[thistleclub]

Burlington feels development pressure
(Hamilton Spectator, Joan Little, Oct 23 2014)

Development in Burlington has been intensifying, but when does intensification become overintensification?

Today's game plan is for developers to apply for, say 20 storeys, so citizens feel they've won when the developer settles for 16, which was wanted all long.

Adi Developments is proposing a 28-storey condo, with 226 suites, on less than a third of an acre, on the small parking lot on the northwest corner of Lakeshore and Martha, on the fringe of downtown. To its west is a one-storey medical building, and to its north, a small home and new three-floor units. I live nearby.

One gentleman at the Oct. 9 neighbourhood meeting, attended by more than 100 people, asked what they really wanted. The answer was 28 storeys.

The site is so small it needs eight parking levels to provide 218 parking spaces — only 77 per cent of the required 283 tenant spaces. Parking standards downtown are the lowest in the city. By my calculation the proposed development would need about 393 spaces elsewhere, but wouldn't qualify anyway because the lot is too small.

Adi proposes five underground parking levels (a water table issue remains to be addressed), ground-floor retail, then three above-ground parking floors. Condos start on the fifth floor.

One astute observer noted that the depicted building appeared to encroach into the air space beyond their land, and asked if that was allowed. Planning director Bruce Kushelnicki stated that if that was the case, permission would be required. It would be addressed in the planning report.

He stressed that this was an information-gathering meeting. The planning department has not taken a position, and was there to hear concerns. The meeting was being held now because if a developer doesn't get an answer within 180 days (regardless of how complex the file is), it can take the city to the OMB, as Adi did on a recent application. Council will likely take its position in March.

Burlington's official plan (OP) allows a maximum of eight storeys through rezoning, providing "they are compatible with surrounding land use, and provide a sense of pedestrian scale." Mayor Rick Goldring told The Spectator he believes the OP is right in this area, and had said at the Ward 2 debate that he could not support that intensity there.

A 22-storey condo approved years ago south of the Lakeshore, not built yet, is to be the city's "landmark" building, Goldring said; so others should be subordinate. I was unable to find one higher than 17 storeys.

Read it in full here.