Sarnia council has decided to hold off on making a decision about donating a piece of land at Germain Park to the Women's Interval Home for supportive housing until further options can be considered.
The organization approached council on Monday, proposing to build an apartment with 15 to 20 affordable units on a small portion of the northwest corner of Germain Park, north of the Strangway Community Centre off of East Street.
Consultant Tim Welch said an approval in principle was needed to move forward with a letter of intent to secure funding from the County of Lambton, which would launch the public consultation and design planning process.
"It's always trying to coordinate a number of things to try to come together. But certainly, neighbourhood consultation and input will happen at a number of times during the process to try to build that good, solid support locally," Welch said.
Councillor Terry Burrell expressed concern about giving a parcel of land to any charitable organization.
"If you give to one, you [have to] give to everybody. But even beyond that, with this particular parcel of land, it's right in one of our major, major parks," Burrell said. "I'm just not in favour of this particular site at all."
Councillor Brian White said he fully supports addressing this concern about building supportive housing but noted, it's council's "fiduciary responsibility" to consider the options.
"I don't recall any other circumstance where first off, council's been simply brought one option and then in effect told, we're going to be pausing a very important process if we don't just deal with it right now, and this is the only choice that we have," White said. "I'm not sure how we got here today without being given a list of options to consider on behalf of the community, including another part of the very same park that has potential because there was a footprint there already."
Councillor George Vandenberg questioned why other areas of the park, such as the former Jackson Pool site or Germain Arena, weren't considered.
Mayor Mike Bradley said he's been working with the group for a number of years and they looked at several sites before proposing the parcel of land in question.
"It did surprise me but it is a small one, it's not really park land, it's right on a roadway as you go into where community services has their facility," Bradley said. "I think I saw two emails on the weekend in opposition and I think they misunderstood that this is just starting that whole public process."
After hearing from fellow councillors, Vandenberg brought forward a motion to defer the discussion to next month's council meeting so city staff can prepare site options.
The motion passed, with opposition from Bradley and Councillor Anne Marie Gillis.
-With files from Melanie Irwin