By Pepper Parr
September 28th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The latest Molinaro project made its public bow last night at a community presentation at the Performing Arts Centre. The general public got a look at what the developer plans for a site on the corner of Ontario and Brock Streets.
Proposed 22 storey tower for a part of the city that has a number of high rises. Good design.
The developer has made an application for a change to both the current Official Plan and the zoning bylaw for a 22 storey, 170 unit apartment condominium complex that will have four levels of underground parking. There will be a roof top amenity area and two levels of mechanical space on that top level.
The building is distinctly different in terms of design. While taller, it is also going to be quite a bit slimmer than high rise buildings in Burlington have been in the past.
The city put in place Guidelines for the construction of tall buildings – the objective was to ensure that there was a decent amount of space between the buildings and that people have a view that was not looking into someone else’s bedroom.
These public meetings are part of the process that takes place for every development. There will be a statutory public meeting at city hall where people can go on record as being opposed to or in favour of a development.
The application is in the hands of the Planning department who review all the studies the developer was required to submit. There will be ongoing discussion with the Planning consultant the developer hired and eventually a report from the city planners with their recommendation as to what city council should decide to do.
The city Planner’s report is debated at length at a city council Standing Committee meeting and then goes to a Council meeting where it is either approved or not approved.
Most developments do get approved, many have changes made based on what gets discussed at the Standing Committee level.
When the city planners completed their explaining the meeting got turned over to Marianne Meed Ward, the Councillor for ward 2.
She said “something will be developed on the site” and explained that this was the time for people to say what they liked and didn’t like.
There were about 55 to 60 people in the Community Studio at the Performing Arts Centre – the traffic and noise concerns were the biggest issues. Any development downtown has to get through the traffic concern hoops.
Aerial view with rendering of proposed building dropped in.
People do get upset over applications to change the permitted height of a building. Asking that property zoned for 7 storey’s be changed to allow 20 storey’s plus offends some people – even though, in this instance there are already a number of buildings that are well above that seven storey level.
Meed Ward did say that the city hasn’t done that good a job at explaining the development process to the public and the public believes that city council rolls over for every developer who walks into the Council chamber.
It is a complex process – and while the public is convinced that every developer is making huge profits the reality is that the developer has to assemble the land, pay significant development charges, cover the cost of the various studies that are required before they can put a shovel in th ground.
The risk is significant.
These first public meetings always bring out the concerns of people who tend not to be in favour of developments. The concerns are usually related to traffic, noise and sometimes light pollution.
These meetings start with a presentation from a city planner who explains what the fundamentals of the development are and what the developer is asking for.
In 2011 the Molinaro’s took part in a meeting to show the public what they planned to build on the corner of Brock and Elgin.
The company asked for a height and density increase from seven to 14 storeys – which they got.
They moved their corporate offices into the ground floor and rented space to member of the provincial legislature.
Councillor Marianne Meed Ward,chaired part of the meeting and did what she does better than any other Councillor, coaxing comments out of her constituents and listening to what they have to say.
Getting that project approved was not a slam dunk – the public didn’t like very much about the building and they were really opposed to the idea of more traffic.
It was not the most orderly of meetings.
All the complaints that were heard at the 2011 public meeting were heard once again last might. Traffic, traffic and noise.
One women rose to speak about the noise. She said she was an early riser and when she sat outside on her balcony she could hear the traffic noise from the Skyway. Sound carries and having the stillness of the morning disturbed by the sounds of hundreds of cars travelling at pretty high speed over a bridge is part of living in an urban setting.
The biggest in the meeting Wednesday meeting was that a number of people liked the design – several called it a beautiful building and it is indeed a much more attractive building than what we call Brock 1 – the first building the company built on that location.
There were complaints about light pollution, there were complaints about the number of visitor parking spaces. developers have this conundrum before them. The city is pushing for more use of public transit, they want to see fewer cars on the streets; there is a movement to shared car ownership which will mean that the need for parking spaces will not be as high – but no one wants to be in a building that doesn’t have parking spaces.
The Molinaro Planning consultant Fothergill pointed out that the building they construct today are going to be there 50 years from now when our relationship to the automobile is going to be a lot different.
There were concerns that the building might become rental units and have residents that were not sufficiently “invested” in the building and let it become a poorly maintained ghetto.
Meed Ward pointed out that Burlington does not have enough in the way of rental properties – more are needed.
There was a considerable amount of snobbishness swirling around the room.
About a dozen people chose to speak; notes were taken and will be part of the review the city planners do as they prepare their recommendation.
While architectural renderings always show a building through rose coloured glasses – Graziani + Coraza have done some remarkable work elsewhere in the GTA – if the final product is close to the renderings the building is going to be a pleasure to look at. The Molinaro’s deserve credit for adding some interesting architecture to the city.
