The Board of the Inn of the Good Shepherd has decided to appeal a city council decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal in an effort to proceed with an affordable housing project at the corner of Melrose Street and Exmouth Street in Sarnia.
The decision was announced after a board meeting was held last week.
The Inn wants to build a six-storey apartment tower and a townhouse block at the former Laurel-Lea St. Matthew's Presbyterian Church, which is currently being utilized as an emergency shelter and homelessness resource centre.
Official plan and rezoning bylaw amendments failed in a 5-4 vote during the March 3 city council meeting, due to pushback from neighbours and concerns about parking and densification.
Inn Executive Director Myles Vanni said they heard a lot of disappointed feedback from community members following council's decision.
"It really did follow good planning practices in terms of the fit into the neighbourhood, in terms of access, a great location for folks to be able to live," he said. "Everything fell within the requirements. I think some of the council members made the decision based on maybe some of the fear that some of the residents -- the neighbours had in regards to who's using the building now versus who will be using it for housing when it's built. A very different population than what's in there now."
A petition with over 250 signatures, opposed to the project, was presented during the council meeting.
A media release issued by the Inn on March 28 acknowledged the concerns residents have with those who are currently using the property.
"Behaviours of some clients have been disruptive and troubling. These services will be moved to another location being worked on by the County and Indwell," read the media release. "However, it needs to be clarified that these are not the target residents for this proposed project. Quite the contrary, it is geared to the demographic of low income, working poor, seniors and those on disability pensions."
Vanni said the Inn previously approached council to reconsider their decision if they could provide more information, but legally, they can't do that with a Planning Act issue, it would have to go to the tribunal.
It's unknown how long the tribunal process will take.
"The tribunal has a process in place where first, they hope that the two parties, ourselves and the city, would be able to negotiate a mediation. So we go through a mediation process, hopefully we can come to a settlement without having to go through the full tribunal," Vanni said. "The full tribunal is more expensive and takes more time. The hope would be if the mediation process would probably be sometime in the early summer and could result in a resolution there. If not, than the full tribunal hearing would be likely late fall or early winter. So it would take long, and of course, more cost."
Moving forward, Vanni said the messaging around affordable housing and not wanting it in neighbourhoods needs to change.
"This affordable housing is direly needed and I addressed that at the start of my comments to council," he said. "Actions by governments over the last 20 years have led to this shortage of housing. We've seen rents double in the last eight years, so those are the kinds of things that are creating such a need in our community -- in all communities throughout the province and the country."
During the March 3 meeting, questions were raised as to why the Inn didn't look at potentially building on the land near the Lambton Public Health office.
Vanni said they had looked at several properties but they weren't as attractive in terms of easy access to stores, banks, and city transit.
"The other thing though with the public health [unit's] land is it's not all county land. Some of that land is owned by the Ministry of Transportation, some of it is owned by the Federal Bridge Corporation so it can't be used for other purposes," he said.
In the meantime, Vanni said there are currently no plans to shut down the emergency shelter.
He said the HART Hub announced in January is "the light at the end of the tunnel," as those currently at the emergency shelter would be able to receive proper mental health and addiction supports at a new location.
However, Vanni said the hub may not be ready until late fall, or possibly the end of the year.