The city is giving land owners south of Lakeshore Road in Bright's Grove a chance to join Sarnia's official plan appeal.
Community Services General Manager Stacey Forfar said it's the next step after Lambton County planning staff rejected the expansion in December.
"The CIHA [Community Infrastructure and Housing Accelerator] order is a brand new order the province just brought out in the fall," said Forfar. "So, there's no clear cut process in terms of timelines. There's quite a few expectations that have been listed in the report. Staff will more than likely require external consulting services to help support the application in the future. The immediate step though is to sort out who in the area is interested in participating in this process."
Forfar said they've sent a formal notice to property owners asking if they're interested in joining the appeal.
"If they don't choose to come along, some area landowners have chosen not to participate, then we will come back to council and suggest that you can either do it as a group, council can do this regardless, and/or we can take a step back as a city," Forfar said. "There's nothing precluding any of these property owners from coming forward with a ministerial zoning order."
Approximately nine property owners would pay just over $16,000 each to use the CIHA tool.
"A vast majority of this area is currently really encumbered," she said. "It's green in our map, which is a big red flag to say, 'look, you've got birds, and bunnies, and bees in there, more than likely, and probably a significant amount of fauna as well.' So those areas are typically protected and then it would carve out what's actually developable. From there, the details would come through site level applications."
Forfar hopes to hear back from the property owners by late May and present next steps to council at the July meeting.