I see more hairsplitting about how height enters the debate.
More height, equals more density, equals more people density, equals more cars density, equals more traffic and congestion density.
Unless everyone walks everywhere, this is fact, not assumption.
Chris states other things that are facts, about how city is not very good at delivering choices on mobility, but are in fact going backwards.
It’s either a mess, like roads and transit, or the structure of the growth form, in terms of living, working, shopping, and amenities, isn’t really on for extensive walking or biking exceeding the usual car dependency.
And I agree the proposed building isn’t all that much higher than what exists, but what does the by-law say? Who gets to say this is okay?
A real concern held by many is the precedent-setting and leap-frog to ever higher, and many more, buildings that people don’t want, and continue to make clear by majority.
And the idea that we face anything but ever-increasing taxes is silly. Whatever form the growth takes, costs and taxes emerge in the corresponding form.
Look at the last few years budgets, and what is in the future pipeline.
Growth has been and is well en-trained in our society, and has been planned and mandated, at large, by the province for about 50 years at least.
There are too many unanswered questions, and just asking them does not mean that people are opposed to all of it. That’s not practical living in the real world – like it or not.
Looking at the picture. The proposed new building is a couple of stories taller than the buildings already surrounding it, which have been there for decades and are showing their age. Is height really the concern? Sounds to me like it’s more of a problem with the assumed vehicular traffic and congestion.
An incremental amount of additional traffic. Maybe, if the residents choose to travel that way, and if they aren’t provided with other choices for their mobility. We do not have a good track record when it comes to providing those choices but that’s where we need to put the pressure on our elected officials to ensure they are budgeted for alongside of our massive list of road infrastructure renewal projects.
It is an urban neighbourhood, with the waterfront and lots of amenities in walking distance, so if we’re going to grow, why not here? This is one of the few parts of town that has been successful in attracting young families – the type of people we need to attract if we’re going to maintain public institutions like schools.
It appears from the drawings that the building is being set up almost flush with the sidewalk, which is not consistent with the building next to it. That would be my one minor gripe – that it’s not establishing a consistent streetwall that makes it comfortable and pleasant to walk.
On the bright side, more residents to support and sustain downtown businesses, and there will be pressure on nearby properties to improve the condition of their buildings.
I wasn’t at this meeting, but I can tell you, from looking at several planning meeting minutes, and related public surveys, that the majority of expressions of public discontent have to do with HEIGHT.
Check out the waterfront hotel site public survey that is on the city website. The higher the heights, the greater the dislike. Only the lowest buildings were acceptable by the survey numbers.
And especially when the height proposed is way way above what the present OP allows. Of course, there is a new OP in the works, but that really is a long way from becoming the law.
But apparently, in this city, there is no need for that due process of getting the new OP vetted and legal, to get in the way of making it what those in control want it to be.
Developers are taking hints from city planning and council that point to what might be allowed in this new OP, and so are jumping the gun all over the place. Even in the 95% of places that the city and Mayor say will not be affected by intensification.
There may be, and usually are, some few, or one, folks who say they don’t have a problem with any heights, no matter, or say the building is beautiful. But that always seems to happen in the various city meetings, and in the Gazette, and that’s okay. They may be plants, developers reps, or in the business, but that’s okay too I guess.
It seems self-evident that height causes all the issues raised, so I think Pepper is splitting hairs in saying people didn’t use that exact word. As I said, if you look at the meeting minutes or reports, height is a universal issue.
Finally, the planners have a go-to song sheet that they all read from on people walking, biking, taking the bus or friendly truck, instead of relying on cars.
It’s a rationalization for what they are actually doing to increase traffic ever more, but that lyric is supposed to take place “in the decades ahead”. This is as likely a story as any, designed as a non answer bridge over the always question of where even more cars are going to go,
The roads are already full. There aren’t going to be any more built we are told. Transit is a mess and will cost ever more, but will still not solve the needs people have to get to disparate places, for major things you can’t do by walking, biking or bus.
As many people have said here over time, the city and region is designed around the car and shortness of time, and I see no trace of a transportation plan that shows us how we will transition to the planners promised land shining in the distant future they have printed out on glossy paper.
Oh, there may be marginally fewer cars needed per person in future, but numbers of people times cars will always be greater than people times bikes, buses, or walkers, in the determination of trip rates.
I would like to know how we all, here and now, are going to submit to this assertion of urban high rise transport utopia – “beam me up, Scotty” – and survive the unknown mutations needed to “Go Boldly where man has never gone before”, to reverse the last 100 years development trajectory that we continue to accelerate ever more forcefully?
