Apartment project moves forward
Neighbours of Armour Road site oppose it, but council notes the need for more apartment space
Plans for a new seven-storey apartment building on Armour Road took a step forward Monday when city councillors gave preliminary approval to a property rezoning, over the objections of five neighbours who spoke at the meeting and both Ashburnham Ward councillors.
The local developer, Parkview Homes, is proposing a building with 76 market-rent apartments. At a committee meeting on Monday, councillors voted 7-4 a rezoning to allow it.
The vote is not final: this was a committee meeting, and councillors need to vote one more time sitting as city council to ratify the plan. The earliest that may happen is on July 27.
The building is planned on a 2.1-acre, vacant expanse on the northeast corner of Armour
Road and Cunningham Boulevard in the city’s northeast end.
The rezoning is needed because the land is currently zoned for commercial or lowdensity residential use.
The votes against the rezoning came from Ashburnham Ward Coun. Gary Baldwin and Coun. Keith Riel, as well as from Coun. Kim Zippel and Coun. Kemi Akapo.
The votes in favour of the rezoning came from Coun. Lesley Parnell, Coun. Don Vassiliadis, Coun. Henry Clarke, Coun. Dean Pappas, Coun. Andrew
Beamer, Coun. Stephen Wright and Mayor Diane Therrien.
Riel pointed out to councillors in debate that they’d all received more than 100 emails from citizens concerned with a building “that will stand out like a sore thumb.”
People don’t necessarily object to development on the vacant land, he said. Many residents wrote that they were in favour of the developer’s earlier plan for a commercial plaza with a second storey of apart
ments, but they “flatly oppose” a seven-storey building.
“It is not a good development for this area — it’s an overbuild for this area,” Riel said.
But Parnell reminded councillors that there’s a desperate need for apartments in Peterborough.
“We have to increase our housing inventory,” she said, and no matter where you build it people will object.
“I know the direct neighbours won’t like it, but that will happen anywhere in the city when you build something new,” she said.
Parkview Homes had initially planned a two-storey building in 2017, with commercial space on the ground floor and apartments above.
But Kevin Duguay, the planner for Parkview Homes, told councillors that after a decade of trying to attract a commercial tenant there was no interest from anyone — hence the new plan.
He also told councillors that Parkview held a public meeting last summer and adjusted its plans after hearing neighbours’ concerns, moving a driveway that was going to go off Armour Road to Cunningham Boulevard, for example.
The apartments will be offered at market rent, Duguay told councillors, and when Zippel asked whether the developer would be willing to reduce the number of storeys to five he said no.
He also said the site plan application could be filed to City Hall immediately after the rezoning is granted, and Parkview Homes would be prepared to start construction in late winter or early spring.
City staff recommended the rezoning, stating in a report that the building would complement the existing neighbourhood and would further the goal of intensifying built-up areas of Peterborough.
City planner Caroline Kimble presented the plans to councillors, and when asked by Parnell why a grocery store couldn’t have located there, said the land was “undersized” for that use.
Five residents spoke to councillors over the phone at the virtual meeting on Monday.
Susan Sims of Bissonette Drive called the apartment development “a brutal destruction of green space” and a “Band-Aid solution to the housing crisis.”
Sean McQueen of Bissonette Drive said the proposed building is simply too tall.
“When a development like this comes in your ward, I hope you support it. I will be supporting the residents of the area.”
GARY BALDWIN COUNCILLOR
“That structure would tower over pretty much everything in the neighbourhood,” he said, adding that he and his neighbours are “upset” about loss of proposed commercial space.
Christopher Kyle of Bissonnette Drive said there’s already heavy traffic along Armour Road, and the proposed new development will only make that worse.
Greg O’Heron said pedestrians trying to cross Armour Road are already taking their lives in their hands daily to get across.
Penny O’Neill lives on an abutting property, and told councillors she moved here from the GTA to escape highrises and noise: “Now it’s here in our backyard — literally.”
She said she didn’t want the green space to be filled with concrete.
Baldwin said he’s meant to stand up for constituents like these who feel the development won’t work for the area — and he’s concerned about congestion on Armour Road.
Riel said his constituents aren’t asking for the land to be left undeveloped — but want the building to be “appropriate” for the neighbourhood.
Parnell said she understands that and respects the ward councillors.
“But we are going to be facing apartment buildings — six storeys or more — throughout this term of council …. We’ve heard our own mayor campaign on up, not out.”
But her wardmate, Zippel, said she didn’t agree that a seven-storey building fits in the existing neighbourhood. Akapo said she would support the plan if it called for five storeys — not seven.
Yet Pappas, who represents Town Ward alongside Akapo, said there’s a desperate need for housing — and it doesn’t all have to go downtown.
“Infill is coming,” he said, and warned that if councillors turn away development proposals they will never meet the need for apartments in the city.
“When a development like this comes in your ward, I hope you support it,” Baldwin replied to Pappas. “I will be supporting the residents of the area.”