The City of Belleville’s Planning Advisory Committee heard changes to a planned development for the vacant waterfront land between Crate Marine and the Ramada Inn in Belleville.
The original plan that was brought to the city 12 years ago called for three 15-storey condominium buildings to be built on the land.
Now, the plan would be to allow 19 stacked- and back-to-back townhouse dwellings, a mixed-use mid-rise multi-unit building, and a low-rise multi-unit dwelling.
This would lead to a total of 213 residential units on the almost three hectare property and 288 parking spots, along with a multi-use pathway.
Thomas Binczyk with MDM Developments, the company behind the property development project, explained the reason for the shift from condo towers.
He said that the market didn’t align for the timing of the launch for sale around 2023.
“We didn’t have anything that kind of was like a single-family home-esque thing, townhomes, anything like that,” Bincyzk told the committee.
“The condo market, pretty much across the province, across the country, tanked. I’m sure you all see the headlines and yeah, it was unfortunate timing.”
Bincyzk was asked about a timeline for sale and construction of the new townhouses that were being proposed.
“So I would anticipate, if we got zoning and approval, we are currently targeting to open for sale this summer,” Bincyzk said.
“Some of the town homes in there, you’re looking at maybe a 12-month build, so next year, end of next year (for completion).”
Bincyzk estimated that the two- and three-bedroom townhouses would go on sale between $500,000 and $600,000.
Beverly Saunders with LGL Limited, who was representing the developer during the meeting, noted that the switch to a more townhouse-focused approach would allow for construction to move more quickly.
“One of the reasons we’ve transitioned to this model is you can phase in smaller amounts,” Saunders explained to the committee.
“You can sell eight or 10, and then phase to build those right away, and then that helps with the financing of the rest of the project. So I just want to mention that this particular model also just allows for this phasing to happen more expediently, so that we’re not held up trying to get a certain number of sales to start moving forward.”
There was one concern from the public about the width of the road that would be used to get boats and trailers to the nearby marina.
The committee said that that concern was noted and would be addressed in a future staff report.
No decision on the application was made.
Council received the application and forwarded it to city staff so they could provide a report at a future meeting.
