[waterloowarrior]

City gives up fight to stop Kanata hotel

No expert would take case after city staff OK’d plan

BY PATRICK DARE, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMARCH 10, 2009 11:35 PM


OTTAWA-The city’s plan to fight a hotel development in Kanata became a humbling retreat Tuesday when it couldn’t hire an expert to argue the case.

City council’s planning and environment committee voted to abandon its opposition to a hotel at 160 Hearst Way, just south of the Queensway.

City planners had actually backed the development, saying the area is supposed to be part of the Kanata town centre, with a mix of commercial enterprises. The planners pointed out that the address is near major roads and within 600 metres of the Eagleson Transitway station.

The planners concluded the hotel was “appropriate” and “compatible” with surrounding neighbourhoods.

Neighbours disagreed and fought the developer, Arnon Corp., which is selling the land to a private investor who owns other hotels. Residents of the Arbour Glen neighbourhood especially opposed a hotel because of the increased traffic it would create and over concern that a possible site for light industry would be lost.

The councillor for the area, Peggy Feltmate, agreed with the neighbours’ objections and won support from council to reject the development. The grounds for that decision were that the hotel would create “inappropriate traffic” in a residential neighbourhood, a hotel would be more appropriate on the other side of the Queensway, and the development would not generate enough jobs.

Arnon Corp. appealed the decision to the Ontario Municipal Board, which can overrule city planning decisions, and a hearing was scheduled to start March 31.

But the city had a familiar problem: It could not have its planners argue the case before the municipal board, since the planners disagreed with council.

So the city tried to hire an independent planning consultant to argue the case but could not find one willing to take it on.

Councillors were warned that they might be placing the city at risk of having to pay the developer’s costs, if the municipality fails to present evidence or adequately prepare for a hearing before the board.

The planning committee voted to abandon the fight, with Feltmate dissenting. She still believes council took the right position and that the city’s planners took the wrong position. She said that another hotel nearby in Kanata has shown that truck and car traffic at all hours of night is troublesome for the neighbourhood and a hotel would be better placed beside the Centrum shopping centre north of the Queensway.

But Knoxdale-Merivale Councillor Gord Hunter said the case shows how city councillors need to more closely scrutinize the claims of residents who are opposed to developments. He said council does residents no favours when it sides with them, but without the evidence to back up claims of traffic problems and lower property values.

Hunter said independent planning consultants aren’t interested in taking weak cases that have little planning merit. He said neighbours’ hypothetical concerns about developments don’t last long at a municipal board hearing. And the city places itself at risk of large cost awards should any action ever be deemed frivolous.

Michael Casey, a vice-president of Arnon Corporation, said it “speaks volumes” that the city could not find a planner willing to be hired to argue the case.

Casey said that councillors should be prepared to base decisions on professional advice, rather than spending tax money on hired consultants — and risking cost awards — at the Ontario Municipal Board. He said it costs developers between $25,000 and $45,000 to wage such a fight

Casey said he could understand the local councillor opposing developments when there’s strong neighbourhood opposition, but the rest of council needs to “look at the bigger picture.”

Arnon recently won another development fight at the municipal board over a proposed rezoning of land at Merivale Road and Burris Lane. City council, with heavy pressure from neighbours, decided to not allow a restaurant at the site and the company appealed the decision.

The municipal board member hearing the case ruled that there are lots of restaurants in the area, so the business would fit well into the neighbourhood and would meet the city’s stated goal of intensification, which means redeveloping existing urban land.

“Residents did not provide any empirical and documentary evidence to support their position that the proposal would have an adverse impact on pollution, noise, smell, garbage and sewage,” said the member, M.G. Sommers, adding that the existing zoning — which would allow an office building — would generate more traffic than a restaurant would generate.

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