Ontario Municipal Board will hear appeals on Ramsey Lake development today

A waterfront subdivision approved by Sudbury city council two years ago will be considered by a higher power today.

The Ontario Municipal Board will hold a hearing at Tom Davies Square Wednesday to consider whether 54 houses and 93 condos can be built on the shores of Lake Ramsey.

• Ramsey Lake development heads to the OMB

There are two different appeals of the University Park project, to be built off Keast Drive, near the Laurentian University campus.

One of them is from a neighbour, John Beaudry, who spoke at past city council meetings calling for the project to be rejected.

His Toronto-based lawyer David Tang says his client is concerned about the size of the house lots in the plan, the height of the condo buildings and the impact the development will have on Lake Ramsey.

The other appeal is from the man who wants to build it, developer Norm Eady.

Eady is upset that city council slapped 42 conditions on his project when it gave the thumbs up in 2015 cut his condo towers down from seven storeysdown to five, meaning 22 fewer condo units. Council also trimmed two house lots out of the plans.

"We were basically slamdunked by the planning department," Eady told CBC news when he filed his appeal in 2015.

It's up to the city to defend its decision in today's hearing.

But the municipal board is basically starting at square one.

It can decide how the development goes ahead, or if it will go ahead at all or if any of the city's 42 conditions, dealing with everything from parking to stormwater management, are kept.

While the board is hearing the appeals later today at Tom Davies Square, a ruling could be a long way off.

There are two other controversial Sudbury subdivisions currently before the municipal board, including a 221-lot development on McCharles Lake in Naughton that's been in a holding pattern since being turned down by city council in 2009.