City Council voted on May 5th to oppose the application at the OMB, considering it overdevelopment of the site. The City will attempt to reach an agreement with the developer in the meantime, looking to downsize the proposal in a few ways including less height, wider sidewalk.

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OMB Hearing is Tuesday morning at 10am - the locals are looking to get a big presence to come out to the meeting
 
Queen Street East has been identified as a main avenue in the cities avenue/mid-rise study, so this development seems perfectly in line. In fact, considering the ROW at this location, 8 stories is actually slightly less than what was identified as an appropriate height in said study.

Looking forward to seeing what the outcome of the OMB hearing is today.
 
Yeah, but if you look at the building in the context of that block, it is strip-mining the character out of that location and appears to be all take and very little give. Queen East is ripe for a midrise transformation and those residents are obligated to agitate for the best buildings they can get. There's nothing like that building anywhere close to that location, so the existing residents need to push for a decent precedent to send a signal to the developers coming after this one, because there's going to be a lot of them.

A lot of the opposition is NIMBYism, but there also seems to be a notion here that residents need to shut up and accept buildings just because they fit the guidelines. When citizens aren't critical, a lot of developers are happy to drop turds in their laps.

This building could do a much better job of fitting into its context and provide at least a little bit of character.
 
They can complain about the architecture and fight for something better. However, do not complain about the height. Not in this part of town.
 
Fair enough. I never thought of it that way. Hopefully that stretch along Queen continues to grow, and makes way for more intensification.
 
Just realized that this is just up the street from the Oben Flats, which has seen a similar response from the community.

http://leslieviller.com/forum/topics/proposed-8-storey-development-of-former-post-office-in

I'm sure there is overlap in the people that are involved in the opposition to both of these. What I find most ridiculous, is they talk about 8 stories as if it is the end of the world, but across the street there is an entire block that is 5-stories. They also keep throwing out this complaint about their not being enough parking spaces, assuming that because they all drive - I'm guessing- that all new residents in these type of developments will drive.
 
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Oben Flats was reduced to 6 stories
 
The block across the street is only 3 stories plus a partial basement not 5
 
Any updates from the OMB hearing?
 
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