It's still hoped a proposed residential development in Point Edward, adjacent to Sarnia Harbour, will move forward in the near future following an appeal process with the City of Sarnia.
The village approved a zoning bylaw amendment in 2023 to build approximately 156 townhomes on Exmouth Street, despite concerns raised by the city.
In August 2023, the city began an appeal process.
"From the outset, the city made clear its major concern was the impact that substantial development may have on city industry, namely the Sarnia Harbour, and wanting to ensure mitigation measures were implemented to minimize the impacts," read a recent report presented to Sarnia City Council. "The city, throughout all submissions, made sure to stress that it was, in no way, attempting to impede or stop the development."
A tribunal-led mediation was held with all parties in December 2024, according to the council report. A settlement was negotiated after two days and was ultimately approved by the Ontario Land Tribunal on February 26, 2025.
"It's behind us now," said Village of Point Edward CAO Jim Burns during an interview with Sarnia News Today. "Now, we're moving forward and we will take the steps that we need to do to hopefully develop the property someday, make sure we do it in a way that's safe, and causes as little disruption for existing property users as possible."
Burns said as far as he knows, the developer still wants to proceed with the housing project.
Now, it's up to the developer -- a numbered company -- to submit a plan as part of the next step in developing the property.
"So they now have approval to build up to 350 residential units on the property and what form that may take will depend on what application they bring forward," Burns said. "If they want to go beyond that 350 number, they will have to do further traffic impact studies to determine if they have proper access to the property."
Burns said other factors considered during the appeal process included noise mitigation and emergency traffic.
"They have to put in a lane that would serve as a multi-purpose path for the majority of the time but in the situation of emergency access, it could be switched over to an emergency access route for emergency response vehicles."
As part of the planning process, Burns said the developer will have to look at servicing the property -- specifically septic service.
"We don't have a lot of capacity existing for any development of that size so that's one issue they're going to have to work through," Burns said.
The developer has not been publicly identified. Burns said members of the ownership group are from Lambton County and London.