Ste-Anne back to drawing board with north sector development plan

Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue has mandated a firm to prepare a new and much anticipated special planning program for a vast undeveloped area east of its industrial park near the l’Anse à l’Orme nature reserve.

An initial plan for the northern sector of the town proposed in 2012 that would have seen about 4,000 residents added to the area, almost doubling the population of Ste-Anne, which stands at about 5,000, was dropped after residents objected.

Last week, council awarded a $40,000 contract to Provencher Roy Urbanisme Inc. to prepare a new planning program, revise existing regulations and establish development guidelines specifically aimed for a 276-hectare area in the town’s northern sector.

“This is the one we will present to citizens,” said Mayor Paola Hawa.

“We have to have the whole thing adopted no later than midsummer,” she said of a special planning program, adding the town’s concordance bylaws dealing with a new regional urban development must be approved by October.

“The (special planning program) proposal should be made by mid-spring. So we’ll go to the people and see how they like it. If they don’t like it, we’re giving ourselves enough time to go back to the drawing board,” the mayor said. “Then, we can tweak it.”

The new planning program being prepared will take into consideration briefs submitted by the public and recommendations from citizen workshops held last fall as well as any environmental and traffic studies that had been commissioned by the town.

“Now we’ll know what’s going to go in there, where the streets are going to be — the real details,” Hawa said of the urban plan being prepared.

“It’ll be the template for the future,” she added.

Hawa said keeping the targeted area 100-per-cent green is unrealistic considering it’s privately owned land. She said having higher density housing, or taller buildings, for some parts will mean areas with higher ecological value can be preserved as green space.

The initial plan presented in May 2012 was pulled off the table by the previous council after residents objected. It called for mixed zoning — residential, commercial and some industrial. The process was then rebooted from scratch and several studies were mandated in advance of drafting a revised planning program.