W9 Matt Millar

May 10, 2026

Lambeth lost a school in 2010. The City approved 31 townhouses where it stood.

Last June I wrote a piece on my Substack (The Proposed 4402 Colonel Talbot Road Development: Why It Undermines Lambeth’s Future, June 30, 2025) about a rezoning application at 4402 Colonel Talbot Road. The proposal was a 31 unit, three storey cluster townhouse development on a Lambeth cul-de-sac, on the site of the former M.B. McEachren Primary School. I wrote it because the rezoning was on its way through the system and Lambeth deserved a clear, sourced argument against it before the decision came down.

On November 12, 2025, the Planning and Environment Committee approved the recommendation five to nothing (Lewis, Hillier, Peloza, Lehman, Cuddy). On November 25, 2025, the by-laws (Bills 413 and 427) passed three readings at Municipal Council unanimously by voice vote in a consent block, 14 to 0 each time. Our current Ward 9 councillor did not object, did not abstain on the record, and did not request a recorded vote.

What the rezoning permits, per the City’s own staff report (OZ-25101): 31 units, three storeys, 11.0 metres tall, 40 units per hectare. Access onto Marianna Drive. Sanitary servicing through a private easement on the property to the south, owned by the same family of landowners as the development site.

What our current councillor said in July, before she signed off in November

In July 2025, our current Ward 9 councillor spoke to CBC London about a different Lambeth file, the 6309 Pack Road / Southside proposal. The on-record quotes from that interview (CBC, July 14, 2025):

“I’m so disappointed. It’s great to see all this intensification, but we don’t need this [much] intensity.”

“Our schools and our parks and our amenity spaces are going to be so far behind.”

Four months later, at the Planning and Environment Committee meeting on November 12, she addressed the 4402 file directly. Her remarks are recorded on the public meeting transcript:

“I appreciate what we can and can’t do within our policies. I will be supporting the policies. They, the London policies do support this kind of infill. And, but I do think we really need to take a good look at how we move around. Mariana, if this application is going to move forward.”

That sentence is the hinge. She made it sound like the London Plan required her to vote yes. It did not.

The London Plan does not require a yes vote on this. It would have supported a no.

The London Plan is the City’s own description of what it is planning for: in the City’s own published words, “vibrant, healthy, safe and fulfilling neighbourhoods, attractive and viable mobility alternatives and affordable housing that is accessible to those who need it.”

My June Substack post worked through 4402 against those exact commitments, one by one, using the Plan’s own language. The summary:

  • “Healthy, safe and fulfilling neighbourhoods.” Lambeth Public School is on a TVDSB enrolment cap. New families are being redirected to other schools. Adding 31 households across from that school without a school board letter on file does not advance the commitment. It contradicts it.
  • “Attractive and viable mobility alternatives” and “safe and well-connected” neighbourhoods. Marianna Drive has no sidewalks. Multiple residents on the public record describe Marianna as where their children walk to school. Routing the 68-vehicle development access onto that street, after staff at PEC confirmed there are no sidewalks, is not the Plan being honoured. It is the Plan being invoked while being walked past.
  • Community character, the Plan’s commitment to “conserve cultural heritage.” A site that used to be the second of two Lambeth public elementary schools, sold off after the school board declared it surplus, then approved for 31 three-storey townhouses, is the opposite of conserving the character residents say they moved to Lambeth for.

The Plan is a framework. It says yes to good growth and gives councillors the language to say no to growth that fails the Plan’s own tests. Our councillor read the Plan as binding her to yes. The Plan does not bind her to yes. It gives her every tool she needed to vote no.

She had this argument in writing, in time. I emailed the Substack post directly to Councillor Hopkins after I published it on June 30, 2025. Four and a half months later, on November 12, she stood at PEC and said the London policies left her no choice. The argument that those same policies pointed the other way had been in her inbox since the summer. She did not engage with it. She voted with the application.

Two weeks later the by-laws cleared three readings at Council unanimously. The applicant was Lambeth Health Organization Inc., and 4402 sits on what used to be a public elementary school.

