A lot of land, quick decisions made over planners’ objections and a vote that danced around the rules.

That combination is fuelling the strong possibility the largest development plan in London’s history is going to be challenged at the Ontario Municipal Board.

“It’s a fairly large, intensive area to do a new zoning bylaw on, so there will be appeals,” developer Vito Frijia, president of Southside Group, said Friday.

“We think it’s too much commercial,” added Frijia, whose holdings could be affected by the plan. “We’re waiting for the bylaw to come out. We haven’t really decided what to do.”

Developers are angry over how decisions were made and the lack of details about financing and servicing in the plan, former city engineer John Jardine said.

“I think there is a lot of frustration on the part of developers and others at the way this is going forward. Definitely, there will be appeals.”

City council may have opened the door even wider to an appeal by dancing around its own procedural rules when it voted to approve the plan, said Ward 8 Coun. Paul Hubert. “That is something that may very well be challenged at the Ontario Municipal Board,” he said.

At issue is the so-called Southwest Area Plan, the last great tract of largely undeveloped land in the city, a coveted 1,000-hectare final frontier for the developers who built up suburban London.

After two years of wrangling, council approved the plan Oct. 30.

The major north-west artery of Wonderland is already a rich vein for developers and will become even more so if the road is linked to Hwy. 401 in the south.

Based on community consultation, city planners proposed modest expansion south of the existing big-box commercial zone on Wonderland.

Amid persistent requests from developers who own land on the southern edges of Wonderland, council overrode planning recommendations and pushed to extend that commercial zone south.

At a June 26 meeting, council voted to create a so-called enterprise zone on Wonderland as far south as Exeter Rd. that would allow all kinds of development, including commercial.

But two more developers with land south of Exeter asked for the same designation. Planning committee OK’d that version, which went to council Oct. 30 for a final vote.

Suddenly, adding more land to the enterprise zone was a reconsideration of an already-decided matter of council, meaning it needed two-thirds of the votes to go ahead, Hubert said.

“A boundary is a boundary,” he argued.

Mayor Joe Fontana, who first suggested the creation of the enterprise zone in June, asked the city clerk for advice.

The clerk told Fontana the vote was a reconsideration of an earlier council decision and needed two-thirds support.

But Fontana argued it was understood the extension included land south of Exeter Road. As chair of the meeting, he had final say.

“I’m going to rule that it is not a reconsideration,” Fontana said.

A challenge to that decision lost, with Fontana’s usual allies and opponents lined up on their usual sides, and the plan was later approved.

randy.richmond@sunmedia.ca