While Lee Westlake might think Queen Street Downtown is a great place to speed up, this 227-unit, 16- is ‘how’ intense.storied The building will be what concerns her – and she is not alone.
Many residents in the area near Queen and Barrie Streets want to see something that is more in keeping with the neighborhood.
“The zoning bylaws for that site are four to six storeys,” says Westlake.
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The proposal is set to go before the Ontario Land Tribunal. Global News has tried to contact the property owner for comment and has not yet received a response.
According to Kingston Mayor Brian Paterson, the city council has not made a decision on their status at an upcoming closed session meeting.
“The discussion that the council needs to be in closed session is because we want to protect the interests of the city,” Patterson said. “We want to make sure that in our discussions and our deliberations, we are not disclosing any information that could actually harm the state of the city.”
Colborne Street resident Bill Woods had this to add.
“We are concerned that as proposed, there is no mention of affordable housing,” Woods said. “It is definitely an issue in Kingston and so we would like to see some further consultation.”
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And with the current proposal before the land tribunal, residents like Westlake worry that the city has lost the ability to decide what constitutes appropriate development and that public consultation and the work of municipal staff could be ignored.
Westlake said, “It had 90 items of concern in its technical review, we also had a peer review … A lot of the echoes were the neighborhood comments.”
“We’re hoping that the city is going to the Ontario Land Tribunal in the spirit of these things.”
Residents have formed a group called ‘Friends of Queen Street Kingston’ and have applied to be part of the Ontario Land Tribunal hearing.
He is expected to find out whether he will get a chance to participate in the appeal later this month.
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