Council nixes theatre bid
City turns down casino’s proposal for 5,000-seat venue behind fallsview
Niagara Falls city council voted against a proposal that would see a 5,000-seat entertainment theatre built above the bus area at the back of Fallsview Casino.
Politicians backed a staff report recommending they don’t support an amendment to the site-specific development agreement, as requested by Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which would allow the theatre to go five metres higher than currently permitted.
Couns. Vince Kerrio and Wayne Thomson declared a conflict of interest — Kerrio because he owns a nearby hotel and Thomson because he works at a nearby hotel — and didn’t vote. Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni did not attend the meeting.
Both staff and council are concerned the proposal would obstruct views of the falls for nearby hotels.
“Here we have an opportunity to have another beautiful piece of … building here and we’re going to tuck it away where you really can’t even see it and now it’s going to actually block hotel rooms?” said Coun. Joyce Morocco.
“I don’t think that this is a fair proposal.”
OLG is expected to announce the winning proposal for a new theatre next month.
The other three bids involve privately owned lands in the tourist core, and each went to the city’s committee of adjustment requesting variances to their zoning regulations regarding height, setbacks and parking.
Chief administrative officer Ken Todd said the variances mainly dealt with height, “but they were not obstructing views.”
“They were on facades of streets where they were not going to impact any of the hotels, so it was favourably received,” he said.
“There was no objection from neighbouring properties.”
Coun. Kim Craitor said he attended the committee meeting where the three other proposals were dealt with.
“It was refreshing because they’re all from Niagara Falls. “That’s great,” he said. Director of business development Serge Felicetti said the group behind the bus-area proposal is a consortium of people primarily out of Quebec.
None of the proponents from that bid attended Tuesday evening’s council meeting, where a public meeting was held to discuss the development agreement amendment application.
Because the Fallsview site is owned by the province, it’s not subject to zoning and is governed by a site-specific development agreement.
OLG was seeking council’s support in principle of an amending agreement which would allow the theatre to go higher than currently allowed.
City staff and council felt it would be unfair to hotels who built their properties on the understanding the view of the falls wouldn’t change.
A staff report also noted the loss of rooms with views of the falls could have a financial impact on hotel revenue, and perhaps value and assessment which has an impact on the municipal tax base.
Todd said after he and Felicetti saw the view-plan documents for the proposal, they “immediately” called OLG and “indicated our belief that we were going to have a problem with this and that we were going to be presenting to council, and in all likelihood that would not be a favourable recommendation based on what we see.”
He said the development agreement the city entered into with OLG in 2004 when Fallsview Casino opened is “like a zoning bylaw on the site, if you will.”
“It’s almost like the site plan that this council entered into, so because it’s a provincial entity, that’s why it went through the development-agreement process rather than a minor-variance process. A little unusual because it’s a provincially owned property, but they still have agreed to go through the same processes and face the same tests as the people who have had to face the test before the Committee of Adjustment.”
OLG spokesman Tony Bitonti said whichever proponent OLG chooses to build the entertainment centre will develop its proposal in accordance with municipal building bylaws.