Saint John slows down Spruce Lake Industrial Park expansion, creates task force

Saint John has hit the brakes on plans to expand the Spruce Lake Industrial Park and will createa task force to encourage further discussion of the controversial project.

At a meeting Tuesday night, council postponed apublic hearing and a council vote on the expansion proposal, originally setfor Nov 12. A new date was not set.

Residents opposed to the project near their community attendedthe council meeting and welcomed the promise of further discussion with the city.

"I'm pleased with the result that we've postponed the actualvote on whether it's going to be rezoned," said Ken McCavour, who lives in Lornevillein the southwest part of Saint John.

The move comes a week after a lengthy planning advisory committee meeting where Lorneville residents madeat times emotional arguments against the project.

The planning committee said "more conversation" about the project was needed and voted to make no recommendation to council.

"Now we have to wait and seewhether we can do something, work out some deal with the city that everybody's happy with," McCavour said.

The Spruce Lake Industrial Park expansion is a city and province-led endeavour to redesignate hundreds of hectares in the areafor heavy industrial development to attract large business operations to Saint John.

Residents first became aware of the plans in July. In a month-long consultation period since then, the city and province received hundreds of letters from residents and a petition opposed to the plans.

The pushback led the city to modify the proposal sent to the planning advisory committee. The changes wouldincreaseabuffer zone at the site and createabenefits program where land sales from the proposal would help fund Lorneville community projects.

The changes did not quell residents' concerns.

Now a task force to be made up of city staff and Lorneville community leaders will further discuss the proposal.

Staff are to come back to council with a report that will includerecommendations and findings from the discussions.

Council pleased with direction

Mayor Donna Reardon and councillorsexpressed support for slowing things down to sort out problems.

"I love it.," Reardon said."It aligns us with the decision of [planning advisory committee], the claim that there is more work to be done between the two parties I agree.

"I think that demonstrates that council and staff have heard the residents of Lorneville. If we want to move forward, we want to move forward together. We'll create a task force. We'll have residents on it, we'll have staff on it, figure out what those sticking points are and what the path forward is."

Coun. Gary Sullivan praised city staff for creating a recommendation quickly.

"I think there's definitely a path forward in the conversation that can be had, so I'm looking forward to seeing the results," he said.

Reardon said apublic hearing and vote on the project likely won't happen until the new year.

Resident glad ofchance to speak up

Another Lorneville resident,Dawn Alexander, also feels the move is the right decision.

"We hope to talk more with the councillors and tell them our concerns that heavy industry should not be by residential property lines and should not be close to a community,"Alexander said.

"An industrial park is made to be away from community and to push the industrial park close to us, it's a conflict of land use."

McCavour, who lives near the development area, hopes one outcome of the planned discussion is an increased buffer zone.

"It needs to be larger . I live on the opposite side of where the construction would actually be. It would be within, like, 100 metres of where I am. And it's got to be farther."