By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 7, 2011 – The Molinaro Group, developers of the 360 on Pearl, the Baxter and the Spencer to name a few, are looking to more than double the density on a lot at Brock and Elgin in Burlington’s Ward 2. The councillor for the ward, Marianne Meed Ward isn’t buying that idea and at the second community meeting to hear what the developer was doing, more than half of the fifty people in the room didn’t appear to be buying the idea either.
It must have been an important meeting – three of the Molinaro boys were sitting at the back of the room taking it all in. During the meeting one of the three announced that the project was going to be registered as a condominium but that the 115 units would be rented out as apartments. And if that doesn’t have a bit of an odour to it – then you don’t understand the Landlord Tenant Act or the way rent increases are managed. However, Mayor Rick Goldring tells me that most of the rental units in the Aldershot community are condominiums because the tax treatment is better than it is for apartment rentals. The complexities of high finance.
But that’s another issue. The Molinaro boys have to get the building up and that isn’t a slam dunk if the community response is any indication of what Council is going to hear when it gets to them.
Meed Ward doesn’t understand why the Official Plan or the zoning by-laws are not being adhered to and she doesn’t like the smell of the trade offs the city gets itself into when it lets a developers exceed height limits.
The property in question, at the intersection of Brock and Elgin Streets – just a hop, skip and a jump east of Maple, is zoned for up to 22 metres – seven stories – and the developer wants to increase the height to 44 metres or 14 stories. The community didn’t like the idea when they first heard about it last June and they liked it even less when it was brought back to them.
Members of the Burlington Planning department were on hand to take the public through the process – and they got a bit of a rough ride even though they explained that they had a legal obligation to asses the application for a density increase. They were just doing their jobs.
Density wasn’t the only issue. The impact the 115 unit building was going to have on traffic flow bothered many but city traffic specialist Vito Tolone assured the audience that the streets in the area could handle the increased traffic. He didn’t get any applause for that statement.
The planning consultant brought in by the Molinaro boys to sooth the agitated public made several strong points. He said that the proposed building was no bigger than other buildings in the immediate area and that it was smaller than several. He added that the provincial Places to Grow Program that calls for intensification in cities like Burlington is a reality and that the proposed building fit in with that plan. He didn’t get any applause either.
The Baxter was a very successful condo development; seen as a prime location and an attractive building to boot. The proposed structure for Brock and Elgin is anything but attractive if the drawings are any indication of what they want to build.
The fact that the building rendering shown to the meeting wasn’t very attractive and was going to be pretty close to the street didn’t help. The developer did lop off a few units from the top floor and jigged the design a bit but it still looked like a pretty ugly building that was going to loom over the streetscape.
This one will go to a council committee with some comment from the planners but the end result will probably be a –‘yeah build the thing’ and give us some kind of a benefit to make the pill a little easier to swallow.
That ‘benefit’ is called a Section 37 – and boy does the use of that phrase every get Meed Ward wound up. More on that in a separate story.
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