Meeting called over escarpment condo project
http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...-condo-project
A prominent community activist is raising concerns about a proposed condominium development at the former Sportsman’s Lanes site and has helped organize a meeting for Monday night.
Brenda Mitchell, former president of the Stinson Community Association, has arranged the meeting with developer Ron Van Kleef and city staff at the Central Memorial Recreation Centre, 93 West Ave. S. The meeting gets under way at 7 p.m.
Mitchell is now chair of Committed to Responsible Escarpment Development Committee, which is hosting the meeting. She says it consists of “six people who have been working on this for a year. It’s just a group of residents.”
Van Kleef, president of Hamilton Cab, is proposing a $20-million project for 467 Charlton Ave. E., just below the Niagara Escarpment and west of Wentworth Street South and the entrance to the Escarpment Rail Trail.
It is proposed to have 153 units in three, six-storey buildings.
Mitchell said Sportsman’s Lanes, a once popular bowling alley, was bought by Van Kleef in 1998. It is the depot for his cab company, a limousine company and ambulances used by Ontario Patient Transfer.
Councillor Jason Farr, who will also attend the Monday night meeting, says Van Kleef is submitting a rezoning application to the city after meeting with staff over the last year to answer questions about the project. He wants to rezone the site to residential from light industry.
Van Kleef could not be reached for comment.
Mitchell, who has been involved in such issues as GO trains parking on the CP line behind her Alanson Street home, just north of the condo site, said the project raises many questions, including impact on roads, the environment, noise, quality of life, and the view of the escarpment.
“It’s not that we are against or for it,” Mitchell said Friday night. “Nothing in neighbourhood planning is in black and white. We’re not saying, ‘Go away.’ We’re saying, ‘What’s in everybody’s best interest?”
Farr, who supports the project, terming it “a development in a developing neighbourhood,” believes the developer and city staff will be able to answer all of Mitchell and her group’s concerns.
He says, however, he does not have “a massive sense of protest” against the project. He notes a light industrial project could rise on the site.
Mitchell could not say how many will attend the meeting. She wouldn’t be as “generous” as Farr in his description of support for the project and said, “I would say quite a few residents are quite angry.”