Zorra Township approves ‘largest development’ in its history at site of former food processing plant

A 1,000-home subdivision is coming to the property of the former Maple Leaf Foods processing plant in Thamesford, CTV London's Bryan Bicknell has the details.

It’s being touted as the largest development in Zorra Township’s history.

Township council has approved a 1,000-home subdivision on the property of the former Maple Leaf Foods processing plant in Thamesford, which was shuttered in 2018.

It means the town is about to get a whole lot bigger – something resident Gerry Rodrigue said he’s apprehensive about.

“It’s losing its small-town vibe I believe, but I mean I think we do need to grow a little bit,” said Rodrigue.

Wayne Cameron, who worked at the former plant, said he wasn’t sorry to see the old factory torn down, but he’s not too keen on what’s replacing it either.

“I’d rather see the woods and the forests there than the houses, but what can you do right,” said the former plant employee.

According to Zorra Township’s mayor, the new community within the community will consist of mixed-use housing, commercial, and recreation.

“The primary concern was young people who grew up in our community and want to stay there but don’t have housing types they can afford or even get. And the flip side of that is elderly people who live in a house, they are over-housed. They live in a four-bedroom house. There’s only two of them now. They don’t want to plow a driveway; they don’t want to cut grass. But they don’t want to move away from all their organic supports and community supports,” explained Mayor Marcus Ryan.

The township bought the property in 2019 and sold it to Burlington-based developer Kingwood Homes. Phase one of the project is already complete, with 115 newly constructed street-fronting town homes on Middleton Street, most of which are already occupied. The second phase proposes 18 single detached dwellings, 660 townhomes, and 372 low rise apartment buildings in seven units.

Long time Thamesford resident and local business owner Darrell Dobbie said he has mixed feelings about the rate of growth the small town may be about to undergo.

“So, we like to see progress. Unfortunately, small towns are dying. So, we like to see some increase in population. Yet, we don’t want the big city problems that come with it,” said Dobbie.

Ryan conceded feedback has been both positive and negative.

“There’s a lot of concern, like you said, ‘How is this going to affect our town? What is it going to be like? Are the services that we are going to need going to be there?’ My answer to that is, ‘Yes,’ all of those things. This has been the intention of township council all along, that this would be a complete community complement to the existing village, and to the village that it’s going to become,” he stated.

The project also includes a proposal for a new elementary school.

The development is expected to take several years to build out, said Ryan.