Builder wins 11-storey Stoney Creek condo battle
‘Very disappointed’ Coun. Maria Pearson criticizes density, parking
https://www.thespec.com/local-stoney...do-battle.html
A developer has won its fight against the city over plans for an 11-storey condominium building across the road from Cenotaph Park in Stoney Creek.
A Feb. 8 decision by the Ontario Land Tribunal approves the necessary zoning changes to make way for the 148-unit building at 325 Hwy. 8, located at the northwest corner of Ellington Avenue.
The ruling ends a lengthy battle between the city and LJM Developments Inc. over the height of the building, originally proposed at 12 storeys in 2015, then revised to nine storeys a year later before being lowered to six.
The city approved the latter in 2017 and LJM opened a sales centre, marketing the 93-unit development as King’s Park Condominiums. But three years later, LJM submitted a new application for 11 storeys, contending a six-storey building was no longer viable.
It then appealed to the OLT after the city reject the changed plan for the 0.268-hectare lot.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Coun. Maria Pearson, who represents the area, citing concerns about added traffic and plan’s provision of 0.98 parking spaces per unit.
“I think I’m one of the more proactive councillors in terms of supporting development. This is the only one that I can ever recall that I couldn’t support the density on this particular piece of property.”
But John Ariens, land-use planning consultant for LJM, said via email the ruling acknowledges development will fit the neighbourhood.
“While we fully understand the concerns raised in opposition to this taller and more dense project, the evidence demonstrated that no adverse impact would be created and that a compatible interface with the surrounding area would result,” he said.
In his 29-page ruling, OLT member Kurtis Andrews said LJM and the city agreed the development’s noise, traffic and shadow impacts weren’t at issue.
But they disagreed on the impact to the character of the area, he said, which includes a seven-storey condo to the west, townhouses to the north, Lakeview Retirement Centre and Clarion Nursing Home to the east, and Cenotaph Park and St. Francis Xavier Church to the south.
Andrews said this left the primary questions of whether the plan “goes too far in terms of height and density, and if the revised layout and setbacks are otherwise appropriate.”
The city called a single witness — senior planner Tim Vrooman — while LJM called six, including Ariens and experts in urban design, architecture, acoustical engineering, landscape architecture and transportation planning.
Andrews accepted all the evidence from LJM’s consultants, siding with Ariens’ view that the development is “an appropriate form of redevelopment along a major arterial road” by a signalized intersection with crosswalks.
He also backed Ariens’ position on reducing the number of required parking spaces to 0.98 per unit, or 145 spaces, which includes 22 visitor spaces. That’s down from the 1.39 per unit, or 206 spaces, allowed by the six-storey plan.
Andrews accepted that LJM’s number is consistent with an LJM consultant’s parking demand analysis concluding one space per unit is enough.
“The city provided no evidence, in the form of a report or otherwise, to support the contention that the proposed number of parking spaces would not actually meet the demand of the proposed development,” his ruling stated.
Pearson said she doesn’t understand how the parking spaces will be adequate, even if Highway 8 is a major bus route and LJM says the condos will cater to young professionals, first-time homebuyers and empty nesters.
“I don’t believe all of them are going to be using transit, or even half of them,” she said. “You get more and more people that get four-by-four trucks. You try and put these trucks in some of these parking spaces today, good luck.”
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