Waterdown Subdivision at Burlington's Edge Clears Planning Committee

The farmland where Waterdown ends and Burlington begins is going to look different. Hamilton's planning committee has approved a subdivision of between 885 and 1,125 units on the 88 acre property at 562 Dundas St. E., and the application now goes to council for final approval on October 7.

Developer Penta Properties Inc. has spent five years working with the city on the rezoning. The plan needs five new municipal roads, including a collector road that will link Skinner Road in the Mountainview Heights neighbourhood through to Kerns Road. City documents describe a mix of single family homes, townhouses, a 12 storey apartment building and commercial space.

The density is the part that changed. The approved zoning amendment allows 250 homes per hectare, where the city's current secondary plan allows 60 to 100. The land also sits under the Niagara Escarpment Commission, which issued 109 requirements the developers have to meet, and it borders two sensitive features: the Falcon Creek Wetland Complex Provincially Significant Wetland and the Waterdown Escarpment Woods Environmentally Significant Area.

Flamborough Coun. Ted McMeekin called the mixed density plan an example of good planning and said it is the last big area left to develop in Waterdown. Two delegates disagreed. Resident Elizabeth Bennett said she was shocked that the Niagara Escarpment Commission and Conservation Halton had signed off, noted that city documents say nothing about low income housing, and pointed out the parcel is zoned agricultural. Ward 15 council candidate Jeff Yaeger asked for more study of the road and water infrastructure, since the unit count has shifted between the city website and staff reports. "Age and capacity are not the same thing," he said of the water system. Both delegates also raised the fact that every grocery store in town is in the west end.