Last night at Public Planning, Council heard an application for 25 and 29 George St. asking for approval of a 4 story, 34 unit building . To better understand context of this application, it is helpful to understand a little history.
In 2015, an application for a 4-story building with 12 units at 29 George St. was unanimously approved. At that time, the feeling was this area was a good area for intensification due to its proximity to the downtown core. Last night’s application was presented as an adjustment to an already approved application, however, the applicant was asking to increase from 12 units to 34. With the significance of this increase, Council felt this needed to be evaluated as a completely new application.
While Council overall maintains this area is a good fit for intensification, the question always remains; how much do you intensify? As more intensification projects coming forward, we need to look at these applications in combination and not in isolation. For example, every time we see an application, we are told that a traffic study has been done and that the area can withstand the volume. Which may be true if we look at a single project, however, we need to look at the bigger picture and how multiple projects impact traffic, or add additional strain on our infrastructure to ensure that there is capacity for all projects anticipated for the area.
Last night, we asked staff to look at this application in combination with the new United Church and the possible development at the old Tannery site to ensure it fits our vision for the Downtown and the Promenade in 10, 15, 20 years. Council agree that this type of intensification will bring more residents to our downtown and be a vital part of the revitalization of our downtown core in building a complete community, but it needs to be done right.
Additionally, we regularly hear elected officials talk about needing more affordable housing, but we rarely see anything done. In fact, our Official Plan states in section 6.3 that “it is the requirement of this plan that a min of 25% of all new residential development meet the definition of affordable housing”. Based on this, people ask why we simply don’t force developments to include affordable units.
Last night Council directed staff to enforce this requirement on this application — and all applications moving forward. If we want to create affordable housing in our community, we need to utilize the tools available to us in our Official Plan.
Finally, Council moved that this application come back to a future Public Planning meeting after the applicant had had the opportunity to work with staff to address the changes Council has asked for. This motion passed unanimously.