Fifteen years. Four dates. Read them in order.

Back the camera up. The 4402 file is not one decision in November. It is the last step in a sequence the City has been walking for fifteen years without ever asking Lambeth if we agreed.

2010. M.B. McEachren Primary School in Lambeth ceases operation. The staff report for OZ-25101 confirms this directly: “the subject lands were historically known as McEachren Primary School which ceased operation in 2010.” Lambeth goes from two public elementary schools to one.

2015. The City rezones the closed school site, in part for a medical use. The staff report confirms a June 2015 zoning amendment.

2023. The Thames Valley District School Board announces enrolment capping at Lambeth Public School, effective January 1, 2024. New families on the west side of Wonderland Road get redirected to Westmount Public School. New families east of Wonderland (and in Liberty Crossing) get redirected to Princess Elizabeth Public School. The board’s own news release dates this September 27, 2023.

2025. City Council approves a 31 unit townhouse rezoning on the site of the closed school. The applicant is the same Lambeth Health Organization Inc. that holds the medical use next door. Sanitary servicing runs through their adjacent property by easement. The school board is not circulated for comment. School capacity is dismissed in section 4.6 of the staff report.

Read those four dates in order. The school board closed one of Lambeth’s two elementary schools. The land was sold. The City rezoned the site, twice, and then approved 31 households on it. The only remaining public elementary school in Lambeth is on a TVDSB enrolment cap with new families being sent away.

What the staff report says about schools

This is the entirety of how the City’s own staff report engages with Lambeth’s school capacity question, verbatim from section 4.6:

“Other infrastructure concerns related to the school’s capacity and the community centre being undersized is outside of the scope of this application.”

One sentence. No letter from TVDSB or LDCSB in the agency comments. No enrolment data. No referral to a school board for comment. The school board imposed an enrolment cap on Lambeth Public School in 2023. The City approved 31 households across from that school in 2025 and called the question of where those households’ children will go to school “outside of the scope of this application.”

At PEC on November 12, our current councillor asked staff directly why seniors housing had not been considered for the site. The verbatim answer on the public transcript:

“Through the chair, as staff, we respond to the application that’s provided by the landowner. I think the question should be directed to the landowner and the preference of the townhouses versus a seniors home.”

That is the planning system as actually run. The applicant proposes. Staff respond. The question of what Lambeth actually needs lives outside the scope of any one application.

What residents told the City, in writing, on the public record

Thirteen public responses are recorded in the staff report. The full text of every submission is bound into the appendix of OZ-25101. These are not my paraphrases. They are direct quotes from real Lambeth residents whose written letters are on the City’s own file.

Shadi wrote to the City on September 22, 2025:

“Our community infrastructure is already strained. Roads are congested, schools are stretched, and our community centre is undersized compared to other parts of the city. Adding this many new households will only worsen the problem without any real plan to expand capacity.”

Stephanie, the same day:

“Our family made the choice to return to Lambeth from a busier part of London precisely because of the sense of community, the quiet streets, and the feeling of safety here… A large condominium complex with an entrance off a quiet suburban street would stand in stark contrast to that tradition.”

Jaime, a 45 year resident of Lambeth:

“Lambeth was known for its small town charm and now it’s becoming over crowded, we have all had to put up with the extra homes and units but this is very upsetting and I am very concerned with the amount of traffic that will be coming from Marianna to get onto the main roads.”

Barbara, who has lived on the street for 36 years:

“There are no sidewalks along Marianna Drive, nor the immediate streets surrounding Marianna Drive, which the new traffic will travel in and out of the community. The proposed site has spaces for 68 vehicles. This represents a considerable increase in vehicular traffic along Marianna Drive. The increase, in front of my house, is approximately 17 fold.”

Nancy, addressing the planning committee:

“It is apparent that this proposal has been prepared to provide a maximum return on investment without effective consideration for the community it will reside in.”

