are interested to speak but at this point i'll pause and take further direction mr chairman
from the board so so hillary one of the things that i thought about is that why don't we address
the john hunter issue now with the reason being if he raises issues that the board have it interested
that they'll be able to talk to adam about so why don't you give me your your plans when john
Hunter's short comments, his vocal comments. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman
and members of the board, as well as Ms. Emerson. We take this very seriously, and
I want to be as respectful as possible. As I noted, due to the rescheduling of this resumption
hearing. One of our expert witnesses is abroad. However, he rearranged his schedule to participate
live and virtually. You just heard Dr. Angelides do that. Mr. Chairman and members of the board,
I must respectfully object to playing John Hunter's pre-recording during this hearing.
Less than 24 hours before the start of this afternoon's hearing, I received John Hunter's
purported testimony in this matter on behalf of mount young neighborhood council mnc
I would submit that it is replete with hearsay and factual inaccuracies, misstatements of fact, for which Mr. Hunter cannot be, apparently not be, cross-examined.
i would submit that it is replete with hearsay and factual in
We object to the introduction of an audio recording as purported testimony.
As a matter of practice in law, administrative hearing testimony must be given under oath and live during hearing.
If Mr. Hunter has chosen not to participate live in today's hearing, that is his choice.
As with other interested parties who submit written positions to the board, we acknowledge, however, that Mr. Hunter's written statement, which I did read, may be appropriately considered by this zoning board, along with all the other written statements that are submitted.
It's puzzling to me, members of the board, that if Mr. Hunter chooses not to participate in today's hybrid format hearing, that other members of MNC 11 member executive board, including MNC's president, Kevin Smith, are unable to present live, whether virtually or next to me in front of you, MNC's position in this matter and to be subject to standard respectful rules of cross-examination.
That being stated, I want to be responsive, Mr. Chairman, to what you stated. I have read the statement. I would, if Mr. Hunter were here, question the comparison to 11 Shores Lane.
It is not an apples to apples comparison. That property is not in the floodplain. It is not a minor difference. There are other challenges with our property, such as the rocky outcrop and various gradations in the topography under the subject property.
It's interesting in Mr. Hunter's statement that there was a discussion,
there was mention of public parking as a topic of discussion for the first floor.
Neither I nor my client nor any of our experts remember that having been raised.
And it's quite interesting that it is being raised because it's being raised along with skepticism on a plan for moving cars during a flood event.
And I would respectfully submit that if that is a concern, and I think it is a legitimate concern, which we are addressing, that it would be much more possible to have a plan in place for moving residents cars to another location, residents who are being managed by urban conversions, which is a known entity, rather than in and out parking or other types of things.
where quite frankly you don't know how to contact uh the um the owners or users of the car
mention was also made regarding uh this is hearsay why don't we do this instead of
going over that each point now what what i'm going to say i understand your points but we're
going to play it and then i'm going to give you a chance to um respond and um what i would even do
is give you a chance to respond in writing so what what i'd like to do right now hillary is play that
and that way we'll hear it then we're going to move on with uh you know questions mr laver
and we'll we'll try to get it done okay so ian i think is in the back ready to play it so we're
going to play it now i think it's 18 minutes so it is 18 minutes this is this is quite unprecedented
uh well um this is a project i think both sides have a lot of interest and we're going to try to
to what we can think is fair.
So why don't we play it?
My name is John Hunter,
J-O-H-N-H-U-N-T-E-R.
This is a recording of my testimony
that has been approved by the zoning board.
Unfortunately, I will be out of the country
and in transit and unable to attend the meeting
either in person or via Zoom.
In the absence of swearing in by Chair Berman, I affirm that I will be providing testimony
which is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I am the Zoning Chair of Manningham Neighbourhood Council.
I have listened to the testimony of Mr. Labour and Mr. Layton on March 19th and read the
Mr. Laver and Mr. Layton on March 19th and read the exhibit submitted at that time, but
obviously the subsequent resumption hearing information I've not heard.
I can confirm that, as Mr. Laver explained, the sequence of events that Kevin Smith and
I, as president of Manningham neighborhood council, met with the urban conversions design
team in December of 2023. That meeting was the fourth meeting that we'd had with different
developers who were interested in the site and developing it. So we were familiar with
some of the concerns, some of the development team's ideas from other developers, and the
site. But we were given a detailed tour through the interior of the building. And then after
that we were shown a scheme that we had no idea it would be shown, which was a pretty
detailed scheme of a seven-story building with, we were told, 200 units and 100 car spaces
occupying the majority of the site, but certainly from east to west along Main Street and the front
facade at the back of the sidewalk. There was the intent to retain two elements of the original
building along Main Street at the first floor level, but the rest of the site would be completely
flattened and raised, which was pretty surprising to us in terms of the breadth of the change.
