Ramping a housing development from 10 units to eight and three storeys to two, a settlement with the Ontario Land Tribunal has greenlit a building to be built at 1389 Stephen St.
The building in its three-storey, 10-unit configuration was presented to the planning committee of city council on April 15, 2024, at which time members were unanimous in voting it down.
City staff supported the rejection, with a report by city Development Approvals manager Eric Taylor concluding at the time that the proposal would be “an overdevelopment of the lot and does not provide the on-site landscaping required to appropriately buffer and screen the driveway and parking areas from abutting properties.”
The proposal also included space for 13 parking spaces where 15 would have been required. 1389 Stephen St. is located in an R1-5 (low-density residential) zone, with low-density residential units on three of its sides and backs onto three-storey apartment buildings on Kelly Lake Road.
Various residents wrote letters to the city and a few attended the April 15, 2024, public hearing at Tom Davies Square to express their opposition to the development.
Speaking on behalf of her mother, Vivian Belcourt said that her mother has a raised garden against her property line with the proposed development, and “if there is a building there, she would no longer be able to garden because there’d be no sunshine.”
Residents also expressed concerns about traffic, garbage collection, water management and lack of vegetative buffers around the property.
“I purposely bought in a small neighbourhood,” area resident Meghan McMillan said, adding that a three-storey building was not what anyone in the neighbourhood wanted.
“I’m worried about the overall character,” McMillan said, expressing concern about resale value. “It is not an issue of just the vision or the look in general, it’s the fact of where the proposed placement of it is in a small, adorable, older neighbourhood where the houses are from the ’50s.”
During last year’s meeting, Ward 4 Coun. Pauline Fortin asked whether the developer were receptive to paring it down to six units so it would better fit on the property, but the developer declined.
The Ontario Land Tribunal settlement, which was tabled for Monday’s planning committee meeting, brings the building down by a story to two and allows eight units rather than 10.
Other concessions include permitting 10 parking spaces where 12 would be required and landscaped open space of 27 per cent where 30 per cent would be required.
According to the Ontario Land Tribunal settlement document, both the city and developer agreed to this new configuration.
Following Monday’s planning committee meeting of city council, chair and Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier said the city planned on reaching out to area residents to let them know about the tribunal settlement decision.
Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti represents the area and told Sudbury.com following Monday’s meeting that he advocated on behalf of residents, but that once a municipal decision is made it’s out of their hands.
“At the municipal level we were able to deny the application, but the developer has every opportunity to appeal that decision,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the way the tribunal is set up, there’s no mechanism for residents to … challenge it, so from that perspective, it’s not the outcome we were looking for.”
On the plus side, he noted that the building has been reduced by a storey and two units, which should mitigate some of the impacts residents were concerned about.
Although residents would have liked to have seen it remain a single-family home as-is, he said, but “hopefully it doesn’t disrupt the neighbourhood.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.