Kingston environmentalists call for assessment of Bath Road development (2024)

KINGSTON — A local environmental group called for an independent environmental assessment of a proposed development on Bath Road.

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In a split, 3-2 decision, the city’s planning committee voted last week in favour of the staff recommendation to approve zoning bylaw and official plan amendments for a development at the mouth of Collins Creek.

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The amendments still have to go before city council for final approval later this month.

The development proposal from developers Armitage Homes Ltd. and Arcadis and property owners Frances H. Day, Clark Day and Robert R. Kennedy would include 41 single detached houses, 66 double-stacked townhouses and 120 triple-stacked townhouses, along with private roads, surface parking areas, private open space and a protected naturalized buffer adjacent to the creek.

No Clearcuts Kingston, members of which spoke in opposition of the development at last week’s meeting, wants the proposed development to undergo an environmental assessment before it is approved.

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The group said the properties included in the proposal have 750 mature trees and hundreds of younger, smaller trees that are not inventoried.

“This is a vital connecting piece of the Collin’s Creek watershed — Kingston’s last remaining intact natural heritage corridor,” Kerry Hill of No Clearcuts Kingston stated. “The woodland at risk is ecologically significant based on its function as a wildlife corridor connecting Lake Ontario and provincially significant wetlands, woodlands and valley lands that extend to rural areas north of Highway 401.”

Any environmental assessment should be conducted by an agency financially independent of the project and city. Environmental assessments are often paid for by the developer, and the results of the study are often seen as suspect by environmental advocates.

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“It has been well documented in academic literature that a financial conflict of interest can affect research outcomes,” No Clearcuts Kingston’s Kathleen O’Hara added. “Consultants providing favourable results to developers tend to be the companies that are repeatedly contracted. It is a flawed system that is difficult, time consuming and costly for the public and elected officials to contest.”

An independent environmental assessment would be consistent with the city’s 2019 declaration of a climate emergency and the Montreal Pledge to protect biodiversity that city council adopted last month, the environmental group stated.

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