We don’t need assertions of assumptions, we need answers.
I take exception to Pepper Parr’s perception of the neighbourhood meeting’s concerns. He stated that “the traffic and noise concerns were the biggest issues”.
I attended this meeting, provided feedback and can confirm that the BIGGEST issue among those who spoke was “22 storeys for property zoned for 7 !!!! This is the root cause of traffic, noise, light and shadow pollution!
If the Molinaro Group again gets their way ignoring the 7 storey zoning, it will be the green light for height limit increases on all future available land that developers are holding here.
Our beautiful, quiet downtown and waterfront will become a concrete jungle devoid of our heritage homes, trees and green space. Stop this insanity before the City allows the destruction of our neighbourhood forever!
Editor’s note: Not quite – the majority of the comments from the 12 people who spoke about the traffic followed by the noise. There were just three people who spoke against the height and two others who had no problem with the height. One called is a beautiful building.
The height may well be the root cause of the traffic but it was not what people were opposed to – one of the planners talked about the expectation that in the decades ahead there would be less reliance on the automobile.
I think this article is worth giving a lot of thought.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/have-you-thought-about-leaving-a-reflection-on-not-selling-your-house-1.4310056
Burlington has certainly been changing a lot. Listening to comments from many conversations on the way the city is beginning to look I wonder how many would move out of the city if they could financially do it. As we were recently told, the majority group of people are 55+. We chose to live here because we want the modern quaint historical family oriented community with green spaces. Concrete jungle and split neighbourhoods is not what we want.
How do we get the mayor and city planning to listen to what the apparent majority want? We have voiced our opinions and gone to meetings but we are not heard. Waiting for the election is too late.
“The Brock” got the height they wanted because they put in a public parking lot across the street and a small parkette on the corner. What are they going to offer this time? I think the 22 stories sticks out like a very sore thumb.
That particular corner in days long gone housed covered red painted wood garages on the south and west sides for
various higher ranked employees of A.S.Nicholson & Son across the street. The property also was home to a railway spur line that came off the west side passing track of the CNR Beach Subdivision. The track came across Brock Street, across the corner of the lot with the garages and entered the main yard of the above named Nicholson’s, splitting into two separate tracks. It was a very tight curve, locomotives and cars had to be very careful using the spur track.
Mr. White,
Some very germaine comments and in particular your assessment of Meed Ward, a Councillor who has pretty well thrown Ward 2 under the bus, (recall save our waterfront haha!) along with the seniors community, and of course, any kid (and their family) who doesn’t attend Central.Oh my, she must be dreaming big on what her 2018 re-election platform will be.
“…the public believes that city council rolls over for every developer who walks into the Council chamber”.
Yup! That pretty much summarizes how most electors feel. And speaking personally, I haven’t seen much evidence to the contrary that would convince me otherwise.
I have nothing against development, or re-development, and acknowledge the need for rental accommodation. What I question and challenge however is where this is occurring and in what form. A disproportionate number of these developments are occurring in Ward 2. Existing neighbourhoods are being dwarfed by multi-storey developments that do not blend into the character of the existing neighbourhood. It’s nice that the Molinaro development will be white, but realistically, I’m more concerned by its height than whether it is painted something other than battleship grey. Residents are justifiably raising valid questions around traffic congestion, noise, etc. And what is the developers’ and the City’s simplistic response? Use public transit…a system so woefully underfunded and inadequate even public transit advocates consider it a joke.
This is a suburban community. It was built along an inter-connected network of roads designed to facilitate vehicular traffic, and the lovely bucolic vision being promulgated by Mr. Fothergill and others doesn’t frankly jive with reality. The car is here to stay because it promotes convenience, and among residents short on time and encumbered by competing priorities it permits completion of multiple activities quickly. The only thing in future up for discussion is whether the vehicle will be gas powered, a hybrid, or electric. Furthermore, people move to Burlington from places like Toronto precisely because it is not an urban jungle. If they wanted to live in a high density they would have stayed where they were.
Finally, I just love the way Marianne Meed Ward has suddenly morphed into a typical politician. There are several questions being raised around her actions during the PARC debate. Now this. There was a time when I genuinely thought she had a backbone, guts, and was prepared to stand up and fight for her constituents. My how times change.
Let’s note the unfounded rumour the Ward 2 councillor lost her backbone started with this comment.
First observation, she has plenty of backbone if she’s willing to speak up for saving Central High school. Second observation, her job IS to represent her constituents – the point of the meeting is to confirm what that is. The third observation, with our “pro-development, we need to educate the public” city council rubber-stamping one out-of-scale project after another, I’d say her continued willingness to stand alone on 6 -1 votes reveals how often she stands up for her constituents.