City makes deal with Dalron on controversial Minnow Lake development

The City of Greater Sudbury has reached a deal with Dalron to go ahead with a controversial development that city council turned down seven years ago.

But concerned citizens, who until now were on the same side as the city, might keep up the fight.

"The agreement, in our minds, upon cursory examination is less than adequate," says John Lindsay, who was one of three Sudburians named as parties in the provincial appeal process. 

The plan would see a subdivision of single family homes and condominium towers built on a forested hill off Howey Drive, overlooking Ramsey Lake.

Dalron was aiming to build as many as 700 homes when the proposal first came to Sudbury city council in 2011, but it was turned down.

City councillors like the late Fabio Belli were impressed by the petition signed by 1,000 people who were concerned the development would increase traffic in the neighbourhood, and contaminate the city's drinking water from Ramsey Lake.

"I would definitely support it. But it's not about what I want. It's what people in this community want," Belli said in October 2011.

Dalron was back before council in April 2012 with a scaled down version of the project with only 380 houses and condos.

But that plan too was turned by Sudbury city council, prompting Dalron to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board.

After the developer missed some filing deadlines in 2016, the appeal was almost tossed out by the board.

Then this spring, the citizens group that had been working with the city was informed that an agreement had been reached with Dalron to see the development go ahead.

The city has loosened some of the requirements it wanted Dalron to meet in the past, including not forcing the developer to pay for a traffic study and certain road improvements.

"It gives the developer the opportunity to continue to develop without any relief to the conditions that we were originally concerned about," Lindsay says.

Dalron declined to comment, and the city did not provide comment for this story.

But Lindsay says he and other concerned citizens can continue on with the fight at the newly renamed Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

He says they plan to take a few months to figure out a plan and consult with the hundreds of people who signed that petition seven years ago. 

"There are devils in the detail here and it really needs to be closely examined. It's going to take some time to do that. Dalron and the city have taken seven years," Lindsay says.