The developer behind a controversial grocery store and LCBO retail development at Broadway Avenue and Bayview Avenue is abandoning the city’s planning application process for a pre-hearing at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) on May 19. MJB Corporation is appealing a decision made at the committee of adjustment (COA) last summer, even though the developer has more recently sought approval of the proposal via a different means: a rezoning amendment application through the city’s planning department. “The city process we go through has been usurped,” said Coun. Jaye Robinson.
The original application that went before the COA was for a minor variance, and was rejected on the grounds that the committee does not typically review large-scale projects. The latest application for the approximately 70,000-square-foot retail development, intended for the former Brennan Pontiac car lot, went before city council this past January. Last month, hundreds of locals attended a routine community meeting on the proposal, voicing frustration over potential traffic problems on already congested roads.
“We don’t have the capacity for the store. Broadway and Bayview can’t handle that,” said Shabnam Noori, a resident of Bayview Avenue who attended the meeting at St. Augustine of Canterbury Anglican Church.
At the meeting, Robinson advised neighbours on how they could represent themselves, given the new set of circumstances. She also asked Michael Goldberg, the MJB representative, if she could meet with the developer one more time before May 19 to negotiate traffic issues. Goldberg agreed. Neighbouring councillor John Parker was also at the meeting, as his own constituents again worry about how the impending customer and delivery truck traffic will affect roads.
Goldman said the developer has already taken some of these concerns into account and the original site plan was altered so trucks would be turning into the lot from Broadway Avenue, not Bayview Avenue.
