting.  You can see her full report in the Links below but with 42 items, let me summarize highlights.  For some reason, there are a lot more projects than usual or expected this year. The dollar value of “planning applications in the Planning & Development Services Division already sits at just over 121% of revenue budgeted for all of 2021”.  And in the middle of this surge in work, Director Glenn McGlashon has announced his retirement effective… Read complete articlePlanning Update – Summer 2021

There are three new residential developments coming to Cobourg, one new commercial development and more details are being provided on a previously planned commercial development.  One notification was at the Council meeting on June 28 and four will be at the Committee of the Whole meeting on July 19.  The three residential developments require public meetings and must be approved (or not) in 120 days or the applicant could refer the matter to the Ontario Land Tribunal (previously the OMB).  The two commercial developments have 30 days and no public meetings – so we can expect a fairly quick response. One of the applications includes a large, five storey apartment building with 86 units and these could be condos or… Read complete articleCobourg Planning Department Busy

Councillor Nicole Beatty’s report was long so I divided it into two parts – the first part being published on Tuesday, May 18, and this being part two.  A couple of projects are in both reports but most are additional.  These reports are abbreviated from Nicole’s full report (see link below) – mostly by removing references to paperwork but Nicole notes that some required paper work is being delayed because of a backlog at the Land Registry Office. We should also be aware that the actual sources of Nicole’s report are no doubt Director Glenn McGlashon and his staff.  Note also that planning staff have a comprehensive list of relevant documents  on the Town’s web site – see link below…. Read complete articleUpdate on Developments – Part 2

At Regular Council meetings, Councillors are asked to provide reports in their role as coordinator. At Monday’s meeting, Councillor Nicole Beatty, Coordinator of Planning and Development Services,  gave a full report on activity in the Planning Department.  Some projects are slow getting through the process but there are a lot of them for a small town.  So if you wondered what happened to that development you heard about, this article (and a second one in a couple of days) will provide an update.  Nicole’s report is divided into 1) Subdivisions, 2) Site Plan Approvals, 3) Heritage and 4) Special Projects.  This first article will cover Site Plan Approvals and their status.  Many have been the subject of previous articles –… Read complete articleUpdate on Developments – May 2021

Cobourg has a Town-wide Community Improvement Plan that targets affordable housing. Clause 3.8.8 says that the Town could provide some of the land it owns at a low price so as to effectively subsidize such housing and at meetings in November 2020,  Council asked staff to “put together an inventory of potential municipal-owned surplus lands, buildings and/or facilities” to potentially be used for this purpose.  At the Committee of the Whole meeting on April 19, Staff will be providing this requested report.  Based on information in the Town’s GIS System (Geographical Information System), the Town owns “a total of ~226 ha (558 ac) of land within the municipal boundary or just over 10% of the total land area of the… Read complete articlePossible Town Land for Affordable Housing

At a “virtual” public meeting on April 12, about 10 citizens showed up to hear about two applications for re-zoning.  The first was for land on the southwest corner of Burnham St. and DePalma Dr. – the request was to allow a Medical Clinic to be built there although there are no current plans to do so – it would just make the land more attractive for developers.  There were no comments by any of the online public.  The second was to allow a new housing and commercial development on the southwest corner of Albert and Division: stores on the ground floor and residences above.  Details of the plan buildings were presented and a couple of concerns were expressed:  insufficient… Read complete articleTwo re-zonings requested

In the summer of 2019, Council agreed that because of the cost of continuing to operate the Memorial Arena, that it should be closed (see link below).   Council agreed and directed that an Ad Hoc Committee be set up to decide what the future of that asset should be.  Nothing happened on this until the Committee of the Whole meeting on 29 March 2021 when Council directed staff to start the process to set up the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee.  It had been hoped that the 2019 Cultural Master Plan would provide ideas for its use – but no such luck. (In fact the Cultural Plan has had no noticeable effect on any actions by Council or Town Staff).  Then… Read complete articleCommittee formed to decide on Memorial Arena