Towering project in Grandin heads to next step after public hearing
A proposed Grandin-area tower moved one step closer to becoming a reality after city council voted to change several bylaws associated with a proposal at a public hearing Monday night.
In a meeting that dragged on well past 10 p.m., speakers for and against the project made their feelings known and councillors debated what the project and its design would not only do to the area but to the city’s approach to similar developments.
As it stands, the 23-storey tower called The View, which will be located in the area of 111 Street and 99 Avenue in the Grandin area of the Oliver neighbourhood, will have 178 units, including 11 with three or four bedrooms.
Council rejected an earlier, 28-storey version of this project in 2017, the first tower proposal an Edmonton council had voted down in eight years, saying the rezoning request would allow a structure too large for the small two-lot site and unfairly cut off the sky for neighbours to the south.
At issue was the size of the lot. It holds just two residential homes now. City planners said that’s only large enough for four-storey towers under current guidelines. The size of the block would need to be more than double the size for the proposed project.
At 23-storeys on two lots, “this application proposes to be one of the most intensively developed sites in Oliver,” said senior planner Travis Pawlyk.
Rather than the 25 metres required, this proposal has only 10 metres between it and the fourstorey building to the south, and no setback between it and the General Hospital parkade to the north.
If council was to accept the tower on two lots, it won’t get medium density anywhere, said Pawlyk, showing a graphic of the Oliver neighbourhood with towers filling in most of the skyline.
But Westrich Pacific developer David Sanche said the city needs to look at the broader context of the development. This is the only spot left to add residential development beside the Grandin LRT station, he said. No one would build on a church or a park.
“This six-block radius is finished.”
It’s true this one tower on a small lot doesn’t have a large podium, he said, but if planners would consider the entire block, they would see a variety of existing building heights creates the diversity needed.
Vancouver-based Richard Bernstein, of Chris Dikeakos Architects, says his firm is working on 80-storey towers, so they don’t consider this tall.
He likes the size of the site, he said, because it encourage a slim, elegant tower.
“We feel this site is appropriately scaled,” he said.
As for how it relates to the neighbours, “when you have transit-oriented development, the neighbourhood is going to be in transition.”
Council voted to approve the closure of a portion of a lane in the area attached to the project, amend the Oliver Area Redevelopment Plan and rezone the lots to allow for highrise, high-density residential buildings.
Those speaking against the project Monday at city hall pointed to the closure of an alley and subsequent loss of traffic access and echoed the building height concerns from previous meetings that they say would destroy the livability of the area for residents.
Others argued allowing this development would set a precedent, allowing developers to build on sites too small to support them.
Some suggested a four- to sixstorey building was an appropriate size for the site, while others suggested a 10- to 12-storey building would be more suitable.
Randi Mewhort, who owns a condo in the four-storey apartment which will be the most affected by the new building, described the project not as the elephant in the room, but the “elephant on the block.”
“No matter how many storeys we count it’s only 15 metres shorter,” she said.
Her daughter, Miranda Mewhort, said the project has had an “emotional impact on the family.”
“We are exhausted,” she said. “It’s frustrating.”