A number of questions and concerns about a proposed development in the city were raised during a public open house Tuesday.
The open house, regarding the planned residential development on the former Inch Farm property off Uhthoff Line, was hosted by developer LIV Communities and its agent, Corbett Land Strategies.
LIV Communities is planning to create 356 dwelling units — including single detached, semi-detached and townhouses — on 13.6 hectares.
While a draft plan of subdivision was approved in 1993, many have been voicing objections recently after local naturalist Bob Bowles raised concerns.
Bowles was among about 60 participants in Tuesday’s meeting. He asked if the land planned for the housing development was a wetland.
It is not, said Michael Michalski, of Michalski Nielsen Associates, but he noted there are wetlands on the property that are within an environmentally protected area.
Bowles, a wetland evaluator, has maintained the area is a wetland. He visited the site and took note of various wetland plants, including some that weren’t identified in a consultant’s report.
There used to be more wetlands on the property, including the time it was being used as a farm, but “a lot of those wetlands were removed by the permit,” said David Cunningham, of Cunningham Environmental Associates.
The area was studied again after tree cutting took place in 2021, and it was noted “there are regenerating wetland plant species,” he said.
Bowles also suggested the minimum setback, or buffer, was not adequate to ensure the protection of natural features.
Michalski said his colleague joined a Ministry of Natural Resources official on a visit to the property in 1990.
“They determined, after taking a walk through the corridor within the lived communities, that a buffer with 14 metres on either side of the creek would be appropriate,” he said.
However, it was suggested a further 7.5-metre buffer be added within individual lots.
A later survey determined the buffer on either side of Silver Creek should be 19 metres, which is the case currently, Michalski said.
A representative of the Orillia Fish and Game Conservation Club said he was concerned about the effects the development might have on stormwater management facilities.
He said the club undertook a restoration project for Silver Creek in 2013 because of excess water from a stormwater drain that washed sediment into the property “and basically killed a pond and stopped the flow of the stream.”
He worried the development would “increase the flooding that goes down through what you’re calling the environmental protection block.”
Brittany Robertson, of Crozier and Associates, said the water would go through two new stormwater management facilities and that there is no proposal to add to the flow going into the existing facility on site.
Andrew Fyfe, a former planner with the City of Orillia and the Township of Severn, asked what would be done to protect the brook trout that spawn in that area.
Michalski said one of the matters investigated was how much the water temperature could increase as a result of the development and it was determined “there would be no negative thermal effects on the downstream tributary of Silver Creek.”
Dennis Rizzo lives near the subject property and said his insurance company previously informed him his home was on a flood plain. That doesn’t make sense if the property is not a wetland, he said.
“We’ve never seen something that would put any of these areas in a currently mapped flood plain,” Robertson responded.
Tuesday’s meeting was a result of LIV Communities seeking a redline revision to the draft approved plan of subdivision, as well as a zoning bylaw amendment application for the property.
The city will hold a statutory public meeting at a date to be determined.
