Controversy over west-end student residence leads city to explore changes

The City of Ottawa's planning department says it will explore policy changes after a proposal to build eight townhouse units in a west-end neighbourhood ballooned into an 89-bed student residence.

The initial Glabar Park building, which called for four bedrooms per unit, was approved in 2013 following public consultations.

But the original developer then sold the property to another developer, Smart Living Properties, before construction began.

By this summer, the project had morphed into a 16-unit, 97-bedroom complex for student living called Algonquin Place, in what residents called a "bait and switch."

Bay ward Coun. Mark Taylor submitted an inquiry to the city's planning department in July, asking how the proposal had swelled to such proportions.

The department released its written response on Nov. 13, giving the reasons and pledging to explore whether more policy changes are needed to prevent it from happening again.

Incremental changes requested

In its response, the planning department said the developer made "five separate building permit revision applications" between June 2017 and July 2018.

The requested changes did not warrant a full site plan revision application, the department wrote, so they were approved through the building permit process without triggering a need to hold public consultations or alert the area's councillor.

"Each amendment was fairly small, but cumulatively, it turned out to have a big impact," Taylor said. "Because they didn't do it all at once, it didn't send up any internal flags."

The revisions included changes to the layout of the units to increase the bedroom count, and the conversion of garage space into more living area.

Smart Living Properties, however, didn't actually break any rules — at the time, neither the bylaws nor the provincial building code limited the number of bedrooms a unit could contain.

A new amendment to zoning bylaws came into effect in June 2018, and according to the department's response, the same development proposal would not be approved if it was submitted today.

Under the new amendments, the project would have been limited to "four bedrooms each in all the units." The complex that's currently under construction advertises four, five and eight-bedroom units.

The eight-bedroom units appear to be offered on a room-by-room basis on the Smart Living Properties website — but that also wouldn't be allowed under the new rules, which place stricter limits on rooming houses, the department wrote.

Taylor said after the city sat down with the developers, they reduced the number of bedrooms to 89 and pledged to have a superintendent on-site to manage the student residence.

Attempts to reach a spokesperson for Smart Living Properties Saturday were unsuccessful.

'The city kind of got bamboozled'

Because the permits for the complex were issued before the bylaw amendments came into force, the project is now nearly complete, leaving neighbours feeling cheated by the process.

Heidi Pfeifer lives in the Glabar Park neighbourhood, and helped organize meetings between residents, the city and developers.

She said with students expected to begin moving into the new building in January, members of the community are left with little recourse.

"I don't think we had the opportunity to do anything differently," she said. "That's what makes me upset, is that I don't know that there are lessons learned here."

"It gives me very little faith in my city."

Taylor said few people involved in the process were ultimately happy with the outcome.

"The city approved something that the residents were all right with," he said. "The city kind of got bamboozled into the outcome as well."