Ramsey Lake development heads to Ontario Municipal Board

A contentious lakefront development that was approved by Sudbury city council has been appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.

It's a plan to build 54 houses and 93 condos beside the city's main source of drinking water and much of the opposition to the University Park development was focused on protecting the already fragile waters of Ramsey Lake.

But John Beaudry, the man who's appealing to the municipal board, had more technical concerns when he spoke to council this summer.

Beaudry also owns waterfront property, next door to the proposed development, off Keast Drive. 

His lawyer declined to comment for this story.

Developer Norm Eady isn't surprised that this is going to the municipal board, given all the neighbourhood opposition he faced over the last few years.

He was considering his own appeal, when the city made last minute changes to his plans-- cutting the height of his condo towers to 5 storeys, forcing him to lose a dozen units-- before council approved the project in July.

"And it was actually a suggestion by the planning department to go higher density with more green space, so we did that," he said. "We were basically slam dunked by the planning department."

The municipal board now has the final say on what this will look like, and if it goes ahead, and what sort of conditions and requirements will be put on the developer.

A long list of 42 conditions, many of them dealing with protections for the lake, were voted in by city council, but could all be thrown out by the municipal board.

A final decision could be a long way off.

Sudbury developer Dalron has had two appeals at the municipal board for years.

One is a subdivision overlooking another corner of Ramsey Lake, with about 300 homes proposed off Howey Drive. It was rejected by city council in 2012, when Dalron filed its appeal.

Before that, Dalron had appealed a city council decision in 2009 to not allow a 221-home subdivision in Naughton near McCharles Lake.  

But Eady said he is not discouraged by the time it might take to finally break ground on this project.

"I think that's probably a wish of the people who are against it. But I'm not about to give up, obviously," he said.  

"People have told me that they want to move into one of these units and they're counting on this as well."