Stuart Benson
Sep 20, 20211 min
La Pêche has finalized major modifications to its minor exemption and subdivision bylaws, part of a “big shift” in how it will develop over the next decade in order to combat urban sprawl and conserve its rural forests.
Municipal council voted unanimously to adopt the modifications to both bylaws on Sept. 15, after completing a public consultation from Aug. 11-26, which will restrict where and how developers can subdivide their lots and how much of the plot can actually be developed.
Under the new bylaw, for any project being developed in a rural zone, developers will now have to place their allotments along existing private or public roads and will be constricted to a minimum acreage of allotments — now 18,500 metres square or 4.571 acres, rather than the previous one acre.
The goal of these restrictions, according to Mayor Guillaume Lamoureux, is to better combat urban sprawl by prohibiting developers from purchasing long, rectangular lots – with their narrow ends running along the existing road and extending outwards – and subdividing the property into large numbers of lots.
In other council news:
Council approved the purchase of two dissolved-oxygen probes for $7,625 to monitor sediment in the aerated ponds in the Wakefield sectors’ sewage system, as well as $30,000 for microbiological treatments.
The municipality was awarded $28,000 from the Green Fund for the creation of an Action Plan for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Partners for Climate Protection program.