Council Committee Endorsed Retail Apartment Project

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Replacing the old Corbret’s Pet Depot on Walker Road with a residential / retail project reminiscent of a traditional main street drew criticism Monday from neighbors concerned about parking, crime and invaded privacy.

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The property owner south of EC Row Expressway is planning a partial demolition of the closed pet store and the construction of a new building with seven retail stores on the main floor and eight apartments upstairs with balconies facing west towards the residential courtyards. of people. living on Turner Road.

“These balconies will be right over our backyard, allowing tenants an unobstructed view of us, our guests, and activities, and of course being able to hear our conversations,” wrote Turner Road residents Richard and Nancy Kirkness, in a letter to the city. Standing Committee on Development and Heritage, which describes the proposed project as a “major invasion of our privacy.”

Another Turner Road couple, Cairen and Brian Robinson, wrote that none of the “residential over commercial buildings” they have seen have balconies at the rear of the building. “The proposed building only has windows and balconies that face the interior lot line (our backyards), so apartment residents have no other view than our backyards,” they said.

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The committee unanimously recommended approval of the zoning changes necessary for the project to move forward. The recommendation has yet to be endorsed by the council.

The owner, a numbered Ontario company controlled by Hazim Al Harraq and Alex Mereby, was represented by planner Tracey Pillon-Abbs, who assured the committee that concerns about invaded privacy can be resolved.

“These balconies can be easily flipped over to the side of Walker Road,” he said.

Lenn Curtis and Christine Oszter, who own three properties and run a hobby business directly north of Corbret’s old store, said they were concerned that the proposed development would worsen an already bad parking situation in the area. A business across the street doesn’t have parking, so their business fills with cars, trucks and trailers that sponsor that business, Curtis said.

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“We don’t have parking to give up on this (new development),” he said, recounting how Corbret customers used to occupy their parking spaces as well. “With seven more businesses and eight apartments, if any one of those businesses is busier than a small pet store, we’re going to have a lot more problems.”

He also suggested that adding eight apartments would worsen an already serious crime and drug problem in the area, reporting that he has seen five body bags taken from nearby existing apartment buildings which he called crackhouses.

But committee chair Rino Bortolin, the District 3 councilor, said he is growing weary of people opposing multihome developments stoking fears about a rise in crime. “We tend to paint them negatively, calling them crackhouses, worrying about crime in the area,” he said.

“We need to get away from this notion that multi-residence apartment buildings, or people who live in apartment buildings, have a higher propensity for crime, a higher propensity for drug use, and all those negative stereotypes out there.”

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