City needs apartments despite NIMBYism
A seven-storey apartment building at the north end of the city on won’t do a lot to help Peterborough’s extreme shortage of affordable housing, but does meet a need.
Some of the 76 Armour Rd. apartments will be rented by people who can afford rent in the $2,000-a-month range, but can’t find anything, even at that price.
Some will likely go to downsizers who have sold a family home. Some of those will be city residents who want to stay here and some will be moving in from “away” – GTA escapees looking for a smaller, quieter community, or rural Peterborough County residents looking to be closer to shopping and medical services.
Home sellers will free up opportunities for buyers who, like renters, are being crunched by tight supply.
None of this shift is new, but it is accelerating and will continue to for the foreseeable future.
The Armour Road development is one of many mid-sized apartment buildings in the planning stages right now. It’s a welcome boom after years in which very little new multi-unit housing was built.
However, many homeowners who live in the subdivision closest to what the developer has named IQ Flats aren’t happy. They wanted the project limited to three storeys, arguing it didn’t match the character of their neighbourhood.
As a result, approval of IQ Flats dragged out over nearly two years. The city’s planners endorsed it, city council voted for it after building in a delay by requesting a traffic-impact study. The provincial body the neighbours appealed to has now ruled it can go ahead, noting that there was no evidence a development of that size would cause the traffic congestion the neighbours predicted.
The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal also agreed with the city that the project fits precisely with current provincial policy – and accepted planning wisdom – that vacant, serviced land on designated arterial streets are exactly where this type of needed new housing should go.
It’s hard to fault homeowners for believing they are in the right and fighting to the end. It’s also hard not to acknowledge that they went down an inevitably futile path that delayed the supply of needed housing for roughly 18 months.
And it’s hard not to fault their Ashburnham Ward councillors, Keith Riel and Gary Baldwin, for taking the reflexive position that a small group of people who don’t want higher density housing are always right and should be supported, even when virtually everyone else can see that’s not true.
Two similar projects should be coming to city council for rezoning this year. Both are at Water Street North and Marina Boulevard: an eight-storey, 99-unit mix of townhouses and apartments and a six-storey, 52-unit apartment building.
Neighbours have already raised concerns over traffic and an end to the single-familyhome character of the area. City planners have already said added traffic will not be an issue. Anyone who doubts that should look at the hundreds of apartment units that were built in the Talwood and Hedonics complexes 50 years ago and don’t cause congestion on Goodfellow Road and Parkhill Road.
The Water/Marina projects are in Northcrest Ward. The councillors who represent Northcrest following next October’s municipal election should show leadership on housing supply by working to convince neighbours the projects are necessary, and won’t disrupt their lives.
It’s hard to fault homeowners for believing they are in the right and fighting to the end. It’s also hard not to acknowledge that they went down an inevitably futile path that delayed the supply of needed housing