Common Council voting unanimously at a special meeting Monday afternoon to kickstart consideration of an amendment to the city’s Heritage Conservation Areas bylaw which would exempt the stalled Irving Oil HQ project from current regulations and enable it to move forward.
Mayor Mel Norton says the bylaw would take about three weeks to be amended and once it’s fully implemented it will go back to the Heritage Board for reconsideration. He says council has made accomodations in heritage areas of many kinds in the past.
“This is about making sure that we get development in the city, it’s not about any one developer,” says mayor Norton. “This is about an opportunity to move a project forward in a timely way.”
The city’s commissioner of growth and community development Jacqueline Hamilton says they will be preparing the appeal documentation for the province’s Assessment and Planning Appeal Board and in the event that the appeal is withdrawn she says it’s their advice that council continue with the amendment process.
Councillor Bill Farren was the only one to ask a question during the special meeting. Farren asked if anyone could ask for variance in or outside of the heritage property area to which Hamilton replied that any property owner could make an application to the city to change the by-law.
A public hearing on the bylaw amendment has been scheduled for April 28, after which council could grant first and second reading to the amendment. Third and final reading of the amendment would come up for a vote on May 2.
The report submitted to council says “a broader reform” of the bylaw’s infill development rules is needed to modernize it and bring it into alignment with PlanSJ. It’s suggested this could be a priority project for next year.
Construction for the new HQ building, slated to be built next to the Imperial Theatre in uptown Saint John, was scheduled to begin on Monday, April 4 but has now been put on hold indefinitely.
