.png;w=960)
Opponents of a dense development at 405 Essa Rd., in Barrie's south end, are not afraid to sign on the dotted line to make their point.
A total of 557 signatures on a petition — both online and handwritten — has circulated opposing a rezoning there. It would allow Sean Mason Homes to build an eight-storey, mixed-use condominium building with 89 residences, six townhouses and ground-floor commercial space, along with a ground-floor parking garage and an amenity area on this vacant, rectangular. 0.67-acre property on the west side of Essa Road, north of the Ferndale Drive South and Veterans Drive intersection.
“Obviously, some local people are against it. They don’t like it in their area,” developer Sean Mason told BarrieToday of his proposed development. “It screams of not in my backyard. They said many times ‘we are not against intensification’.”
A public meeting was held Dec. 14 on the rezoning application, which now goes to city planning staff for a report, then to Barrie councillors for a decision, sometime in 2022.
Melissa Calliste and her family moved to Barrie from Brampton in 2020 and chose to live on nearby Cityview Circle.
“When we recognized this area was going to grow, we assumed it would be developed through a smart-growth strategy, that this future development would be in keeping with the surrounding neighbourhoods on its doorstep,” she said at the public meeting.
“We were aware that 405 Essa was going to be developed,” Calliste said. “What we were not prepared for was this crass attempt to ram this application on this particular half-acre.”
Anne Lemarquand has lived on Cityview Circle for just more than 21 years, and directly next to her home is 405 Essa Rd.
“Our opposition to this applicant’s building has always been about the choice of built-form and his density targets,” said the single mother of two 15-year-old sons. “Now we are faced with this completely out-of-step, massive project that is a millimetre from my family home.”
Lemarquand asked that city planning staff and councillors consider this project’s cost to residents’ mental health and privacy.
“You will shatter any sense of privacy I have and my sons have. It seems like we are suffering through a highly aggressive housing plan that will change our home life forever,” she said. “I have spent many sleepless night in the last almost six years worrying about the various plans being put forward for 405 Essa Rd.”
And plans have changed at least twice for this proposed development.
In June 2018, city council rezoned this property to multiple residential use from agricultural. This land is within the Essa Road secondary intensification corridor and is adjacent to mature residential development which has existed for more than 25 years.
A previous proposal for 16 townhouses was appealed by residents to and subsequently approved by the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) last March.
“The same people who on (Dec. 14) said ‘why can’t he stick with 16 townhouses?’… those are the same people who fought it at LPAT,” Mason said. “So why speak that it’s fine now after they fought it for three years? It was also argued against during the (city) approval process.”
At one point, Mason was proposing 115 residences, which included 103 condos, six townhouses and six mixed-use (live/work) units and 15 per cent affordable housing. Then that was also changed.
“Why is it being changed? There has certainly been a long passage of time,” he said. “And I originally proposed something at a lower scale.
"I understand that local people do not like it. Nobody is speaking for the people who don’t live there yet. Council is supposed to speak for both,” Mason added. “You need to have advocates that speak for existing and the future residents, and unfortunately those future residents… don’t show up at council (or public meetings).”
Coun. Natalie Harris, who represents this part of Barrie, said many unanswered questions remain.
“We had a built form that was approved and very compatible with the surrounding built forms,” she said of the 16 townhouses. “I would just like… in writing, a report as to why such a drastic increase in height and density has been made, especially after the LPAT review was done.
“It was such a long process and the surrounding residents have come to accept that that was what was going to happen, the townhouses were going to be built. Because when do we really say enough is enough,” Harris added.
“Builders need to make money — that’s what they do — but this just doesn’t fit into the built form.”
The land is designated for residential use in Barrie’s Official Plan, which also identifies the property as being on a secondary intensification corridor.
The apartment building would be 25.5 metres in height, with the condos on the top seven storeys, and they would range in size from studio apartments to three-bedroom units. The townhouses would be three storeys in height and there would be a total of 104 parking spaces.
Mason has said 12 per cent of the residences will be affordable housing.
The rezoning application presented at the Dec 14 public meeting seeks to amend the existing zoning from multiple residential dwelling with a hold provision to mixed-use corridor with special provisions — including smaller rear-yard setbacks and landscape buffering.
