| The Renfrew Community Association is fighting plans to increase density in its community, which the city is proposing as part of its 16th Avenue North widening project.
The city has already begun work to widen 16th Avenue to six from four lanes between 14th St. N.W. and 6th St. N.E.. The city has also created a concept plan for the corridor north and south of the roadway, which encompasses eight communities, including Renfrew. Under it, the city plans to increase density along the north side of 15th Avenue and the south side of 17th Avenue North to allow apartments and other multi-residential units up to six storeys high. The plan also proposes to allow up to 13-storey buildings along 16th Avenue, which could include both commercial and residential.
Renfrew Community Association president Ron Powers says the strip of 15th Avenue that runs through Renfrew currently only has single-family housing and the community is opposed to densification.
"The issue is there’s no apartment blocks in that area right now and so it’s just a creep. Once it starts, how far will it creep?" he asks.
Powers says Renfrew residents also question why Rosedale, one of the other communities adjacent to 16th Avenue, won’t experience an increase in density.
"They’re getting a zero population increase," says Powers.
When asked why he thinks the city isn’t imposing increased density in Rosedale, Powers says, "Nicer houses (in Rosedale) is all I can think of."
Jamie Schnell, a spokesperson for the Renfrew key stakeholder group, which has represented residents at city consultation sessions, says he’s very frustrated with the process. He says he’s gone door-to-door in Renfrew to talk to residents and none are in favour of the city’s densification plan.
"Renfrew is a single-family community. It’s all bungalows. Everyone knows everyone else. It would really disastrously impact the community in that it would bring in huge increases in density just in that one area," he says.
Schnell says that although Renfrew does have some apartment buildings, they’re several blocks from the area where the city wants to increase density.
Schnell says he and many other Renfrew residents feel the city isn’t listening to them.
"Every piece of advice and input is simply ignored," he says. "Just like Rosedale, we feel we have the right to retain (current zoning) and we don’t understand why we’re second-class citizens and they’re first-class citizens. There’s no justification."
He says when people first learned the city wanted to increased densification in Renfrew in the spring of 2005, about 20 per cent of the homes on 15th Avenue went up for sale because residents were concerned about future plans for their street.
"They saw it as completely destructive and property values would drop like a rock," he says.
Vern Hart, a senior planner with the city, says the goal of the project is to revitalize the 16th Avenue corridor to create more "sustainable" communities, which have large enough populations to maintain city amenities such as libraries and pools. He points out that Renfrew’s population used to be 9,000 in the late ’60s and early ’70s, but it’s now only 6,000. The Renfrew Community Association says the population may be lower than in the 1970s, but the community is growing.
Hart says the city also wants to increase the viability of businesses along 16th Avenue, and that requires a higher local population. Multi-residential along 15th and 17th Avenues would also provide a buffer between new 16th Avenue development and single-family dwellings farther south, he says.
Rosedale won’t experience increased density because it currently has housing directly adjacent to 16th Avenue unlike other communities that have commercial development or vacant land along the roadway. The city is planning to build a sound barrier that will separate Rosedale from 16th Avenue.
"To go in and create multi-family residential in that location to provide a buffer or a transition really doesn’t make sense there," he says.
Hart says the city has been engaged in extensive consultation and community members will still have a chance to voice their concerns at a public hearing before city council makes a decision on rezoning. |
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