Thursday, July 2, 2015

Park Avenue Housing Development to get Second Public Hearing

The residents of the west side and others interested in the plans for a housing development between Park Avenue and Graham Avenue will get another chance to share some thoughts on recent changes made to the design and layout of the proposed development.

In a Notice of Public Hearing posted to the City's website, Council advises that owing to the design changes which will see an increase in the number of proposed lots allocated to the development, a new Public Hearing will take place on Monday, July 6th starting at 7 PM in Council chambers.

Those changes to the original planning came about last month, as Council included its desires for a multi person component to be added to the area in question, with Councillor Thorkelson specifically looking for some form of Seniors apartment or condo development to be developed as part of the Park Avenue proposal.

The changing dynamic of the project would see the number of lots expanded from the original 30 to 37 lots, something required as part of the desire of council to add to the densification  of housing in the area. 

Those proposed changes provided for a vocal backlash from some of the residents in the Graham Avenue area, who following an appearance at the first public hearing on the issue of June 22nd provided City Council with a petition related to their concerns over the development.

Among the concerns are issues related to the nature of the housing to be allowed in the area, as well as traffic issues that many fear will come with the start of the development.

Some of the background on the recent developments can be found below:


At the Public Hearing of July 6th, those that believe they will be affected by the proposed amendment Bylaw will have the opportunity to speak to the issue, or if they wish deliver a written account of their concerns or comments on the proposed development.
Those that cannot attend the Public Hearing can provide a written submission related to the proposal, the deadline to deliver their submission is 4:30 PM of July 6th, the correspondence should be directed to the Corporate Administrator Rory Mandryk.


The proposed housing development for Park Avenue will receive a
Second Public Hearing scheduled for 7:00 PM on July 6th at City Council chambers

The need for the second public hearing offers up a bit of delay in the zoning process for the project proponents, the first outline of the development was delivered to City Council at the March 23rd Council session as City Planner Zeno Krekic provided a review of the development plans to council.

Since that time there have been a number of council sessions which featured discussion on the theme of some sort, some background on the path to this point can be found below:


The Public Hearing of July 6th will be a special session of Council, the next regular Public Council session is not scheduled until July 20th as City Council heads into its summer schedule of once a month sessions until September.

Hopefully, the city's technical staff have resolved the electronic issues of the June 22nd meeting, which delivered a council session with no audio feed available for the evening's lengthy public session.  

Due to those technical issues, there has been no video record of the June 22nd provided to the City Council YouTube page, (nor is there an explanation regarding the missing session) leaving an information gap in the unofficial record that some in the community find helpful for review of Council's public discussions.

For more items related to those City Council discussions see our archive page here.

More on housing issues in the Northwest can be found here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review

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