A Montreal firm that wanted to build a 25-storey apartment highrise in Stittsville has revamped the project after residents complained the proposed building was too tall.
In its revised application filed with the city, Devmont says it is scaling back the height of the main tower in its proposal for 6310 Hazeldean Rd., across the street from Stittsville Corners Shopping Plaza, and is readjusting the size of other parts of the development to maintain the same number of units.
The company says the revised proposal “addresses concerns raised” by residents at a public consultation in February, adding the new plan “more closely meets community expectations.”
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Devmont’s earlier proposal was slated to be anchored by a building on the east end of the site with components of various heights culminating in a 25-storey highrise on the northeast portion of the property. The other sections were designed to be three and seven storeys.
An L-shaped building on the west side of the property was expected to transition from four storeys in the southwest corner to six storeys in the northwest, with a nine-storey section in the middle.
Under the revised proposal, the 25-storey tower has been reduced to 21 storeys, while the L-shaped building will now be increased to 12 storeys from nine, with seven storeys on the westernmost portion.
Devmont has also put more separation between the two buildings and removed the east portion of the 12-storey structure to meet zoning guidelines as a result of increasing the height of the second building.
The developer said the project will contain a total of 431 apartment units, the same as before, ranging from studio to three-bedroom units. The number of parking spaces also remains unchanged at 389, which is fewer than the minimum of 517 required under current zoning bylaws.
Five-storey height limit
“The redesign of the building has not resulted in any changes to the overall unit count; however, it has resulted in both of the proposed buildings having generally equal amounts of residential units,” a planning document prepared by consulting firm Fotenn on behalf of Devmont says.
The company said spreading units more evenly between the two buildings “increases building efficiencies” and makes “construction and marketing approaches more manageable.”
Current zoning bylaws limit buildings to 15 metres, or five storeys, on the site. The developer is asking for an amendment to allow for greater heights as well as fewer residential parking spots than current zoning rules mandate.
Devmont argues that since some tenants are likely to be remote workers as well as recent post-secondary graduates, “modest-income residents” and seniors who might not own cars, the amount of parking provided in the current proposal should suffice.
“The reduction in resident parking responds to the anticipated demographics of future residents in the proposed buildings,” the document says, noting the site’s close proximity to a “shopping plaza with several amenities” as well as public transit. The developer also suggested that car-sharing spaces could be included in the proposal.
The plan is the latest version of an earlier development application Devmont submitted in April 2022.
That proposal called for three nine-storey buildings with a total of 317 residential units. One building was slated only for residential use, while the other two would have been mixed-use buildings with nearly 23,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, with residential units above.
However, the city’s urban design review panel recommended a series of changes to the proposal, including that two of the buildings be merged and that amenity space for residents be improved. The panel also questioned the viability of the retail component.