Mary Jane, in a bulleted letter to staff and the councillor:

“Potentially 60 children. Which school will they attend?”

That question, in writing, in the City’s own file, was answered by section 4.6: “outside of the scope of this application.”

Seven Lambeth residents also showed up in person on November 12 and delegated against the application: Josie, Barbara, Dean (the property manager for the Lambeth seniors housing complex), Lynn, Nancy, Lisa, and Nina. The committee voted 5-0 to recommend the rezoning to Council anyway.

The sidewalk amendment was theatre

At the November 12 committee meeting, our current councillor brought forward an amendment to the rezoning recommendation. From the transcript:

“As we heard loud and clear that the safety of the street needs to be maintained for traffic and pedestrians, and there are no sidewalks on Mariana… I would like to have an add on that civic administration, if the committee is going to support this application, that is be directed to reassess the need and timing of the sidewalks along Mariana drive.”

Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis raised a point of order. His response, paraphrased in the transcript:

“The appropriate place to make an amendment for Mariana drive would be at council on the CPSC report. I’m happy to actually support the Councillor at council. If she wants to bring that forward there, I don’t think however, it’s appropriate to tie it to a specific planning application.”

Hopkins:

“Mr. Chair, I’ll withdraw.”

Two weeks later at Council, on November 25, she repackaged the same wording as an amendment to a different agenda item, the Lambeth Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan (item 8.1.11), on a separate file from the 4402 rezoning. The motion text on the public record:

“the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to reassess the timing of the Marianna Drive sidewalk implementation in coordination with proposed residential development at 4402 Colonel Talbot Road.”

That amendment passed 15-0, with her own vote. It does not block the rezoning. It commits no funding. It directs staff to “reassess timing” on a sidewalk plan that already exists in the City’s connectivity backlog. Bills 413 and 427, the actual 4402 rezoning by-laws, passed minutes later in the same meeting, unanimously by voice vote, with no recorded objection from any councillor.

What is not in the staff report

The most useful thing about reading the report front to back is what isn’t in it.

  • No school board letter. Neither TVDSB nor LDCSB was circulated for comment. The school board capped enrolment at the only remaining public Lambeth elementary school two years before this application was filed, and the City did not seek their input on the rezoning.
  • A density override. The Southwest Area Secondary Plan caps Low Density Residential development at 30 units per hectare. This application is approved at 40. The override is in the by-law on a site-specific basis.
  • Sanitary servicing through a private easement. The site has no direct sanitary sewer connection on Marianna Drive. Servicing runs through the property to the south, the Lambeth Health Organization parcel. Same family of landowners. The easement is recommendation (c)(iii) of the staff report.

What this is really about

Lambeth is not anti-housing. Every resident quoted above wrote in to ask for thoughtful, density-appropriate development. The objection is to a process that closed a school, sold the site, dropped 31 households on it, and dismissed the question of what happens to those households’ children in one sentence of a planning report.

4402 is one file. It is also a symptom. The recurring shape is this: staff make a recommendation, residents make the case against it, the councillor voices concerns, and the councillor signs off anyway. That pattern has played out on file after file under our current representation.

What 4402 illustrates is the response Lambeth needed and did not get. The London Plan is not a one-way ratchet that forces a yes. It is a set of commitments that residents can hold the City to. When the councillor’s reflex is to fold at the mere mention of the Plan, residents, and our community itself, pay the price. The job at the council table is to read the staff report, bring the receipts when the policies are invoked against the community, and use the City’s own tools against bad applications. Not to surrender without a fight.

When I wrote about 4402 last June, I did it because Lambeth deserved someone who would put the story on the record before the vote, in the City’s own language, and email it directly to the councillor in time for her to act on it. The committee and Council went the other way. That tells you something about who has been listening for the last term, and who has not.

On October 26, 2026, Ward 9 picks a councillor again. The standard must be the one Lambeth did not get this time: read the report, take the residents’ questions seriously, bring the receipts, and represent the will of the community.

Primary sources cited in this piece (all public records):

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