Vrancor tweaks King West highrise plan amid dispute
Strathcona neighbourhood critic welcomes ‘step in the right direction’ but still opposes overall 25-storey proposal
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The pitch is still 25 storeys, but the plan for a disputed residential highrise just outside downtown Hamilton has shifted.
Vrancor has revised it so the mixed-use tower planned for a King Street West site steps down to 12 storeys closer to the low-rise homes behind it.
That’s “still really tall” but a “step in the right direction,” says Wayne MacPhail, a longtime resident on nearby Ray Street North and steady critic of the highrise plans.
“They should have done it sooner rather than just gaslighting us that it was a dandy project from the very beginning,” he added.
Vrancor, meanwhile, says the tweaks spring from a consultative relationship with city planners and community feedback.
“I think collaboration is good and compromise where it makes sense also is good, and I think that’s what you’re seeing here,” said Mario Frankovich, vice-president of investment and strategic planning.
Other changes for the 315-unit building include slimmer floor plates, room for a curving staircase at the King entrance and a commitment to make five per cent of the units on the site three-bedroom.
The project for the King Street parcel — which is hemmed in by Queen, Ray and Market streets — is under dispute before the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).
Late last year, Vrancor filed its appeal with the OLT under legislation that allows challenges for applications that city councils fail to handle within 120 days.
Frankovich said there was a “significant amount of conversation and collaboration” with city staff before Vrancor filed the appeal, but the application “came to an impasse where it needed to have some form of deadline provided.”
The 25-storey proposal — which adds 19 storeys to six storeys the city had approved previously — is to accompany a partially built 12-storey hotel at the corner of King and Queen on the same parcel.
The development, where an orphanage once stood across from the historic Scottish Rite on King, also includes some low-rise units, including two-storey townhouses on Market.
On a parking lot just to the north, Vrancor also hopes to construct two buildings that will reach 27 storeys and two others at 15 storeys.
MacPhail, who started a group called the Strathcona Shadow Dwellers to fight Vrancor’s plans, has argued they’re way too much for his mostly low-slung neighbourhood.
Residents have expressed concerns about potential traffic congestion, shadows, loss of privacy and a design they argue clashes with Strathcona’s heritage character.
Shifting the 12-storey step-down from the site’s southwest corner — which faces the busy King Street arterial and future LRT route — north toward the homes is positive, MacPhail said.
“But it’s not really addressing our main concern, which is the density of a 25-storey tower. That still becomes an issue.”
The city and its expert witnesses also contend the height is out of step with local zoning provisions and overarching planning policies.
At 25 storeys, the proposal “creates significant and cumulative adverse impacts” that the previous six-storey plan didn’t, “or even a taller mid-rise building ...” would present, planner Matt Reid wrote in witness statement for the city.
William Neal, an architect hired by the developer, opined the revised plan “will not negatively impact existing view corridors, but will enhance local fabric, support transit routes and offer greater variety of housing options in a growing neighbourhood.”
The OLT hearing is scheduled for late June.
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