The Town of Goderich is withdrawing an application to rezone vacant land on Picton Street to residential.
The lot next to the One Care Adult Day Center was previously the lawn bowling club. Town staff had put forward an application to rezone the land in hopes of facilitating development, including for affordable housing.
However, many community members stepped forward saying there was so little greenspace left in the neighbourhood, there were perhaps better options for the land under it's current Community Facility designation, including an accessible park for seniors.
Deputy Mayor Leah Noel said months of discussion changed her perspective.
"I initially leaned towards approving the application... but we don't have any concrete proposals to consider for that development, we just have ideas," she said. "Because we're the applicant, we're in a position where this is the only time we can hit pause button without heading to the (Ontario Land Tribunal). When I consider the feedback we've received from the community, I'm not prepared to say yes today."
The vote to withdraw narrowly passed four to three. During discussions, Mayor Trevor Bazinet said that town was still moving forward aggressively with a developer to create housing elsewhere in Goderich, before thanking staff, the public, and everyone who helped council reach a decision.
"This how we come together as a community to make decisions," he said. "I want to say this again, council deferred this twice for a reason: we wanted to make sure we had all the information in front of us so we could make that decision... it was a hard decision, but this is where we laned."
There are currently no applications to do anything with the land.
