300-unit housing plan for Sandy Beach
The private owner of the Sandy Beach area is proposing a 300unit residential development in the heart of Hudson which could increase the town’s population by up to 20 per cent.
Residents packed the community centre last Thursday to hear details of a housing development to be built in the woods adjacent to Sandy Beach. Urban planner Marc Perreault, a consultant hired by the promoter, announced the project would include over 300 medium-density housing units along with a promise to preserve 57 per cent of the square footage currently owned by Nicanco Holdings as parkland or green space.
Artist renderings of the project, dubbed Pine Beach, depicted a three-storey multi-family complex, along with townhouses built in horseshoe shapes instead of rows. Six detached single-family homes are also included in the plan.
Perreault said the approach is designed to provide a variety of housing styles and price points for potential buyers.
“The idea was not to have a gated project on Sandy Beach, but something very inclusive, open to all categories of residents, including seniors,” he said.
Mayor Ed Prévost described the housing project as an “iconic type of development” that would add badly needed tax revenue. The mayor said although many citizens raised environmental concerns about the project at the meeting, he doesn’t believe they speak for the majority of residents.
“People don’t think it’s such a bad thing,” he said, adding the plan does preserve public access to the shoreline as well as a significant proportion of green space.
“They’ve given us a hell of a lot of land, so that’s already a huge gift,” he said.
Plans to develop the 22.83-hectare Sandy Beach site have been in the works since 1998. Property owner Hans Karl Muhlegg, who heads Nicanco Holdings, has struggled to come to an agreement with the town. A 2001 plan to build 217 housing units on the site was scuttled two years later after the town amended planning regulations.
The latest proposal for the site is similar to the building footprint of the plan proposed in 2001, but adds more units by increasing the height of the multi-family units from two storeys to three, boosting the total number of units to 306 units from 217. The project is expected to take seven years to complete, with construction to begin as soon as possible.
Perreault declined to provide a the price range for the proposed units.
“The market will drive more or less the target price,” he said. “It is a fabulous site from a housing point of view.”
This housing project would add an estimated 600 to 1,000 new residents to the town’s current population of 5,185. A potential 20 per cent increase in the town’s population concerned many residents.
Prévost, however, believes Hudson’s infrastructure can accommodate any population increase resulting from the development of Sandy Beach. He noted that the town has recently upgraded its sewer system, and although the town’s water system is at capacity, he believes there will be time to resolve the problem before the development is completed.
Perreault estimated the project could add $60 million to Hudson’s taxation base, generating annual tax revenues of about $500,000. He suggested this would offset any additional costs for services facing the town. As well, he noted the cost of connecting homes on the property to sewer, aqueduct, roads and other infrastructure would be paid by Nicanco.
To proceed with the project as presented, Nicanco requires permission from the town council to build what he called an “integrated project,” which would allow more flexibility in site design, such as minimizing servitudes and setbacks required for roads by designating them as private allées rather than public streets. By concentrating the built area within a smaller zone, Perreault said proceeding as an integrated project would allow Nicanco to preserve more green space than in a typical development.
“You will feel like being in a forest,” he said. “All the buildings are far away from the road. We keep the forest, all the buildings are behind it.”
Perreault said the town would have the option to extend a public trail network to access around 5,000 feet of walking trails through the forested areas at the perimeter of the development, which could potentially be connected to Jack Layton Park and the downtown area.
Sandy Beach has been used by generations of locals as if it was a public park. The proposed plan enshrines public access rights to a section of beach 650 feet long by 66 feet wide, but many residents at the meeting said it wasn’t enough. One speaker noted that the width of the beach doesn’t include the shoreline trail and much of that section of beach is underwater during certain periods of the year.
Perreault stated the development of the site is inevitable, noting Muhlegg has already been waiting about 15 years to develop the site.
“We have no choice. If the zoning doesn’t change to accommodate le projet intégré, we would be forced to go with the typical development and unfortunately, we will be losing a lot of trees,” he said. “There’s nothing in the bylaw to prevent us from doing that, but this is not the way we want to develop.”
According to Perreault, the Ministry of Environment has already given Nicanco permission to begin backfilling some of the wetland areas targeted for development. If all goes well, Perreault said Nicanco would begin water, sewer and other infrastructure work later this year.