There has to be a better way than developers squaring off against residents during city council and committee meetings every week at Barrie City Hall.
We’ve all seen it far too often during the past few years.
A developer — sometimes local, sometimes not — and their hired planning consultant pitch a plan to build new residences — semi-detached homes, townhouses, six- or eight-plexes, towers — in a neighbourhood of single-family homes.
The developer is asking for a rezoning because it wants more density or height or gross floor coverage than the rules allow, or less parking or setbacks (the distance from the building to the property’s edge) or trees saved than is required.
And property owners have every right to ask that their land be developed to its highest, best use.
The neighbours? They want less height, density, mass, etc. Something more in character with the community where they might have lived for the last 10, 20 or even 30 years.
Many call this NIMBYism, or not in my back yard-ism.
But residents have every right to oppose developments which drastically change their neighbourhoods — increasing traffic, decreasing safety for pedestrians, making it noisier, blocking their views, etc.
Two recent development proposals illustrate the deadlock.
At 19 Dundonald St., a rezoning is needed to build a nine-storey residential condominium with 58 units and two levels of underground parking on just less than an acre of land north of Collier and Blake streets, south of Theresa Street.
The single-family and low-rise apartment neighbours say it’s too tall, too dense and sits on one of Barrie’s steepest hills, making it a traffic nightmare.
The developer says it adds to Barrie’s housing stock, at a time of housing shortage, is within walking distance of the downtown and conforms with provincial planning policies, which say Ontario needs to build more housing.
(Just as an aside, the many letters of support from people who don’t live in Barrie should fool no one. Shame on planning consultants who try to fix feedback results.)
A public meeting earlier this month shows there’s not much middle ground on Dundonald.
Ditto for a proposal to build six storeys with 154 residential apartments at 114 Blake St. The former site of Lake Simcoe Motel, which has since been demolished, needs to be rezoned for this development on just more than an acre.
This property is surrounded by one- and two-storey, single-family homes, with a few of the adjacent houses designated as historic homes.
And a letter was sent to area property owners from a Toronto realtor representing “a reputable and qualified buyer that has recently purchased 114 Blake St. and is interested in acquiring other properties on the street.”
That doesn’t help either the neighbours or the numbered-company landowner/developer.
So, what’s the solution?
Dundonald neighbours are looking at hiring a planning consultant of their own, to make their case not only to council — which will ultimately decide — but to counter the developer’s planner.
That’s like hiring more lawyers, in my opinion. It will cost more, and it might not get you a better result.
Someone who knows far more about planning than I do has suggested what seems like a possible solution.
Why not have the developer sit down with the neighbours, try to iron out a compromise or, at the very least, find some common ground for a solution?
They used to be called working groups, where city planning staff essentially mediated — with the developer and neighbours working together to come up with a proposal that would satisfy both.
And not with the developer’s planning consultant; the developer.
And not with neighbours who will only accept new buildings of two storeys in height.
They all have to want to reach a compromise or it won’t work.
Maybe it’s just a pipe dream, that these sides are so dug in that they won’t give an inch.
But it has to be better than the status quo, which plainly isn’t working.
It would also be better if these working groups met in person, face-to-face.
Zoom/video calls, Facebook, Twitter, emails and text messages are just too impersonal for the degree of understanding and compromise needed to find solutions to development logjams in Barrie’s neighbourhoods, new and old.
What’s in it for developers? Maybe they get 80 per cent of what they want built in three years instead of five.
For neighbours? Maybe the new building is three storeys instead of six, and not built right to the edge of the property, but a little ways back.
Compromise means no one gets everything they want, but something is better than nothing.
It’s worth thinking about, as this council’s time runs out and the pressures to change neighbourhoods resume.
Bob Bruton covers city hall for BarrieToday.
