ROCKWOOD — Guelph/Eramosa council gave the green light to a new apartment complex on Main Street South on Monday.
The new building, at 197 Main St. S., is adjacent to another apartment complex. The new building, which will be adjacent to another apartment complex, will be three stories high and have 28 units.
Neighbour’s concern with the development, regarding increased traffic and issue of flooding, remain.
After council approved the development, a neighbour to the proposed construction site, Mike Yurek, expressed a few serious problems with the development plan.
First, he noted the challenge of driving in the overcrowded area near his property and how more overcrowding would make the situation worse.
“For me to get out of my area, which is a shared driveway, I’ve been there one and a half to two minutes minimum trying to get to Highway 7 because the traffic is coming, can’t get out. It takes a while with 10 cars. If you’re going to put in parking for 70, how long are we going to be there, just that one exit, that’s it,” Yurek said.
Another issue Yurek raised is the danger of flooding, which he notes damaged his floor in the past when pavement was placed by his house, “the water ran down under my hardwood floor, popped them all,” he said. Yurek notes that with further paving at the site, the water will need somewhere to go.
Mayor Chris White tried to address Yurek’s concerns.
“Clearly you’re right there, you’re being impacted directly by what is occurring here. And I hear what you’re saying. The last thing we want to see is the show up next Monday ready to go, without some more input. So we need to find a mechanism to make sure that Mike’s direct concerns are addressed by the applicant as the site plan is put together,” White said.
“There may be some disagreement Mike, I’ll just be straight up, there could be some stuff around it. But let’s make sure we’ve vetted this cleanly. I don’t want a show up, the site plan and have all these things outstanding, if possible. So I’m going to leave that with the CAO and Meagan and the clerk to figure out a mechanism all within and under the Planning Act that we get the extra detail that Mike’s looking for,” White said.
Coun. Bruce Dickieson voiced his support for the development.
“It sounds like it has been on the go for a long time and it just kind of makes sense to me,” Dickieson said.
Whereas, Meagan Ferris, manager of planning and development, noted that so far, the concerns regarding the proposed construction have been addressed.
“There were a series of comments that were received for this development proposal and quite a few comments that were received from the public at the public meeting. So with respects to starting off with township consultants and external agency comments, at this point in time all of the comments related to the zoning bylaw amendment, so the appropriateness of the use, introducing that use in the bylaw, have been addressed,” Ferris said.
Jesse Gault is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
