A proposed manufactured home project for Cumberland will now likely roll out in two phases.
Council considered a development permit and variance request at its April 11 meeting for the project slated for 3025 Royston Rd. It had gone before the village’s advisory planning commission (APC) for comment after it first came to council.
“There have been some changes to the proposed development since the initial council meeting and the APC meeting,” planner Meleana Searle told council.
Initially, when this came before council earlier this year, the plan was for 56 homes to be built in one phase, but now it will be broken into two, the first with 24 and the second with 32. The change was prompted by some secondary access issues, which the applicant was said to be working on to make feasible. For the second access, the applicant is proposing to provide an eight-metre emergency access to the Trent River Main.
“Phase two of the manufactured home park permit would be conditional on these easements,” Searle said. “It would come back before council as an amendment to the original permit.”
RELATED STORY: Cumberland considers 56-unit manufactured home plan
The development permit request was to cover the construction of the 24-unit phase, while development variance permit was for reducing the primary access road width from eight metres down to 6.5 metres.
One of the concerns in the last couple of months was stormwater management, especially with the wastewater plant nearby. Coun. Vickey Brown pointed out current stormwater management plans may not go far enough in light of more recent extreme weather events and the possibility these will become more regular.
“The stormwater management plan actually only looks at 25-year storm events,” she said. “I’m quite sure that we’re getting 100-year storm events on a fairly regular basis now.”
Council members also had questions about fencing, trail connectivity and park areas.
Brown made a successful motion for council to approve the development and the variance permit. Council also passed her subsequent motion to ask staff prepare a report to update bylaws to require stormwater plans to take into 100-year storm events account, including climate change impact as part of this.
mike.chouinard@comoxvalleyrecord.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.