Many Innisfil residents would welcome a proper downtown for Sandycove, but not the one envisioned by Parkbridge Communities.
A public meeting was held Sept. 18 during a special meeting of town council to provide information on the commercial development proposal for 3185 Ireton St. and 2989 25th Sideroad. The approximate 3.37-hectare site is located in the Innis Village subdivision.
Parkbridge hopes to put nine commercial buildings on the property, alongside 359 parking spots and four separate entrances to the adjacent roads. The land is currently vacant, save for a temporary sales pavilion for the Innis Village subdivision.
Construction in the area of Lockhart Road and 25th Sideroad has been increasing over the past few years, and the town has designs on what that stretch can become as the Sandycove community grows.
Kory Chisholm, of MHBC Planning, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, planner for the development, said this proposal is just the beginning.
“It has been identified in the town’s planning documents that the town would like to see this area transition into more of a downtown commercial type area for Sandycove moving into the future,” he said.
“We feel this proposed application does conform to that vision and likely would be the first of these parcels to implement that transition to more of a downtown commercial," Chisholm added.
The proposed tenants of the development are not known at this time, but the project is likely to be anchored by a larger business, possibly a grocery store, at the corner of Lockhart Road and 25th Sideroad.
A grocery store in the neighbourhood would be nice, area resident Enrique Soissa told councillors, but the proposal as it stands is not in the best interests of the community, he said
“I find it inconsistent at best,” he said. “I don’t see a downtown there; I see a strip plaza.”
The lands were designated downtown commercial area in the town’s Official Plan, and are currently zoned as commercial neighbourhood exception with hold and future development.
The zoning bylaw amendment requested by Parkbridge was for a site-specific commercial neighbourhood zone that largely mirrored the regulations on the book, but with smaller setbacks, including a minimum front yard of three metres along 25th Sideroad, minimum exterior side yards of six metres on Ireton Street and eight metres on Lockhart Road, and a minimum rear yard of eight metres.
Part of the rationale for the setbacks is to allow for the parking lot to be enclosed by the buildings. Chisholm suggested this would be more aesthetically appealing for the residential neighbours, providing a “more attractive streetscape.”
“Current urban design best practice in areas like this is to try to push the buildings toward the street frontages and have parking located in behind,” he explained. “That’s a change from the historic built form we’d see on plazas where the buildings are at the back and you’d have a sea of parking in front. On these new commercial developments, we’re trying to flip that.”
It reminded Soissa of the Green Lane Centre along the border of East Gwillimbury and Newmarket, which isn’t the kind of development he feels is conducive to creating a vibrant downtown.
“The architects can do better and this is not it,” he said. “This is a failure in creativity, a lack of imagination, without seeing what a true downtown streetscape looks like.”
He lamented the lack of a downtown square or gathering place for pedestrians. He also questioned the removal of more than 200 trees that would be replaced by just 22.
That was also a concern of Steve Chessel, who lives behind the proposed development.
“I did not hear this evening any discussion about an environmental impact of that specific area,” he said. “I do not understand the need to destroy a significantly forested area with no environmental impact review.”
When he bought, he was told a “small” commercial development was planned. He told councillors that a proposal that is half the square footage of the Tanger Outlet is not what he considers small.
Additional privacy fencing and landscaping details to help buffer the development from the neighbourhood would be hashed out during the site plan approval process, Chisholm said.
The residents found allies around the council table, primarily in the form of Coun. Linda Zanella, who represents the ward where the development is proposed and Coun. Alex Waters.
Zanella shared the concerns residents had previously raised with her, and spoke to the disconnect she saw between the plans presented at the meeting and the town’s vision for the reconstruction of 25th Sideroad.
Waters was more pointed in his opinion on the proposal in front of council.
“It’s called a downtown, it’s not called plazaville,” he said. “It would be nice if we can somehow encourage Parkridge to come back with some much better designs than what they currently have… that truly means it’s a downtown for Sandycove.”
Deputy Mayor Kenneth Fowler agreed.
“A little more thought needs to be put in as to the actual residents who will be using it,” he said.
Staff and the proponents will take all comments received into account before a final recommendation on the project is brought forward to council at a later date.
