Brighton Mayor Mark Walas during a planning committee meeting on April 11, 2016. (Photo: David Foot / Quinte News)
Brighton’s planning committee dealt with a number of residential re-zonings and some other issues last night, which still have to be approved by council.
Here’s the wrap-up:
Doctor recruitment decision added last minute
Even though it wasn’t on the agenda to start, Brighton councillors moved ahead with plans to bring at least one new doctor to town.
Councillor Roger McMurray added a motion to establish a doctor recruitment budget of $100,000 and form a committee, which would help bring in a new physician.
McMurray says along with the money, bringing new doctors to the municipality will rely heavily on what happens to services at Trenton Memorial Hospital.
Mayor Mark Walas agreed that the money won’t be enough and they need to look around to see what other ideas are working elsewhere.
Due to a lack of interest in a committee made up of local healthcare professionals, it was decided Brighton’s committee of the whole will oversee the recruitment process instead.
Councillors decided to add the item to the agenda, in hopes of quickly replacing a long-time physician who is retiring.
Old house to be replaced
Brighton Council is moving ahead with plans to fix up a run-down building on Main Street.
Sitting as planning committee last night, councillors agreed to allow a developer to tear down the old house at 86 Alice Street and replace it with a new two-storey building, which is proposed to have a medical clinic on the ground floor and two apartments on the second.
Mayor Mark Walas says the developer will also make sure the building fits in with its surroundings.
A resident who lives near the building had concerns about a ten-space parking lot interfering with some mature trees on-site, but all sides agreed to shrink the lot to eight spaces to protect them.
A site plan still has to be approved, so there’s no word on when the work will start.
Tim Horton’s taking shape
Brighton councillors got an update on plans to put a Tim Horton’s in the No Frill’s plaza on Elizabeth Street.
A traffic management study, detailed design plan and other zoning requirements are all complete and a vote on the plan will likely come next month.
The plan sees the restaurant built in the northwest corner of the parking lot and will include a dual-lane drive-thru and small seating area.
Edgewater Road work schedule
Brighton’s planning committee has approved a construction plan for work on Edgewater Drive.
After requesting developer Noel Management Limited make revisions to a proposal from earlier this year, councillors approved the plan which would be finished by August of this year, if it gets started by mid-March and there are no major hiccups.
The developer is estimating six weeks for land surveys and concrete designs, three weeks for tender and then six weeks of construction.
