Niagara-on-the-Lake residents who spoke out against Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments for 325 King Street at a public open house on Tuesday say the proposed land use does not benefit the neighbourhood or the community and, in the words of Marilyn Bartlett of Centre Street, “takes a wrecking ball to the Official Plan.”
The former Parliament Oak School property, which is owned by Two Sisters Resorts, is currently designated for open space and community facilities, and zoned for institutional use. The developer has submitted a proposed amendment for commercial use of the property, which would see the school building demolished, and a 19-metre-tall, 129-room hotel with underground parking, a restaurant and patio, a spa, banquet/conference facilities and retail shops built there.
Having a hotel in the middle of a residential area is not unusual in NOTL, Two Sisters representatives said, pointing to others in town, including the Prince of Wales Hotel and the Oban Inn, and with a design not intended to mimic nearby houses, but to be suitable to the area, recognizing and integrating with the location of the downtown area and placed sensitively in the neighbourhood.
While the property will be walled, councillors were told, there will be an entrance to the grounds that will make it accessible to the public.
Bartlett, who also called the amendments “an assault on the quiet character and privacy of the surrounding neighbourhood,” would like to see the town reject the application as incomplete and inappropriate, a sentiment echoed by more than a dozen residents, some of whom cited the need for a traffic study and a planning impact analysis. Regent Street resident Alan Gordon quoted the Official Plan in his objection, which prevents “the intrusion of commercial uses into residential areas.”
Many residents at the open house objected to the height of the proposed hotel, saying that although the planners have called it a four-storey building, in reality its height would be closer to that of a six-storey building. While the planners have suggested that the “generous setbacks” of the building from the street would “mitigate” its height, NOTL resident Connie Tintinalli stated that “the height is the height.”
Lyle Hall, a former hotel operator and current president of the Niagara Foundation, said that hotels are “incompatible with residential land uses,” and that the proposed hotel goes far beyond space to accommodate overnight guests by allowing seating for 700 people in its combined restaurant and banquet facilities — five times the seating needed for hotel guests. This, Hall explained, means that the proposed underground parking will be insufficient for the number of patrons.
He requested the town ask the property developers to demonstrate a business need for another new hotel in NOTL, given that three hotels have already been approved, which together will provide 190 additional rooms. By refusing the amendment applications, he says, “council (could) use this high-profile opportunity to signal its intention to enforce the Official Plan across NOTL.”
In addition to parking, residents expressed concern about the safety of children on streets surrounding the property, given that there would be an increase in traffic once it was built, and many streets in the neighbourhood do not have sidewalks.
When asked by council what they would prefer to see happen on the site, residents overwhelmingly agreed it should remain zoned institutional, with suggestions for its use included a community centre, a medical facility, or a child care centre.
Nancy Bongard, who has lived in NOTL for 42 years and uses a walker, said that “Someday, I will obviously need an assisted living facility when I move from my home, just as many other seniors who have settled in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We desperately need an assisted living facility, much more so than another hotel. The applicant has said he wants to improve our town. I suggest he now has the opportunity to do so, to step up and fulfill this enormous need in our town... This property has been zoned institutional, and to build anything other than an institution for the benefit of Niagara-on-the-Lake would simply be wrong.”