The sequel to the first virtual regular meeting of council in North Bay's history will be pushed back two weeks.
City of North Bay Communications Officer Gord Young confirms, "The May 5th meeting has been cancelled because there were only a few agenda items, which have been moved to the Council agenda for May 19th."
The April 21 regular meeting of council was hosted on the Zoom platform and streamed to the City of North Bay's YouTube channel.
Asked about conducting virtual meetings, City Clerk Karen McIsaac responded, "The provision allowing for electronic participation in meetings by members of Council was enacted specifically for meetings held during a declared emergency. The Information Systems department has been doing a great job facilitating electronic meetings and we haven’t encountered any challenges so far."
Young says, "The plan is to hold virtual meetings until the province lifts the restrictions on gatherings of more than five."
There will, however, be three separate virtual special committee meetings held over the next week, involving planning matters.
Up next for council, this Friday at noon, a planning meeting is scheduled for an existing property on Chippewa Street West, near the corner of Chippewa and Cassells Street. The property owners wish to convert the existing apartment building into condominium units.
The City’s Official Plan contains policies to "ensure that the removal of apartments from the community pool will not create a shortage of rental units and make it hard for renters to have sufficient housing choices."
Despite a recorded vacancy rate of 1.7 per cent in October 2018, below the threshold of three per cent, the figure is considered "out of the ordinary." Other than the outlier, Senior Planner Peter Carello writes in his report to council, the vacancy rate has been above three per cent since April 2015.
The draft recommendation is to grant draft approval for the plan of condominium and to place the subject property under site plan control under The Planning Act.
BayToday will also cover planning meetings set for Monday, May 11, and Tuesday, May 12. Both meeting begin at 5:15 p.m.