Dunns Hill not ready for another big development, says CBS council

CBS council has refused a request to re-designate and rezone two lots on Dunns Hill Road to pave the way for a new development.

Approving it would have meant a change to the Town Plan and development regulations for the properties at 502 and 514 Dunns Hill Road.

“We’ve received an application, a concept plan, for a large development on the south end of Dunn’s Hill Road,” said councillor-at-large Rex Hillier in introducing the motion. “It would require a rezoning. Council has had a look at it, and we have some concerns in terms of the topography of the area and in terms of being able to accommodate a development of that size.  There’s been no study of the capacity of sanitary sewer and water distribution in that area.”

Increased traffic along Dunns Hill and Greeleytown Road was also a concern, he said.

“The feeling of council is that we’re not in a position, at this point in time, to rezone property for this particular development,” said Hillier.

In other development news, council approved a six percent deficiency in the minimum yard area at 156 Greeleytown Road.

Hillier was the only councillor to vote against approval, though unusually for him, he didn’t specify why before the vote.

“They were given all the permitting information and went ahead and didn’t landscape properly,” Hillier told The Shoreline after the meeting. “I have been involved with planning forever, and I didn’t feel I could vote to say yes to that considering other things I’ve had to do in planning. And the reason I didn’t speak to it was I had not, to that point, told my colleagues that I was going to vote against it. I missed the meeting where it was discussed, and I didn’t have a chance this evening. And from a purely courtesy point of view, I’ve always been sure that, if I was going to speak against something in council, I always told the person that was involved that I was going to speak to it. So, it surprised everybody, but I didn’t speak to it because I hadn’t told them I was going to speak to it.”

Council approved a motion to seek provincial government approval to expropriate an easement through private property at 788-794 Conception Bay Highway to provide water and sewer services to Craig’s Lane in Kelligrews.

Ward 3 Councillor Gerard Tilley declared a potential conflict of interest as he has a relative who lives adjacent to Craig’s Lane and he had declared conflict on similar matters in the past.

Council approved the re-use of the property at 23 Foxtrap Access Road as a special care home.

“This property has been in use for some decades as a personal care home,” said councillor Hillier. “It’s been sitting idle for some time, and we’ve had a proposal come forward to reuse it. We think it would be beneficial to the town, and so we’d like to move forward with that project.”

Lastly, council voted to refer two municipal plan amendments to the provincial government for further determination.

The two pieces of land are off Graham Mifflin Drive and adjacent to the CBS Arena parking lot.