The Township of Perth South is moving forward with the next steps in a proposed new development in the village of Sebringville.
Perth South council heard a presentation on Tuesday from Caroline Baker from Baker Planning Group and Mike Jones from Azimuth Environmental Consulting Inc who provided an update on the proposal.
“Since the public meeting, the owner has decided to proceed with reducing the density on the site, and did remove three of the proposed apartment buildings on the east side of the site,” said Baker. “Overall this reduces the density down to 265 dwelling units.”
Baker pointed to other developments in Perth County as comparisons to the size and scale of the proposal to others that have been approved in Listowel and Mitchell, with the Sebringville proposal seeing 18 dwellings per hectare, while the other developments will see roughly 25 dwellings per hectare. Jones then spoke about environmental assessments.
“The initial draft of the phase one and two report was supplied to the Township in March of 2023, and you can think of that as the first draft of an internal document,” Jones said. “We are now at the stage where we believe there is a solid document that is ready to be released to members of the public, and other agencies and to take things towards the next step.”
Jones went through an in-depth presentation to council and the roughly 30 community members who attended the meeting, with a list of measures that could be taken before providing a recommendation.
“The recommendations of our report are that the preferred alternative for waste water is a local municipally owned and operated plant with a surface water discharge,” said Jones. “The preferred alternative for a drinking water system is that a new plant be established for the new proposed subdivision.”
BM Ross was retained by the township to peer-review the report, and they accepted the first two phases of the report. According to the report presented to council, phase three will look at the following:
- Evaluate alternative design concepts for the recommended local sewage treatment plant
- Assimilative capacity update to confirm effluent criteria
- Identify requirements for full treatment (such as pre-screening, flow equalization, secondary treatment, sludge stabilization and thickening, tertiary treatment and disinfection)
Following the presentation, Mayor Sue Orr addressed the gallery, and council.
“I want to reiterate that today we are talking about the environmental approval process, and that from this point forward, if this council agrees, we will move to a public consultation period,” Orr said. “It’s not that it’s finalized, this is the point where we have had BM Ross give their input. I’m just simplifying for the room that we are hoping to move this to the public consultation period, it’s not finalized, and truthfully I think the Ministry of the Environment will have the final say regardless so this is what we are here to discuss today.”
Council spent the next nearly twenty minutes asking various questions of the consultants, before Orr called for a vote on the following recommendations:
- That council concur with the recommendations from Azimuth Environmental Consulting Inc that the Preferred Alternative for Wastewater be a Local Municipal Plant with Surface Water Discharge serving ONLY the new subdivision.
- Municipal sanitary connection is not recommended for existing properties in Sebringville;
- The Preferred Alternatives for Drinking Water be a new plant with new wells to operate independently provide only an emergency link with the Boyce Street system.
Prior to the vote the Mayor clarified what council would be voting on.
“Really what we are looking for is to move this forward for public consultation,” said Orr. “It’s not finalized, it’s for public consultation.”