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With the backdrop the beginning of a debate that will shape how London grows and who will pay for it, city council put off making a decision last night on a plaza proposed for Fanshawe Park Road East.
Council voted to put off going ahead with an environmental assessment that would be a required first step toward building a plaza on the northwest corner of Fanshawe and Highbury Avenue.
The delay came despite a deal seemingly hammered out last week between city staff and developer Tony Marsman that would have given him approval to take a first step toward building a 9.3-hectare plaza that would be about as large as the Costco plaza on Wonderland Road north of Oxford Street.
The assessment would cost $200,000 but that sum is less at issue than the process that would follow it.
City staff say they had planned to improve the intersection in 2010 and to widen to four lanes the two major roads in 2015, the dates lagging well behind what Marsman wants.
Marsman, who also owns Rembrandt Homes, says interested retailers are lined up and would be ready to move in next year, including one who could employ as many as 150 full-time and 100 part-time workers.
The plaza would produce $1.68 million a year in tax revenue, said Marsman's partner, Bob Traher of Charcomp Development Inc.
But city staff say they don't have the money in their capital budgets to do much road work.
In the past, London council did two or three major roadworks each year but now can afford one major project every three years, road director Dave Leckie told council.
Deputy mayor Tom Gosnell agreed to the deferral but did so saying he wanted action in two weeks, a request that bothered Coun. Nancy Branscombe.
"I'm not sure what the rush to judgment is," Branscombe said.
City Engineer Pete Steblin has said developers must resign themselves to slower growth or pick up a greater share of the costs.
For major roadwork taxpayers now pay 54 per cent while developers pick up the rest.
With Steblin away yesterday, council agreed to defer the decision on the environmental assessment, with only controller Bud Polhill and Coun. Roger Caranci in opposition.
Branscombe also questioned why city staff negotiated over the environmental assessment with a lobbyist for developers, the London Development Institute, with no one from the public, such as the Urban League, at the table.
"We need someone representing the public interest other than development industry," she said.
How to split the costs of growth is but one difficult issue council is wrestling when it comes to development.
Council must also decide what to do with its urban works reserve fund, a fund unique to London, once bailed out by taxpayers and one questioned recently by a panel of experts.
That panel will appear before council March 1.