After a development proposal next to the Appleyard subdivision was turned down by city council last month, Gary Arsenault of Green Emerald Investments Inc. has returned with a different plan for a different location.
At Monday’s meeting of the city’s development and planning services committee, council discussed the proposal to rezone property owned by Gary and Sharon Arsenault at 2100 45th Ave. NE from A3, small holding zone, to R7, large lot, single family residential zone.
Council members present showed their support by voting unanimously to forward the item to the June 11 meeting of council. Couns. Marg Kentel and Alan Harrison were absent.
Arsenault said he plans on making the subdivision a showcase of homes, including features such as ground source geothermal, cisterns to catch roof water, porous driveways and other environmentally sustainable features.
The potential number of parcels permitted under R7 zoning would be 33, but Arsenault is willing to sign a covenant limiting the number to 23, in keeping with the property’s location as a transition between the Agricultural Land Reserve and future residential development across 20th Street NE.
The city’s official community plan identifies the need to minimize conflicts between residential and agricultural lands. A staff report notes that this could be done with fencing to deter household pets from entering the farmland as well as vegetative buffers, both which could be done prior to subdivision.
Arsenault objected to this requirement, stating that fencing and landscaping should be done after subdivision because construction would necessitate tearing down a fence or could damage landscaping.
Corey Paiement, the city’s director of development services, said he would like to have a covenant in place, but a security could be accepted to allow flexibility in terms of timing and types of trees.
“At the end of the day, we need to have a fence and landscaping there. What I don’t want is to have property owners come back and say they didn’t know anything about this and have to fight with them over it.”