A petition against the recent garage and garden suites bylaw was presented to Strathmore Town Council at the Wednesday (Sept. 18) meeting.
Amendments to Bylaw No. 24-14 were passed on the July 3 Town Council meeting, with resident Claude Brown appearing to voice his disapproval of the bylaw, which would allow 20 per cent of Strathmore homes to build garage and garden suites.
Brown decided to start the petition, which had received a total of 626 signatures by the time it was delivered to the town on August 30. At the recent meeting, Brown was present to hear town council's decision.
"The Facebook survey that was done over two years ago that was the basis and justification for this bylaw had one-third of our signatures, and none of those people are verifiable as having lived in town," Brown said to council at the meeting.
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However, despite Brown's efforts, the petition was not signed by 10 per cent of the population, which means that the petition isn't considered sufficient. Because of this, the town will not be repealing the garage and garden suites bylaw.
"The idea of having garage and garden suites came from a place of us being incredibly worried about the lack of housing for people in the town," said Mayor Pat Fule. "The other thing I hope people realize is that this isn't going to happen willy-nilly. We're not just rezoning things."
Councillor Jason Montgomery thanked Brown for bringing the petition to their attention and for the work he put into getting signatures.
"What you did is one of the checks and balances that keeps our democracy functioning in a somewhat healthy way. We need to be second-guessed. We need to be questioned," said Montgomery.
Despite the bylaw not being repealed, Brown continues to update a Facebook group he created about the petition. The outline for the bylaw is also available for the public to see on the Town of Strathmore's website.