Some Paris residents feel blindsided over apartment developments

Residents of the Court Drive subdivision of Paris are angry. Like their neighbors at the Mile Hill subdivision down the road, they say they were blindsided over three condo developments proposed between the two neighborhoods.

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They support “the growth and development” of the community, but argue it should be “carefully planned to ensure that the quality of life of existing residents does not deteriorate,” a letter to councilors from multiple residents said.

They argue that’s not what’s happening.

The neighboring schools are already at capacity, with the Catholic board contemplating sending grades 6 through 8 students to Brantford schools last year.

“And the community blew up at that because they didn’t want their 10-year-old riding a bus for an hour and a half,” Cameron Stone told The Spectator in a call on Wednesday.

Stone and his wife bought one of the first new builds in the Mile Hill subdivision through a small developer in 2018. Their developer and others ended up selling to Hamilton’s Losani Homes, which was also building homes in the area.

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Now, it feels like “the big city developer coming in and bullying the small town,” he said.

Lawn signs have been popping up in the two Paris subdivisions over the last month. Losani Homes has “respectfully” asked homeowners to take them down through letters delivered by courier.

“Stop Losani Homes. Say no to high density/apartment,” the signs read.

But, to vote against the proposed buildings would mean contradicting the pending new official plan that councilors themselves adopted on May 30, 2023.

It designates the Rest Acres Road area of ​​Paris as a community corridor, which allows residential buildings up to 10 stores.

Last week, a representative for the builder asked council to consider their application under the new official plan, which would allow for an increase in units for a property on Court Drive from the 104 that was approved in the initial site plan. A concept plan from the builder suggested as many as 153 additional units in a second, eight-storey mid-rise for the lot.

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WHAT IS PROPOSED?

Mile Hill

“Blocks 98 and 99” of the Mile Hill community were pitched as apartment-style housing as early as 2013, according to a letter residents received from Losani Homes.

In the time since then, concepts have gone through “several build forms” with input from the county, the letter says.

On Sept. 10, council had a public hearing of Losani’s proposal for an eight-storey, 211-unit apartment building, as well as 80 homes in the form of back-to-back townhouses, row houses and stacked townhouses.

In the coming months, staff will bring a report to council for their consideration.

Court Drive

The property was established as a “high-density residential development Block” within the Simply Grand II (originally Riverview Highlands) Subdivision, Dan Namisniak, acting director of development planning for the county, told The Spectator.

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Previous owners got permission for a maximum building height of 12 stores with a maximum 104 units in 2014.

Phase 1 of “Block 39” of the Court Drive subdivision got site plan approval for an eight-storey building with 104 units in December 2023.

A conceptual plan proposes an additional 153 units in a second building as part of Phase 2.

On Oct. 8, council passed a bylaw that would allow for additional units on the site, but further development beyond the already approved eight-storey, 104 unit building will require site plan control approval, Namisniak said.

Council ultimately gave their approval.

“We have been mandated to grow, we are in a housing deficit, we need a mixture of housing, and we need to control the sprawl out into our productive farmland … so we can continue to feed the community,” Coun. Jennifer Kyle said at the council meeting.

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However, while Mayor David Bailey recognized multi-storey apartment-style buildings are needed in the county, he argued that people should be able to decide whether they “live in the shadow of one.”

“We’re doing it a bit ass-backward,” he said before voting against the bylaw amendment. He suggested it makes more sense to build the apartment buildings first, and then build the subdivision around it.

Buyers say they were led to believe townhouses would go in the vacant subdivision “Block 34” marked as “future residential,” they told council last week.

His comments came after residents, like Pavinder Tut, who bought in Court Drive two years ago, said they were misinformed about what their neighborhood would look like.

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“Homeowners were sold on the notion of this private, ravine-facing lot. For us, this was done in poor faith,” Tut told councillors.

A representative for Losani Homes said buyers in that development were “expressly required to initial the site plan showing ‘Block 34’ as ‘Proposed Future High Density Residential’”, John-Anthony Losani, property management operations manager for Losani Homes, told The Spectator in an email Oct. 9.

This form also acknowledged that “no specific representations were made with respect to the zoning of adjacent properties,” Losani continued.

The folks who spoke before council last week didn’t recall that. Like their neighbors in Mile Hill, they said they were told townhouses would go in the vacant “Block 34.”

But while councilors seemed in agreement that different types of dwellings are needed, Bailey admitted the process was “flawed.”

“People lost…their spirit to live in the County of Brant. And that’s not our fault, but it happened and we can’t let it happen again,” he said.

Celeste Percy-Beauregard is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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