PelhamToday received the following open letter to Pelham Town Council from former Cannabis Control Committee chair Tim Nohara:
Mayor and councillors: please issue the final OLT Notice.
In my April 30 letter I informed you of the May 30 deadline for Redecan to provide the odour engineering documents that would serve as the basis for a Redecan Community Liaison Committee to control odour. Regrettably, Redecan has decided not to honor its commitment to Pelham residents.
In light of this, and in accordance with paragraph 12 of the Feb21-2024_OLT-Decision, the Town is now able to “request that the Tribunal remove sections 7 and 8 from Schedule A of the ZBLA – which pertain to the Appellants lands – when issuing its Final Order.” And this request needs to be made by Aird & Berlis no later than Monday June 17, 2024. Sections 7 and 8 are found in the Aug23-2022-OLT-InterimDecision. Once we properly notify the Ontario Land Tribunal, the OLT will issue its Final Order which will include our final cannabis Zoning Bylaw Amendment (c-ZBA) which we have fought so hard for.
By issuing this final OLT Notice, Redecan will lose the negotiated Agricultural Cannabis (A-CAN) zoning on their 182 Foss Road property as well as the automatic right to build a 1,000 square metre office building and a 11,200 square metre warehouse on the property.
Please don’t get distracted by the Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw.
Before the OLT issued its Aug23-2022-OLT-Interim Decision which approved our cannabis Official Plan Amendment (c-OPA) and the c-ZBA with conditional sections 7 & 8, Pelham began the public process for a new Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw (CZB).
This week, without transparency or opportunity for the public to participate, CAO Cribbs dropped a bombshell Report 2024-0133 at the May 29 Council Meeting; and the evening before PelhamToday reported of the dismissal of Ms. Barbara Wiens, Director of Community Planning & Development. Understandably, these events have taken a disproportionate amount of attention from our Mayor and councillors as well as CAO Cribbs.
I have sought transparency but with that lacking, I feel compelled to share my concern that council is being urged to forgo the final OLT notice described above, as somehow being unnecessary in view of an alleged CZB procedural issue (possibly associated with section 1.14 of the CZB) which somehow cancelled the c-OPA and c-ZBA.
I believe that not issuing the final OLT Notice next week would be a big mistake with potentially big unintended consequences for Pelham residents around 182 Foss Rd. and 1396 Balfour Street.
I wish to remind CAO Cribbs, the Mayor and councillors that the previous council addressed the alleged issue and clearly expressed its will that the c-OPA and c-ZBA would continue to stand. All parties relied on assurances from Ms. Wiens that these two instruments would not be affected by the CZB as further detailed below.
At the June 13, 2022 Public Meeting under the Planning Act, I addressed council (watch the YouTube public meeting video starting at 1:58:29) as the Chair of the Cannabis Control Committee (CCC) asking if there would be any changes to our c-OPA or c-ZBA as a result of the proposed Housekeeping OPA and CZB.
Ms Wiens responded professionally and clearly:
“The two bylaws that Mr. Nohara was referencing was the official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment that dealt with cannabis related matters that are currently before the OLT, so this zoning bylaw does not deal with those. Once the OLT makes a decision with respect to those two instruments, the zoning bylaw amendment would then just be incorporated into this. And we did not make any changes to OPA 9 which again is the cannabis-related official plan amendment. So I can confirm that those instruments continue to stand alone at this point in time and once we have decisions on those then they will be incorporated into our documents; whether it is the official plan or zoning bylaw.”
Please get it done in the safest order.
In my opinion, the potential risk to Pelham residents is simply too high to gamble on a fast-arrived-at conclusion without Aird & Berlis briefing council directly.
If residents agree with me, I urge them to write and call their councillors and the Mayor asking them to take a more responsible approach by:
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First issuing the final OLT Notice by June 17, 2024; and
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Then getting Aird & Berlis to review and advise council directly on any procedural issues associated with the CZB and the technical process to correct them, involving our cannabis planning consultant Mr. Nick McDonald if needed.
Tim J. Nohara
Fenwick
