Port Elgin is about to see two more major apartment buildings at the site known as Lord Elgin Estates between Hwy. 21 and Waterloo Street where the land is zoned R4 which is high density.
The subject lands are part of the Summerside Subdivision, which was draft approved in 2010 and the lands were site plan approved for three apartment buildings in June 2016.
The first apartment building in the development was recently completed and is almost full to capacity. The overall Draft Plan contains three high density blocks, namely Blocks 57, 58 and 59, which were draft approved for 357 apartment units. Only Block 59 has been developed and recently opened to date and is now almost full to capacity.
The proposed two new apartment blocks will contain 108 suites (54 each) with access on to Waterloo Street. Originally the plan was for a total of 101 suites however, Kate Wills, planner for the development, told the Committee of Adjustment that there was a higher demand for larger units than those found in the first block and, therefore, an additional seven suites were being planned, an increase of five percent, which required Council to vote on a recommendation to allow 93units/hectare as opposed to the regular 88.5units/hectare.
Vice-Deputy Mayor pointed out that when the original proposal for development came before Council “…we were encouraged to think that there would be affordable units in the mix. We have a goal that 10 percent of building will be through infilling, 30 per cent new growth should be medium to high density and 30 percent should be affordable housing. There was some hope that apartment living would provide some of that.”
The Committee of Adjustment approved the request for the increase in size for the two proposed blocks.
