Truck garage proposal defeated in second round
By Craig Westcott
Mustering the same argument as last meeting, councillor-at-large Paul Connors was unable again Tuesday to persuade enough of his colleagues to overrule the advice of staff and allow a Foxtrap construction company to offer commercial vehicle repairs and inspections at its private garage at 40A Foxtrap Access Road.
Just like at the August 13 meeting of CBS council, the recommendation from the planning committee was to reject Eric Taylor Limited’s application because “the proposal would detract from the private aspect of the maintenance garage and may negatively impact the surrounding residential property owners.”
This time, however, the motion was made by councillor-at-Large Rex Hillier in the absence of committee chairman and Ward 3 councillor Gerard Tilley, who like Connors, was a strong proponent of allowing the permit, but couldn’t vote as he was on vacation.
That left Connors scrambling to amend the committee’s motion.
“At the last council meeting we deferred this and asked that it be taken back to committee to look at if there was anything we could do in order to be able to move this forward,” he said, adding it came back from the committee with no changes from the original recommendation to reject it.
“There has been a lot of discussion around how many inspections would be done at this (garage) and the owner has come back to confirm that there would be one to two inspections per week, which is not going to be a large volume of traffic,” Connors said. “So, I’m asking for an amendment – and I’m not sure how we amend it here – but I’m asking for an amendment that it be approved with the condition that it be (restricted to) one to two inspections permitted per week. And then if they do not follow that, one to two, then we can rescind the approval at a later date.”
Councillor-at-Large Christine Butler seconded Connors motion.
The problem for staff, and some of council, is that the company has been operating as a non-conforming use in a residential zone for longer than the Town of CBS has been incorporated. Several years ago, council moved to address that anomaly by rezoning the land containing the construction company’s grounds to Commercial, but with the proviso that the garage remain private and for its own use only. The land outside the grounds remained Residential. The company agreed to the condition, but has since applied to open a commercial garage, which could potentially see an increase in the volume of heavy equipment moving through the residential zone.
Councillor-at-Large Joshua Barret said he can’t see how council can allow the commercial garage when the Town’s development regulations explicitly state the garage is to remain private.
“I understand some of the concerns regarding the inspections and limiting it to one to two per week, but I also don’t believe we are even allowed to do that based on my interpretation of the regulations,” Barrett said. “And so, I’m not supportive of this – I’m supportive of the original motion.”
Ward 1 councillor and planning committee member Shelley Moores said she is in total agreement with Barrett’s take on the rules. “It clearly states in our regulations that this is a private garage and not a public garage,” she said.
Connors was then allowed a chance to close the debate on his proposed amendment. He repeated his argument that the property has been a commercial operation “for a long, long time.
“To try to tell someone in Conception Bay South who’s familiar with the area that this is not a commercial operation, I don’t see how that is,” Connors said. “Historically, it has been commercial. Because the word private was added to an operation that’s been there for such a long time was probably in error, and we could probably get the business owner to go through another rezoning process, which would cost him another amount of money, to have that word removed. But in my humble opinion, it has always been commercial, and it will always be commercial as long as the business owner is operating from that site.”
Put to a vote, Connors, Mayor Darrin Bent, and councillor Butler voted to approve the amendment and allow the garage to go commercial, while councillors Hillier, Moores and Barrett voted against it. With Deputy Mayor Andrea Gosse and Ward 3 councillor Melissa Hardy both abstaining because of a conflict of interest on the matter, the vote was a tie and therefore failed.
That left the original motion on the table and for a vote to be taken on it. This time the vote went four to two to reject Taylor’s application, with only Connors and Butler remaining opposed.