Moments after city council passed the official community plan amendment to allow the proposed Northern Supportive Recovery Centre to proceed, opponents reaffirmed a commitment to explore a legal challenge.
"It's not about the women's recovery centre anymore, it's about the process," Haldi Road Committee member Laura Jagodnik said outside of council chambers. "It's been about the conflicts, it's been about the process, it's been about pushing something through that does not belong in a rural residential low density neighbourhood whose infrastructure will not support it."
Council passed a pair of motions by an 8-1 vote - Coun. Brian Skakun was the lone dissenter both times - to amend the community plan to allow for a residential women's therapeutic facility to be built at 5877 Leslie Road.
Skakun tried to have both motions postponed to a June 10 council meeting, but was unable to find a seconder among his council colleagues. The motions passed quickly, without any further debate.
"It didn't surprise us," Jagodnik said of the speedy passage. "Mr. Skakun wants some more debate on it, more discussion, but it seems the rest of council and the mayor don't want to discuss it any further."
Mayor Shari Green said she recognized it was a contentious issue in the community, but she believes council adequately weighed the land use issues surrounding the projects.
She's "quite confident" the city will be able to defend itself from any legal challenge, despite the fact a Supreme Court judge ruled a previous attempt to re-zone the property violated the community plan.
"If they choose to take that direction and spend the dollars to pursue a legal challenge, that's certainly their choice and their right," she said. "The city will protect itself and defend the position that it has taken all along. We feel that we've done things in the manner as judge outlined them in the original application, which was if you have a [community plan] amendment, you're not out of order."
One of the possible legal routes the Haldi Road Committee could pursue revolves around a possible conflict of interests Green has with someone involved in the project.
"We had concerns from the very beginning," Jagodnik said, noting her group has legal advice suggesting the mayor did breach conflict rules.
The conflict of interest issue stems from the first time the recovery centre matter was brought before council, when Green said she had developed a personal friendship with someone who was an employee of the applicant. However that employment situation changed before the issue came before council this time and Green said she has legal advice supporting her position that she's not in any conflict.
"I don't have a conflict of interest in the Haldi Road matter as the current application was presented to council," Green said. "I articulated that at the beginning of the process and I wanted to reiterate it again [Monday night] as the matter concluded to assure the community that I know what the rules of conflict of interest are."
With Monday's votes, council has paved the way for the recovery centre to go ahead. Green said what happens next is up to the proponents of the project.
"The re-zoning is done, the [community plan] amendment is done and now it's in the applicants hands to continue and pursue their project as they see fit," she said. "We'll wait to see what they do next."
