Moira Lea Court residents happy as development rejected

By Dariya Baiguzhiyeva ^[5]

BELLEVILLE – Only 32 feet would have separated Mark Vaters’s bedroom window from an apartment-building parking lot if a north-end development proposal had been approved.

Vaters was one of nearly a dozen residents, mostly of whom live on Moira Lea Court, who came to Belleville council’s planning advisory committee meeting Monday to oppose a plan to build three semi-detached residential dwellings and a three-storey 19-unit apartment building around the corner from them on Farnham Road, just north of Maitland Drive. The concerns the residents raised included safety, volume of traffic, privacy and drainage issues.

The committee’s unanimous decision to deny the application for the project was met with a round of applause.

 

With files from Katie Perry, QNet News.

Vaters said his primary concern was the proximity of the planned parking lot to his home, and that his family would be bothered by “lights and the noise bouncing back and forth between the wall of the apartment and the wall of my house. And the exhaust fumes, if they backed into their parking places because of the created land, probably would have had my carbon monoxide detectors go off on a regular basis if I had my bedroom windows open.”

Potential drainage problems if land that now absorbs rainwater and snow were covered with pavement was another of his concerns.

“I was rather in awe that any builder would go to the expense … to deviate the lay of the land and put underground superstructure … that would carry all this water to the storm sewers. That would be millions of dollars,” he said. But if that weren’t done, he said, “they were going to dump (the excess water) in the ditch of my backyard and in all of our backyards along the stretch … It would have washed out the foundation of my house.”

Vaters said he was happy to have neighbours who were “quite capable and able to speak (at the planning meeting) and had done a lot of research on the facts and figures and have spoken to all of us.”

Tammy Robson, who has lived on Moira Lea Court for 15 years, said she was “heartbroken” when she received a notice about the proposed construction.

“The primary issue that was brought up by myself and other residents was the safety concern with the volume of traffic that is on Farnham Road currently, and a number of entrances that they were planning to put on that piece of property,” Robson said.

After the committee’s decision, she said she was feeling “ecstatic.”

“It’s exactly what we wanted. I didn’t expect the entire committee to see things our way, so I’m very happy that they went in our favour.”

Another Moira Lea Court resident, who declined to give her name, said a new apartment building and three semi-detached homes would have been intrusive to existing households.

“They would have a full view of  our backyards,” she said. “The parking would go right to some of our property lines and … create noise and lights. It just seems like a very inappropriate place to put an apartment building, based on the small piece of land.”

She said the residents didn’t get a lot of notice about the planned construction and she was happy and relieved after the committee’s decision.

“We’ve had some people who have been here for a long time, and we also have some new move-ins who picked this location for various specific reasons. And they value their privacy.”

Mike Keene of Fotenn Consultants ^[6] was at the meeting to represent one of the developers, Geertsma Homes Ltd. ^[7] He asked the committee to defer a decision on the project to give the companies more time to respond to the residents’ concerns.

“I couldn’t foresee the outcome,” Keene said after the project was rejected. “Now that we have a denial on the table, I don’t know what our solutions will be.”

The audience cheered after the unanimous decision against the motion #qnetnews ^[8] pic.twitter.com/vQCHI3F1nY ^[9]

— Dariya Baiguzhiyeva (@baidar_QNetNews) December 5, 2017 ^[10]