THURSDAY July 6, 2017
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Homestead proposes 17 and 19 storey apartments downtown BY BILL HUTCHINS
400 local kids take part in triathlon The 2017 K-Town Kids Triathlon was held on the Kingston Memorial Centre fairgrounds and pool on Saturday, June 24. There were 400 participants from four to 13 years old. [Above] Seven-year-old Avery Ballance-Hinch completes the triathlon first in her heat. John Harman/Metroland
Homestead Land Holdings Ltd. has unveiled revised plans for its residential tower project at the foot of Queen Street in downtown Kingston. But, it may not matter what staff, politicians or the public think about the 17 and 19 storey buildings; Homestead has filed an appeal with the Ontario Municipal Board because the city has taken too long to make a decision on its application. The timeline to decide a planning application ranges from 120 to 180 days. “They’re just appealing the applications based on council indecision on the matter. So this (project) has exceeded the timeline in the Planning Act that’s given for council to make a decision,” explained chief planner Paige Agnew. The appeal, which coincides with the pending launch of a new round of public and staff discussions over the revised project design, has confused city planners. Typically, any development appeal to the OMB essentially takes the planning matter out of municipal hands. “We’ve never been in this situation before so it’s a new thing
for us,” said Agnew, adding: “We don’t exactly know how we are going to handle it.” For now, though, she says staff are continuing to review a raft of studies supporting Homestead’s revised building application, which relies heavily on Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments to get off the ground, and haven’t made any recommendations to councillors yet. “They (Homestead) do want to continue to work through the process with staff and we’re currently evaluating what’s going to happen,” said Agnew. Homestead’s initial highrise application covering two surface parking lots in the North Block area was unveiled in late 2015 but generally panned by the public at a February 2016 meeting as too tall and out of scale with the low-rise businesses around it. The original designs called for two, 20 storey residential apartments, plus a public parking garage and Homestead’s corporate office. The buildings have been slightly lowered and the public parking garage component has been removed.
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