Dear Editor,
I was just going through a recent edition of the NG Times when I noticed a letter from E. McGreavy regarding the debacle that is the 168 apartment development proposed on Reuben Crescent.
It is good to keep the community up to date with what is going on. I understand the amount of work and money involved in challenging a developer’s plan (having seen what CAPP has had to do regarding the proposed prison), and it is unfortunate that it is left to local citizens to spend their own money to engage a professional to discover the flaws in the decision that our municipal council made regarding this development.
I have lived in communities where there are by-laws that say that you can only build one storey higher than adjacent existing buildings. This worked well, and would have made these apartments 3 storeys high, not 4. We have got a 4 storey proposal primarily because this council went against its own Official Plan, and granted the developer increased density, then added insult to injury by accepting a lesser affordable housing percentage.
And let’s not forget that this developer has made absolutely no effort to make the exterior building design compatible with the surrounding architecture.
I have never seen the reasoning why our municipal council agreed to all these developers’ requests. Don’t we elect these people to reflect the wishes of the community that they are elected to serve, and at least follow the rules and regulations in our own Official Plan? Or are we going the way of other communities where developers dictate what the future of our community will be?
Colin Creasey, Kemptville
