The following article appeared in the August 18 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
A controversial residential development that’s grown by more than twice its original size and may set the tone for future housing in the city is the focus of an Ontario Municipal Board hearing at city hall next week.
Northeast-side residents originally expected 47 stacked townhouse units at 15 Carere Cres. in the growing Victoriaview North subdivision near Woodlawn and Victoria roads, though they say builder Reid Homes is seeking to expand this to 118.
“That’s a really hard thing for residents to live with,” Ward 2 councillor Vicki Beard said Wednesday. “You can see where the conflict is there.”
But Beard said council threw its support behind the project, endorsed by its planning department, earlier this year because it conforms with Queen’s Park’s Places To Grow initiative to discourage urban sprawl by promoting more dense housing within communities.
She expects Places to Grow to affect future local developments in similar fashion.
“You’re going to see this quite a bit,” said Beard, who’s torn between the concerns of residents and the laudable anti-sprawl intentions of the provincial government.
‘It’s a really difficult situation. It’s hard to get a balance on that,” Beard said, noting the expectations and concerns of residents have to be weighed against the city’s planning process and Ontario’s evolving population growth management.
While Reid’s Homes couldn’t be reached for comment, the two-day hearing is set to begin at 10 a.m., on Aug. 26.
Though council endorsed the townhouse complex proposal, its committee of adjustment rejected variances to allow this to go ahead, resulting in the builder’s appeal to the OMB, a planning dispute resolution tribunal.
Adrian Renzetti, a leading member of the ad hoc By The Lake Neighbourhood Group, said there’s an equally important factor at issue here: fairness.
He said residents near 15 Carere Cres., like himself, were assured before they bought homes in that area several years ago that the site was earmarked for 47 townhouses, he said. Though zoning allowed for more homes, it wasn’t clear how many more, they anticipated at most a modest increase. They now face a considerably larger development than anyone expected, Renzetti said.
It’s his understanding there could be a maximum 96 townhouses (60 units per hectare on the 1.6 hectares there). “We’d be OK with that,” Renzetti said, adding anything more raises questions about excessive crowding and traffic congestion compromising the rural flavour of a neighbourhood on city outskirts, near a conservation area.
“We didn’t feel that was acceptable,” Renzetti, a father of two, said.
Neighbours also worry it will hurt property values. “People feel that way; I don’t know if it’s true.”
He’s awaiting the tribunal’s assessment of the plan.
“It’s pretty much up to the OMB,” Renzetti said.
Ontario’s 2007 Places To Grow Act curbs urban sprawl through growth limits and housing intensification.