FERGUS — Some councillors feel there should be more wiggle room for other businesses under the Centre Wellington Business Park's current eligible criteria.
Following recommendations from the township's 2021 Business Park Strategy, councillors approved several changes to the Centre Wellington Business Park at a council meeting Monday evening including zoning changes and permitted use and lot regulations to better accommodate demand from potential customers.
According to the managing director of planning and development Brett Salmon, reducing the minimum lot frontage to 20 metres is ideal because it's difficult to create saleable lots with a 30-metre frontage requirement and most requests are for lots sized one acre or smaller.
The new zone will permit a variety of uses including:
- Artist studio
- Broadcasting or production station or studio
- Computer, electronic, and data processing
- Contractors and trades (residential and non-residential)
- Emergency services
- Government service, municipal service centre
- Laboratory
- Industrial and agricultural equipment assembly, rental, sales, service if contained wholly within the building, and not serving the general public
- Light, wholly enclosed industrial uses including assembly, fabricating, manufacturing, stamping, processing and packaging of goods or raw materials.
- Office uses, call centres
- Printing and publishing
- Research and development facility
- Service and repair of assembled or fabricated goods or products, business and consumer-related goods or products that are wholly enclosed within a building
- Small batch brewery or distillery, including on-site sales*
- Technology establishment
- Training centre (for trades, technologies or industrial)
- Wholesale businesses (not dealing in retail goods, and not selling to the general public) that are wholly enclosed within a building
Councillor Lisa MacDonald suggested the township amend the bylaw to include medical clinics because she's heard feedback from doctors looking for places to operate a medical facility and "there isn't always that opportunity."
"My doctor's office is in a business area and it works out fine," said MacDonald. "I'm just concerned that if we close that off ... I just don't want to axe those opportunities should they come up."
Coun. Bronwynne Wilton disagreed with MacDonald, saying it can be hard to predict a business park's traffic patterns and she'd prefer having medical facilities in a central location closer to the hospital.
Suggesting medical clinics be directed to other locations where they're permitted, Salmon said the main reason staff didn't suggest permitting them is the park's remote location and the "heavy parking requirement" associated with said facilities.
"I do tend to agree with Wilton, I don't think in our community, the business park is where a medical clinic is going to want to go," said Salmon. "
When Coun. Kim Jefferson asked whether there is room for a shared space build-out like the Catalyst Centre in Waterloo, Salmon said they're already permitted and they've tried to market this concept "pretty heavily" since a multi-tenant business doesn't exist in the area.
No comments were received opposing the application.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
