Community bands together against big developers in Paris, Ontario — and wins

A community in Paris is celebrating after Losani Homes walked back a proposal to put a 211-unit apartment building in their subdivision.

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“The applicants are not proceeding with the proposed eight-storey apartment building,” reads an email to residents of the Mile Hill subdivision from the County of Brant.

The change comes a bit over a month after community members lined their lawns with “Stop Losani Homes. Say no to high density/apartment” signs and flooded council chambers to express dissatisfaction at a Sept. 10 public hearing.

Many residents said they were “misled” by the developer, who they told them “townhouses” were planned for two vacant blocks when they purchased.

However, a representative for Losani Homes says the developer was just following Brant County’s new official plan that was adopted in May 2023 and allows for residential buildings up to 10 stores.

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“If the County’s Official Plan had not first noted the 10-storey apartment build form for our site, we would not have made the 8-storey apartment proposal,” John-Anthony Losani, property management operations manager for the company, told The Spectator over email on Monday.

Following the public outcry, Losani Homes submitted an amendment to the county.

The new plan proposes 72 townhouse units in place of the apartment building for one block, with the previously proposed 80 three-storey townhouse units for the other, Jeremy Vink, director of planning for the county, told The Spectator in an email Monday.

The townhouse styles would include fourplex, row house, street fronting and stacked townhouse, with a maximum building height of around 3.5 storeys, the email residents received says.

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It doesn’t revive the commercial units from a previous application — which some residents hoped to see on their side of Rest Acres Road.

Because there is no access to the block from Rest Acres Road or Powerline Road, all commercial traffic would be coming in through the subdivision side streets, making commercial uses unviable, Losani said.

Still, it’s around 139 residential units less than the previous application.

Residents took to their community Facebook group to share the happy news.

“Due to informative handouts, door to door canvassing, hundreds of letters of opposition sent in, showing our strength in numbers at the public meeting and protesting with lawn signs, we, Mile Hill, presented ourselves as intelligent, concerned, informed residents of Brant and that we wouldn’t let this go without a fight!!” Kevin McDonald posted under his wife’s Facebook handle.

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“It’s wonderful how we were able to support each other in our community and the amazing support we received from the Mayor David Bailey was very much appreciated,” neighbor Teresa Ryś told The Spectator on Friday.

Neighbors from a second subdivision one kilometer up the road are watching closely, as they’re pushing back over another Losani property that was approved for an eight-storey building with 104 units.

The Spectator asked if the developer might consider a similar amendment with the Court Drive site, but since council already gave approval for additional units in a separate building on Oct. 8, the planning applications will not be reopened at this point, Losani said.

While mid-rise apartment buildings may not have been part of the previous landscape of Brant County, councilors have indicated that will change, advocating for building up to protect productive farmland.

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Developers in Brant County may also soon face a large increase in development charges, meaning “an already dire affordability problem” could get “significantly worse,” Losani said.

He pointed to one-bedroom apartments as the only build form “that can be realistically constructed and offered within Ontario’s definition of affordable housing.”

He said they were reluctant to scrap the apartment building “for this reason.”

The amended application for Mile Hill will be presented at a Nov. 12 council meeting, at which time councilors will be asked to make a decision.

If they vote in favor, a site plan control application will still need to be approved.

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

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