By Pepper Parr

May 2nd, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

The community now knows what it is going to look like and they weren’t all that impressed with what they saw and heard at a neighbourhood meeting last night at the Lions Hall.

The questions were consistently critical with the president of Revenue Properties sitting quietly in a corner watching every movement, gauging the audience very carefully.

The architects prepared a rendering of there structure and shadowed in how it will relate to the already approved 423 Brant development. Both are on opposite sides of James Street across from city hall. The intention is to angle the corners of the of each building on the Brant James intersection allowing for an opening up to the Civic Square and a more expansive view. done right – it could work.

The architect did a decent job of explaining how the building was going to connect relate to the development to the already approved 23 storey on the north side of James and Civic square which was described as an underutilized space.

The design of the buildings will have a portion of one of the corners cut away so that the view from James Street opens up onto Civic Square. There really isn’t all that much traffic going west on James – but architecturally it could add some flair to the streetscape.

Civic Square will be getting a total face lift – mention was made of a community design exercise

Glen Wellings, the developer’s planning consultant, earned his fee – he managed to skirt around the issues that he was uncomfortable with. There was one occasion when Wellings tried to toss a question to one of the Revenue Property executives who waved Welling’s off. Those people tend not to answer directly – that’ what the hired guns are brought in for.

He explained that this first public showing of the development was meant to gather opinions and reactions from the public.

Most of the people in the room understood that – what they were having difficulty with was that their views didn’t seem to get very far beyond their mouths.

It is close to a given that this structure is going to get approved. If their developer doesn’t get that approval this development comes under the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) and not the newly created Land Planning Act Tribunal (LPAT).

The city staffer who served as moderator struggled to keep the microphone in her hand. George Ward, a resident of ward 4 wasn’t able to get it out of her hands.

At one point the Mayor and the ward 2 Councillor began to get into a slinging match over “facts” – Meed Ward arguing that the Mayor didn’t have his facts quite right.

When it began to get a little feisty the staffer cut them both off – not something you see from city hall staff very often.

Parking both in and out will be from John street. That parking ramp in the middle of the building makes for pretty small retail spaces. The scale of the set back, shown here in the upper left, gives you some idea as to how the building will open up on to Civic Square

Parking was a focal point – the development will have .92 parking spaces per unit (a total of 212 parking spots) in a structure that will have 224 units that will be 1, (600 sq. ft.) 2(850 sq. ft. and 3 bedroom with 1200 sq. ft. of space. Current planning rules call for 1.2 parking spaces for each unit. There will be no parking for the commercial spaces

Nothing on pricing.

No mention of park space.

There will be just one level of commercial space – those units will be very small but will ring the building.

No visitor parking.

Good bold design – quite a bit different than anything Burlington has seen in the past.

A major concern for several people was what will happen to Brant Street during construction – especially if the two projects are under construction at the same time.

It s a bold design that will have retail on all four sides of the building. But much less in the way of retail square footage. This view looks south to the lake with city hall on the right and the Queen’s Head where it has always been and where it is always going to be.

The architect suggested that it would take two and a half to three years to complete the building – they are putting in five levels of underground parking.

The entrances to the underground parking will be on John Street for both buildings – the public is looking at some 400 cars that will be entering and leaving the two buildings on a street that will have bus traffic all day.

There won’t be much in the way of vibrancy on Brant Street from about Ontario street south for that five year period – the east side of the street will be hoardings and construction overheads.

Wellings kept dropping in the phrase “a complete community” which he didn’t really define.

The Albert Schneider and the Kelly’s Bake shop locations are being kept as historical sites – what the public will see when the project is completed will be far from what is there today.

The buildings will be taken back to what they looked like in their early renditions when Brant and John Streets were quiet pokey little places where everyone knew everyone and the merchants knew your first name.
Back to the time when Spencer Smith walked the streets of the town and Smith was the Police Chief, when the Gazette was a print publication with an office on Brant Street.

The process going forward is for planning department staff to meet with the developer and compare notes on what he public had to say. The developer will be expected to come back with some changes to deal with the prime concerns.

The phrase Section 37 benefits for the community didn’t get mentioned; expect the developer to say that keeping the two historical structures is what the public will get.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in the minds of the public. The city is required to accept every development that is dropped on their doorstep and if it is a complete development with all the required studies attached they are required to write a report to city council recommending that it be accepted, turned down or have significant changes made. That’s the law – the city has to live within those rules

The various levels of set back. As the building rises the area gets smaller. How much will there be in the way of changes when this eventually gets to city council? Hard to tell – depends to a large degree on the kind of city council the citizens elect.

The site is made up of nine different properties that are .02 of a hectare in area. One woman wanted to know what a hectare looked like – It was a unit of measure she wasn’t familiar with. No one was able to give her a sense as to just how big this development was going to be.

Another downtown resident asked why the building has to be 24 storeys high “why can’t you leave it at 17”. The answer was “it’s the money honey!”

This development will get to a council that may well be quite a bit different than the one in place now. There may be a new Mayor with a perspective a lot different than that of the current planner.

There are at least two declared candidates that see the current city manager as not quite what the city needs.

Things are just a poppin at city hall. Hang on to your hats!