Greetings Community,
We are doing our best to inform you of the Dalron Montrose ‘Royal Oaks’ Subdivision development plans, and how the proposed re-draft of the plans might affect you, and your family’s safety, health and well-being into the future.
We need your support to stand together as a community neighborhood, to address these concerns and change City Council’s understanding of what matter most to us, over here, in our community.
First off, we have an issue with ‘TRAFFIC‘. The currently proposed plans sitting in front of Council, is a Sept.1, 2021 re-draft that suggests that Montrose Ave., will connect directly to Maley Drive Extension, and Forestdale Drive also will connect to Maley Drive Ext.
The traffic issue with this ‘currently re-drafted and proposed’ plan is a significantly increased flow of traffic through our neighborhood; a serious safety concern, as noted in a 2005 Transportation Study (2005TS) where it states, “It is recognized that additional traffic along this road (read:Montrose) will have a social/environmental impact on the existing residential neighborhood.” Yes, admittedly, the way that Montrose connects to Maley has a direct impact on you and your family’s safety and well-being. But let’s get back to that a bit later, because it’s a big deal.
Secondly, we have an issue with the complete deletion of our community activated GREENSPACE. It wasn’t always so, but as you will see in issue number three, now ‘the current plan’ is far less appropriate, and far more ecologically destructive. The current plan, doesn’t show much regard for our access to nature trails, and it leaves us none of our long stewarded green-space. Even property values can be affected by the deletion of this green-space and ecological corridor. This current re-draft of the subdivision plan does not find a balance, it is happily devoid of nature, as if adverse to the decades of re-greened upland ecology of succession birches, oaks, pines, maple trees, rhodendrons, and blueberries.
Thirdly, we have the issue that ties it all together in a question that deserves your attention. Why was the ‘Villages of Montrose’ Conceptual Masterplan presented to the community in 2014 , and why is this current plan so different from it? What was the community thinking this development would be? (See the Sudbury.com article)
A two part Ron Arnold quote sums it quite nicely. “The development will include walking trails, ponds and several parks.” and “Our goal is to get a quality neighbourhood that everybody will enjoy.”
People bought into the homes and townhouses at the top of Montrose, with the idea that the community would be like that.
Let’s now note that all is not as it seems, for this plan, as it is, that is going to Council, is not the same plan, as we were presented.
The Masterplan we were presented, had single family homes up Montrose, a subdivision development that included our long-stewarded Nickeldale Forest biking / hiking / and walking trail, (and it even had further greenspace that amounted to 20% of the site) and it had a layout of the streets that meandered deeply into the new subdivision before rejoining Maley Drive Extension.
This re-draft plan, of Sept 2021, has none of that. And now with a re-zoning to all semis-detached homes, and maybe even fourplexes, what is this plan going to do to the existing surrounding neighborhoods? How liveable, and how safe, is this subdivision going to be?
If you thought Montrose was hard to walk down up and down in the winter traffic, don’t just wait til this new plan gets approved, and traffic analysis shows significantly more and faster traffic than ever before.
Or will it.. get approved?
Will Council and the developer take all our concerns to heart, and make the neccessary changes?
Development will go up there, it’s just a matter of time, but the question is what that development will look like and how will it connect to Maley?
As taxpayers, who elect the people at the City’s Council, and the taxpayers that pay for staff and Council’s salaries, you have a say. This is something that concerns you and your family. Your neighborhood, your streets, your community activated green-spaces, your well-being, and your kids future are all things you have a right to speak up on.
You have a say. And you should use it.
So here’s what you can do:
1. There’s an upcoming Zoom call by Dalron’s reps at Tulloch Eng.. Participate in the electronic Dalron public ZOOM meeting on the 16th. Your invited, but you have ask them to join by the 15th.
2. There’s an Official Plan review, phase two, starting soon, and it includes the Transportation review. How should Maley connect to Lasalle via Montrose? As directly as possible, or as a safer, local traffic meandering? Community safety is an issue when a residential collector roadway like Montrose, connects to a divided highway. So, yeah, the public should comment on that. Is that what you want? Or would you like to have Montrose meander, just like Council actually agreed and mandated it to. But if you ask about this and you hear that it ‘meanders’ 50 m… Sorry, that’s not the meaning of meander, that’s a minor curve in the road.
3. You can reach out to Joscelyne Landry-Altmann, our Ward 12 Council Member, about the issues you are concerned with. You can voice your concerns, now through to, and including at, the date that Council will hold a Planning Committee on this subdivision plan file, which is a public meeting on the Dalron subdivision plan file. Date TBA
4. You can reach out the editor of the local paper and you can write about the value of good community design, and how the complete deletion of a community activated green space and community connector trail, is just not the right way forward. And especially in this day and age, and times. We need these spaces more than ever before. It’s about mental health, physical health, and creating communities that are strong, resilient and cohesive. And you can send us an article too.
5. You can peruse the re2021.com site, leave your feedback anywhere, and everywhere, sign the petition and make a statement that way too.
6. You can call or contact the Planning department (Sudbury Planning Division) and you can ask them anything you please.
7. You can call or write to Wendy Kaufmann, the Senior Planner on the file. She has the file.
8. You can call or write to Kristi Arnold, the lead Dalron developer for this Development.
9. You can submit comments in writing directly to the file, addressing Alex Singbush, the Head of the City Planning Departments approvals. He likes things in writing.
10. You can speak with your family, friends, and neighbors and even start your own group, and give voice to your specific concerns.
11. You can join us ( sign the petition ) and be the community that wants to keep it safe, healthy, and well designed, around here. We want a community that evolves in the right direction, with lot’s of benefit and future opportunity.
So let’s save the trails, and make the roads safer, and for those keen on it, let’s figure out what happened to the Villages of Montrose Conceptual Masterplan and all the promise it presented.
What is Council going to do?
What is all that, up there at the top of Montrose, going to be like?
How is it going to be designed, and how does that design affect you and yours?
These are the question we must ask ourselves, and these are the things we can do.
CONTACTS
Sudbury Planning – Wendy Kaufman, Senior Planner – 674-4455 ext 4318 – [email protected]
Dalron’s Public meeting e-mail request – Tulloch Engineering – Kevin Jarus – 705 671-2295 – [email protected]
Joscelyne Landry-Altmann – City Councilor – [email protected]
Kristi Arnold — Vice president, Planning and Development, Dalron Construction Limited, — 705-560-9770 ext. 227 — [email protected]
Denis de Laplante, CARB – [email protected] Subject “Montrose citizen”
If you send Denis an e-mail, he will notify those of you, outside the 120m notification zone, of the upcoming Planning Committee meeting date.
The Re2021.com Community — [email protected]
Direct written appeals can be submitted to:
City of Greater Sudbury,
Alex Singbush,
Manager of Developmental Approvals,
Planning Services Division,
PO Box 5000, Station A,
200 Brady street, Sudbury, ON
P3A 5P3
The future of the Montrose / Forestdale /
Woodbine neighbourhood, is now up to you.
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