City council has cleared the way for nearly 600 new residences along Lockhart Road in south Barrie.
At its Aug. 14 meeting, council approved rezoning applications for 460 and 560 Lockhart Rd.
Coun. Sergio Morales, who represents this part of Barrie, said this is the intended use of this property.
“These lands that were annexed 14 years ago are finally being zoned for their purpose — to provide housing,” he said of the provincially mandated Barrie-Innisfil Boundary Adjustment Act of Jan. 1, 2010.
“With the cost of buying a home or renting one, adding these to the supply market will have immediate and downstream benefits to alleviate attainability issues," Morales added.
At 460 Lockhart, this means 395 residences comprising 194 single-detached homes, 20 street townhouses, 180 back-to-back townhouses, and future lot/blocks, plus the establishment of two environmental protection blocks of land and three stormwater management blocks.
This land was rezoned from agricultural and environmental protection (EP) to neighbourhood residential, multiple residential and EP.
The property is just more than 79 acres, rectangular in shape and fronts the north side of Lockhart Road between Huronia Road and Yonge Street. This property contains vacant agricultural land and natural heritage features.
At 560 Lockhart, the rezoning will implement the proposed draft plan of subdivision to develop 191 residences of varying single-detached lot sizes, plus an additional eight units achieved through future lots, 9.8 acres of environmentally protected land, stormwater management ponds and municipal streets.
This land is rezoned from agricultural and EP to neighbourhood residential and EP.
“Development doesn't have to be a trade-off between building more housing and sacrificing the Lovers Creek ecosystem,” Morales said. “The fact that these two parcels continue the benchmark that roughly one-third of developable lands (south of Mapleview Drive) in Ward 9 has and will be designated as EP land, shows we can and are achieving both.”
The property, 560 Lockhart, is almost 49 acres, generally rectangular in shape and fronts the north side of Lockhart Road, between Huronia Road and Yonge Street. It contains vacant agricultural land and natural heritage features.
The neighbourhood residential zone will permit the proposed single-detached homes and stormwater management facilities, while the EP zoning will apply to the natural heritage lands and associated buffers.
Public meetings for both properties, being developed by Lockhart Innisfil Investments, were held Feb. 1, 2022, but not neighbourhood meetings due to the limited number of properties within the 240-metre circulation radius.
This is not the only residential development planned for Lockhart Road. In June, council approved the rezoning of a portion of 750 Lockhart Rd., which is vacant property, to build 75 townhouses and a six-storey, multi-residential building containing about 75 units.
With 87 townhouses previously approved on the northern half of the property, and the additional residential units proposed through this rezoning, the total unit counts are 162 townhouses and 306 multi-residential units at 750 Lockhart.
