Planning committee rejects Wellington West condo proposal, despite community support
By Michael Woods, Ottawa Citizen May 13, 2014
It was a rare sight at city hall: Citizens packing a meeting room and imploring the city’s planning committee to approve a luxury condo tower in their neighbourhood.
Councillors spent hours hearing members of the public ask them to approve a 12-storey development at the corner of Wellington Street and Island Park Drive, a proposal city staff recommended they reject.
The community support wasn’t enough for the councillors, who sided with city staff and voted 6-3 to reject the proposal, by Mizrahi Developments, which is three storeys higher than the area’s community design plan calls for.
“(The residents) were very disappointed,” said Coun. Katherine Hobbs, in whose ward the proposed development lies. “They’re going, why did we spend all day here just to have our voices ignored?”
A disappointed Sam Mizrahi, the company president, said he feels “unprecedented public support” for his proposal wasn’t heard. He said the proposal was designed with the community’s input from the beginning. He had also overhauled his plans in hopes of securing support from city planners who rejected it the first time around.
Mizrahi said he’s going to appeal the matter to the Ontario Municipal Board. If he loses at the OMB, he will put the property back on the market.
The case presented the planning committee with a dilemma.
The Wellington West Community Design Plan, which council passed in 2011, calls for four-to six-storey buildings, typical for a historical main street, or nine storeys in exceptional circumstances.
But the properties at 1445 and 1451 Wellington St. W. are contaminated by past light-industrial uses. Mizrahi has said cleanup is expensive and development is only feasible on the site if the company can construct a taller building.
Many residents said they were willing to overlook the extra storeys because the building was designed with their other concerns in mind.
“For me, it comes down to should we listen to these residents who’ve come out here and presented today, or do we stick by the rules because suddenly we’ve discovered the rules?” said Coun. Rainer Bloess, who supported the proposal.
But planning committee chair Coun. Peter Hume, who has previously spoken out against the proposal, said that it was time the city abide by the CDP, which is supposed to bring certainty to the community.
“It’s critically important that we live up to the CDPs we’ve put in place,” he said. “People are now looking to us to say, Do you really believe in this? I think it’s time to say, Yes, we believe in what we’re saying. We’re willing to draw the line in the sand here.”
Councillors also expressed concerns about a decision being used against the city at future OMB hearings if they were to contravene the community design plan.
Six councillors voted against the development, with only three, Hobbs, Bloess and Jan Harder, voting in favour. The nay voters made their decision despite full-throated support from neighbours and community leaders.
Speaker after speaker, many of whom had never before spoken at city hall, extolled the proposal’s beauty and praised Mizrahi’s engagement with neighbours in 25 community meetings.
The first speaker, whose home backs on to the property, received raucous applause from the audience, who were then told not to cheer or boo. The next speaker, who owns the gas station across the street, offered his “full and unreserved endorsement.”
The speaker after that, longtime Island Park resident Roland Dorsay, called it a ‘wow’ development.
“Is the Mizrahi proposal a perfect one? No, but it comes close. … When I weigh the pros and the cons, it’s no contest.”
And on they went, for hours. Councillors marvelled at the rarity of people speaking out so forcefully in favour of a 12-storey tower.
“It is a day of firsts,” said Hume after a woman whose home directly backs on to the property asked the committee to approve the new highrise.
The woman, Kathleen Fildes, said Mizrahi was “extremely attentive to the concerns and wishes of the local property owners.
“I wish that all developers would be forced to adopt this approach across the city going forward,” she said.
Support for the proposal wasn’t unanimous.
Catherine James-McGuinty, president of the Wellington Village Community Association, said the “vast majority” of area residents welcome the new development but want it to stay within the nine-storey limit.
“We want to have predictable development in the neighbourhood.”
But Mizrahi was adamant he can’t afford to build at nine storeys.
“We went back to the drawing board. Every single time, I tried every single tool we had in our chest to make this building at nine storeys, including Day One when I came in. It is impossible,” he said. “That’s not me saying that. That’s history.”
Several other developers have tried to build on the site, but have found it to be unfeasible, he said.
Hume commended Mizrahi in his dealings with the community, saying he has provided a model for consultation.
“There are a whole bunch of developers in the room and they should be taking notes on how consultation should be,” he said.
But Mizrahi said he thinks the committee’s rejection of the proposal sends a message that consultation with the community is irrelevant.
“I think this is the reason why most developers do not consult in the community, because they view it as futile. (The committee) proved that point today.”
With files from Matthew Pearson
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