DEVELOPMENT PLANS ON HOLD
Neighbours question $34M project
Neighbours had so many questions Monday about the proposed Graffiti residential/commercial project — heralded as a linchpin for the rejuvenation of faded University Avenue West — that its rezoning was deferred so answers can be found.
“I'm all for the development ... but obviously it does have to fit in and not have a negative impact on the surrounding neighbourhood,” Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin, chairman of the development and heritage standing committee, said of the $35-million project that was announced in 2019 to renovate three on-site heritage buildings into commercial space and build 133 student-focused apartments in a new residential building at the rear of the property.
The committee voted to defer voting on the rezoning until its next meeting in December, to give developer AIPL Canada Holdings time to meet with neighbours, who on Monday called into question many of the project's details. They were particularly worried about the reduced number of parking spaces and the impact on parking in the neighbourhood, narrow laneways and crowded spaces within the 2.3-acre property, and the loss of the Ambassador Bridge view from the backyards of people living on Elm Avenue, just east of the Graffiti property.
“I have an incredible view of sunsets over the Ambassador Bridge,” said Aimee Allen, who had collected signatures from 24 of her Elm Avenue neighbours critical of the project. With the residential building's two floors of parking with five storeys of residential on top, “I will lose that,” she said.
“I support having a building back there, but it needs to fit in with the community.”
The original drawings of the project showed four storeys of residential, said another Elm Avenue resident, Greg Allen.
“At four floors, I was worried about my view, at seven it would be completely annihilated.”
He said he was excited when he heard the new owners of the property planned to fix up the three old buildings fronting University Avenue, between Elm and the private parkland located on top of the Detroit River train tunnel.
The property was used as a horsedrawn passenger carriage operation back in 1783, and around 1890 the current building furthest to the west was built as the trolley storage and maintenance operation for the SW&A Street Railway.
It was the location of MG Butler, a hardware and industrial supply operation, from 1951 to 2011 and was renovated between 2012 and 2014 with plans for a restaurant and greenhouse, but those dreams never were finalized.
The building in the middle is the former Junction family entertainment operation. The building to the east at Elm is an art deco office building. They've been vacant for about 11 years.
The new owner has used the city's Brownfield Development Community Improvement Plan to help with cleanup of the former industrial site. A report to the committee says the Graffiti project would expand the supply of badly needed small apartment units (53 of the units would be bachelor units with just 333 square feet of space), conserve and enhance heritage buildings, redevelop a brownfield site, and add residential and commercial uses to the University Avenue West corridor which is on the cusp of a revival.
Bortolin, who represents the area just west of downtown, said the residents raised a lot of questions and he urged the developer to get together with them to iron things out.
“Absolutely, we could certainly do that,” replied the planner for AIPL, Karl Tanner, who said such a meeting will need to take COVID-19 precautions. “Let's get everyone onside before we bring it to council.”