Our response, as it was, without prior warning, was that at seven stories high, the building was
far too high for its location in Maniunk in the historic district, and that it needed
to be much lower, and that the parking provision at one space for two units was, given our
experience of Maniunk and the residential developments, that a one-to-one parking was
much more likely to be marketable and receive approval. We made some other
comments about the scheme obviously but again they were just from our initial
reaction including that because the site had a steep slope from Main Street
along the western edge up to along Schur's Lane that two levels of parking
might be beneficial as we talked about that with other developers and that one
of the levels of parking could be public parking off Main Street to compensate
for the fact that commercial space along Main Street couldn't be provided because
of the flooding and that the second level of parking could be for the residential units and
at that level um the rear of the side on the northwest corner is just above the floodplain
and out of the floodplain and so accessing residential parking and maybe residential
entrance at that side of this of the building would provide continuous uninterrupted access
to a residential component, rather being subject to the flooding events
that we knew would come sometime in the future.
At the second meeting, which was about a month later,
a revised scheme was shown to us.
It was, again, still seven storeys high.
The height hadn't changed.
But the provision of parking had been increased
and the number of units reduced,
used close to what eventually has been proposed on March 19th, which is 163 units, I think,
and 161 parking spaces. The parking spaces, 99 of the parking spaces, were still in the
floodplain on the first floor and were arranged all along the first floor frontage along Main
Street, except for the middle section between two parts of the existing building, where
a new entrance and a new parking garage entrance would be located.
Our comments on the second scheme were again about the height of the building still being
seven storeys high, which we thought was unacceptable, that the continuous elevation along Main Street
was rather relentless and the building would benefit from
uh rather relentless and the building would benefit from at least in form being broken up into
probably three different elements and that maybe there could be a recess in the facade
which would occur between the two existing elements of the retained facade in the middle
of the elevation um we didn't get a positive response to those comments and it was that scheme
after that meeting that went forward to the zoning application and the historical commission
application for approval to demolish the existing buildings and approve the scheme.
We attended the meetings related to that historical commission approval, including
the financial hardship committee and the two architectural committee meetings that preceded
the historical commission meeting. The first architectural committee vote was to deny the
scheme with recommendations to change the mass and the relationship to the existing
facade that was being retained. There was a reference to it being treated like wallpaper
rather than a remnant of the existing building. And at the second meeting, there had been
some changes the changes were principally on the main street's facade although the amenity
deck at the western end had been lowered by one floor the rest of the changes were really
setbacks in the facade and they were either horizontal for instance above the existing
retained wall or vertical to sort of to try and break up the facade but all of those elements
were and the setbacks were within five feet of the facade, the first five feet only. So
it was relatively cosmetic and when you've got a building that's 82 feet high, it didn't seem
appropriate. But the development team chose to proceed even with that second denial and to,
they received approval from the full historical commission to demolish the
buildings and to approve the scheme as presented. That scheme is the one that
was presented on March the 19th, the one with the yellow toned areas
showing the setbacks that were introduced date back from that meeting
back in May-June last year, which is almost a year ago.
Subsequently, we attended further meetings. There were two CDR Civic Design Review meetings that
I was a member of the committee to review the scheme. There was a MNC zoning committee meeting
with the development team and the final public meeting that preceded the CBA
hearing. In all of those meetings there were no substantial changes made to the
scheme. The scheme really is the one that was submitted to the Historical
Commission. Turning to the site, we accept and acknowledge that because of
the flooding events and repeated flooding events along Main Street, the
first floor of the proposed building up to a height of about 12 feet cannot be used for anything
other than probably parking in some form. However, we don't accept that the whole length
of the site has to be taken up by either parking or the entrances to the parking and to the
residential units. In a way, the parking in the residential units in the floodplain is
a holdover from the original proposal, where the parking was only at the first floor level
rather than at two levels. If that idea had been reassessed, as I mentioned earlier, it
could be that the parking could be at the level towards the rear of the site, which
is out of and above the floodplain. The property is zoned I2 as has been previously mentioned,
primarily because of its continuous use as Littlewood Stye works. The surrounding properties
tend to be zoned ICMX except to the west which is CMX 2.5 because of the beginning
of the commercial corridor along Main Street in Maniac. We are aware that
So Lower Main Street really should be rezoned and considered as a master plan.
