Maitland council delays decision on 17-92 residential, retail development

After years of false starts and dashed hopes, Maitland will wait a little longer to develop a downtown.

With an overflow crowd of concerned residents on hand, the City Council and related boards decided Thursday night not to vote on a development agreement for the Maitland City Centre project, a mixeduse development planned for the prime downtown block currently dominated by a long-closed grocery store.

The vote was pushed back to Nov. 17 to give officials more time to fine-tune contractual details and to address residents’ concerns.

Maitland City Centre in- cludes 250 residential units in a six-story building, a seven-story parking garage and retail space, including a coffee shop and a bank. It would occupy the block bounded by Horatio Avenue to the north, U.S. Highway 17-92 to the east, Independence Lane to the west and Packwood Avenue to the south.

It ’s the first of three projects planned for the downtown core, each on an adjoining parcel. The longterm idea is to turn Independence Lane, which is also home to City Hall, into a pedestrian-friendly “festival street” surrounded by residential, retail and office space.

Although most residents agree that the area is overdue for redevelopment, some fear the Maitland City Centre and accompanying projects are out of scale with the city and will worsen traffic woes at the already crowded intersection.

Recent road work and the arrival of SunRail have made the area more of a choke point for traffic. Critics of the development worry about adding hundreds of residents and businesses to an area that’s supposed to be pedestrian friendly.

“The key element of concern is the density factor,” said longtime resident Roxanne “Rocky ” Johnson. “The redevelopment of d ow n t ow n Maitland should be in keeping with the character of downtown Maitland.”