Are ‘monster homes’ changing the face of Ancaster?
Longtime resident feeling frustrated, worried about affordability for families
As a 59-year resident of Oakley Court, Muriel Carruthers knows just about everyone who’s come and gone from her Ancaster neighbourhood over the last six decades.
Carruthers, 86, and her late husband John, a Korean War veteran, raised four children in their 1954-era bungalow, built in a similar style to most homes in the area. Like most of their original neighbours, said Carruthers, the family was part of the middle class.
Today Carruthers is watching her neighbourhood transform, and not for the better, she said.
After a recent decision by the City of Hamilton’s committee of adjustment, Carruthers will be staring at a “monster home” of 4,511 square feet, where a 1,102-square-foot bungalow once stood.
“They’re going to have to put a cap on these houses,” Carruthers said in an interview. “For another family to be able to get a home in Ancaster — you might as well forget about it. If you want to buy (a home), you’re not going to be able to buy one.”
Carruthers attended the Nov. 28 committee of adjustment meeting where minor variances were granted to permit a 10.5-metre home across the street from her house. She left feeling frustrated and said she wasn’t given an opportunity to voice her objections.
“I got very upset when I came out of there,” she said.
Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, the Ancaster representative, attended the Nov. 28 committee of adjustment meeting. He said the Oakley Court home wouldn’t have been allowed under the terms of a new “monster home” bylaw which came into force earlier this year. But because a building permit was issued while the bylaw was under appeal at the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and not yet in force, he recommended the building be allowed. The applicant was directed by city staff to obtain approval from the committee of adjustment for the areas of noncompliance with the newly approved zoning regulations.
At the time the building permit was issued, the applicant was also waiting for the clearance of a “disconnection of services form” which was required to obtain a demolition permit for the previous home.
The demolition permit, said Ferguson, was granted one day after the new monster home regulations came into effect. The new bylaw, which was about four years in the making, applies to about 2,500 Ancaster properties in neighbourhoods designated as “existing residential,” where homes have larger lots because they were built before the community had sanitary sewers.
The bylaw lowers the previous maximum building height of 10.5 metres to 9.5 metres for two-storey homes and to 7.5 metres for single-storey bungalows.
For properties up to 1,650 square metres — or about 0.4 acres — the previous maximum lot coverage of 35 per cent remains for a bungalow and 20 per cent for a two-storey home.
Ferguson acknowledged that Ancaster neighbourhoods are changing, in part due to provincial planning regulations aimed at limiting urban sprawl.
“With the Greenbelt legislation you can’t build new subdivisions, so if you want to build your dream home you’re going to come in and buy one of these small bungalows that was built back in the ’40s and ’50s,” he said. “I don’t want to discourage anyone from building a dream home. But they have to do it to respect their neighbours. And that’s what this bylaw does.”
Along with more stringent height and setback regulations, the new bylaw includes a requirement for a “mini site plan,” said Ferguson, which sets out guidelines for tree preservation, drainage and elevation.