Lower Main Street really should be rezoned and
We've been asking for that for a long time, and that really has reflected the sense of neglect and being run down that has been mentioned in several of the comments from people supporting the scheme.
scheme. If the scheme were rezoned, the Planning Commission have indicated that it would be
rezoned as CMX 2.5, even though, because of the flooding, the commercial requirement at
the first floor couldn't be provided. So it's unfortunate, but that is in a way a benefit
for the development because it doesn't have to provide that continuous strip of 30-foot
deep commercial accommodation along Main Street. It also has the advantage of having an increase
in height over the surrounding overlay limit of 38 feet because of flooding and has a height
of 50 feet. Both of those are advantageous to the development even though on the surface
they're problematic because of flooding. Turning to the building proposal, the building itself,
as I said previously, the building has always been proposed as seven stories, but in actual
fact the building is measured from the sidewalk on Main Street 82 feet high and that by normal
residential development would be considered an eight-story high building. So it really
is a significantly high building. It's also over 70 feet wide and it's from the stretching
from the western end at Schur's Lane almost to the other end of the property at the football
academy, the soccer academy, it's almost 400 feet long. 400 feet is enormous. It's the
equivalent of a 38-story building on its side. That would be the same as the PSFS building
in Centre City. That is 38 feet, 38 stories high, sorry, not 38 feet. 38 feet is the height
limit. So this is an enormous building for somewhere in Centre City. It is even more
of an enormous bulk of a building in Maniank on Main Street. Main Street has some historic
buildings, notable historic buildings, which are no more than four stories high. The buildings
that Mr. Laver in his testimony were referring to were mill buildings that were on Venice
Island and facing the canal or the river. They were narrow buildings, and they were very
specific about their use with large windows for light and to for ventilation they're not suitable
for adaptation and those buildings have disappeared the ones that remain on main street are no more
than four stories high so this building equates to being almost twice the height of any historic
building on main street i wanted to turn finally i think to hardship and trying to understand
what the hardship is for the various refusals but in particular for the height refusal
ch planners in their report on in exhibit 21 of the package refer to the
seven-story building as being the minimum relief required by the code. They assert that.
Mr. Laver's description is more restrained in the appeal document where he refers to the minimal
mile relief. The height at 82 feet, as has been shown, is 32 feet higher than as allowed by the
code with the flooding element. The adjacent properties where behind this property, where
there is no flooding, their height limit is 38 feet. So the difference between 38 feet and 82
feet is significant and considerable.
There is no justification for explaining why this is.
When we first were presented with the scheme and the first question we asked was, why is
this building seven stories high, we had received a one-word answer and that was economics.
But I want to compare this scheme with the scheme immediately.
But I want to compare this scheme with the scheme immediately adjacent at 11 Shores Lane.
That scheme came before the zoning board in the fall of 2023, and it was an ICMX property.
The variance sought was for use to change the ICMX use to residential use, multifamily apartments on three levels over the first floor of parking.
And that scheme was denied in the first presentation, but with the addition of a small commercial space, six months later, was approved by this zoning board.
And that scheme is 38 feet high. It falls within the zoning limit.
it's a long thin building central corridor apartments on either side facing north and south
in a very similar way that 4045's arrangement along main street is with the central corridor
and apartments north and south although it does have a return at the end an L
to have additional apartments going towards the railway line but in principle the two schemes
are similar, certainly in the arrangement of the residential units. The difference is
obviously that 11 Shores Lane is not in the floodplain and it's a relatively flat side
and 4045 has to deal with flooding but as I mentioned it has the benefit of not providing
any commercial space and it has the additional 12 feet because of the being in the floodplain
that 11 Shores Lane doesn't have.
But the developer for 11 Shores Lane is a local developer.
He's done recent developments.
He's not a charity.
He's proceeding with this scheme
and has started demolition in order to do the construction.
And as I said, it's 38 feet high, and he is proceeding with it.
The scheme immediately adjacent, even with the flooding issues,
is 44 feet higher than that building.
And there is nowhere that I can find in the testimony to date
that justifies why there's that disparity in the height of the buildings.