Marcolongo says he was not notified of the change until the morning the staff report was released.

“It’s just a bit of a shock to us because we were notified on April 30 that staff wanted to meet with us to go over some of the changes, so we met May 2,” he said.

“We didn’t see the revised map until the morning of May 2.”

A news release announcing the proposed changes was issued by the city shortly after 4:30 p.m. that day.

According to the staff report, the reasoning behind the move comes down to stormwater management.

“With a more detailed understanding of the size and extent of required stormwater management areas, the community park is proposed to be located where a larger stormwater management area is required,” the report reads.

Stacey Laughlin, a senior policy planner with the city, said the city is looking at establishing what are known as dry stormwater ponds, which would only hold excess water during a storm before flowing off to another source.

“A lot of our stormwater management areas, there is like a wet or a pond component to it, which is not so good for, you know, having a picnic on. It's hard to have a picnic on water,” she said.

“So it's a bit unique to Clair-Maltby, that these are dry facilities that provide this opportunity.”

Asked about the plans to sell the land for affordable housing, Laughlin said the city is aware “that they plan to sell to a developer, but there’s nothing final about that.”

Laughlin added when city staff looked at moving the community park, they were looking at the Clair-Maltby area as a whole, rather than individual property owners.

“Our main idea is to take into consideration the natural constraints — the moraine, natural heritage system, all those types of things,” she said.

“We haven’t looked and said, ‘Oh, this should be on this property, that should be on that property.’ That’s not the approach we’ve taken in any way, shape or form.”

The land where the community park was originally slated to be built is owned by a numbered company that had previously filed an appeal against a cultural landscape heritage designation on the Marcolongo property.

That appeal was dropped earlier this year.

As for the new proposal for his property, Marcolongo questioned why council is being asked to decide between two main priorities when the original plan had room for both.

“Council is being asked to look at a trade off between a community park and affordable housing. It is unbelievable.”

The new preferred community structure, along with an update on the Clair-Maltby project, is coming to council’s May 13 meeting for approval. That meeting is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers at city hall.