Developer hoping to turn vacant school into seniors housing
Neighbours of a long-vacant former school on Marion Avenue are hoping for the best after a council committee recommended a zone change that allows everything from a long-term care home to their worst fear — an 81-unit boarding house.
There was no way to exclude a boarding house from the list of allowed uses, so the development and heritage standing committee took businessman Italo Ferrari at his word Monday, that he intends to redevelop the school — most recently the location for Science City — into some form of assisted care facility for seniors.
“I hope he puts this in the right direction. A nursing home would be fabulous, that wouldn’t hurt the neighbourhood at all, but you don’t know what it’s going to be,” Jonscot Gibbons, an 18-year resident of Marion, told the Star Tuesday. He was one of about eight neighbours who wrote emails to the city expressing their concerns over the zone change, specifically the “lodging house” designation that would allow a boarding house. Since the school was vacated about four years ago, it’s become a blighted magnet for squatters, break-ins and people wandering through alleys, Gibbons said.
“I’m not afraid of change and we need to do something with this. I’m hoping whatever he does with this is a positive thing. And I’m hoping it’s not a boarding house because that’s what we all do not want.”
The problem was that Ferrari’s plans for the site — originally Desantis Elementary School, built around 1970 — were vague because he first needs the zone change before he seeks approval from the provincial government for a longterm care home, he told the committee. So depending on the success of his application, the school will be redeveloped as either a three-storey seniors retirement home with 81 units (he would add a floor to the two-storey school), a three-storey lodging facility for seniors with 81 units, or a 40 unit two-storey apartment building. The committee members on Monday were trying to find some way to erase the possibility of a boarding or rooming house, but were told by planning staff that the “lodging house” designation applies not just to a boarding house but also to a seniors assisted living facility that Ferrari wanted to keep as an option.
“I think everybody’s concerned about turning that facility into a lodging house,” Ferrari told the committee. “We definitely would not do that.”
He said it will be either longterm care, assisted living or an apartment building. A rooming house, he said, wouldn’t generate enough revenue to make the investment worthwhile.
Ward 4 Coun. Chris Holt, who represents the area, said what he’s been hearing from the neighbours is fear of the unknown. He predicted that Ferrari’s redevelopment will end up making the neighbours happy.
“We’re really putting a lot of faith in you, Mr. Ferrari,” he said, describing the redevelopment the kind of investment that the city wants to attract.
The recommendation, which still must be endorsed by council, passed unanimously after a lengthy debate where committee members struggled to find some way to eliminate the possibility of a boarding house.
“Mr. Ferrari, I can tell you we don’t mean any insult,” said committee chairman Coun. Rino Bortolin, explaining that the city has had a few bad experiences “You may end up leaving the property and the next owner may end up doing just what we’re scared of.”
On Tuesday, Bortolin said a seniors residence would be a great fit for the site. He said a great example of what could happen is Dolce Vita
Retirement Living, a retirement residence on Erie Street that allows people who’ve lived in the neighbourhood for years to stay there as they get older and need some assistance.
Ferrari’s plan would be a “great repurposing for a building that’s been empty and blighted,” Bortolin said, referring to Ferrari as a wellknown businessman with millions of dollars invested in Windsor and throughout the province.
“If he was looking to do a crappy boarding house, I don’t think he’d be putting so much money and attention and effort toward it, to be honest,” he said, adding there are other mechanisms — such as licensing and site-plan approval — that can be used to control what goes in there.
“I do feel there needs to be some leeway given to developers who are coming forward with an honest and good investment.”