Cambridge residents are being invited to present their opinions and thoughts on four development applications and the draft community improvement plan for the city's core areas.
This Tuesday's meeting schedule indicates that the five public meetings will begin at 10 a.m. and then council will break before returning to its regular meeting at 5 p.m.
A staff report around the draft community improvement plan targeting the city's core areas will kick off proceedings.
One of the items on the agenda is the development application for Blacks Point Development, which is being proposed for the existing textile factory and connected lands on 211-215 Queen St. W.
The staff report says the applicant is proposing to develop the subject properties in two phases. The first phase incudes the retention and redevelopment of the existing textile factory to 140 condominium apartment units and the retention and redevelopment of the existing one-storey building for commercial uses. The plan also proposed a waterfront trail and 260 parking spaces on private property.
Phase two includes the construction of a four-storey residential building with approximately 20 units and an eight-storey residential building with approximately 110 units.
An official plan amendment has been requested to change the land use designation of both properties from business industrial and natural open space system to high density residential. As well, a zoning bylaw amendment is required to rezone the property from M3 (general industrial), M3 S.4.1.24.1 (general industrial site specific) and OS1 (open space) to RM3CS5 (Mixed-use commercial and residential) with a site specific conditions.
Hespeler councillor Mike Devine said he'd read in the media about a resident complaining about traffic. He added he hadn't talked to the resident directly.
But Devine said he wouldn't be phased by one person's concern over traffic.
"If it's one person, then obviously it's not a concern," he said. "Fact of the matter is, Queen Street, Hespeler, was Highway 24 before they put the bypass in. There had been been a lot of traffic on Queen Street a number of years ago."
According to Devine, there's plenty of positives to look at.
"If you're looking for problems, you're always going to find problems," he said. "I think, to be quite honest with you, it's an old storage building, it's iconic in Hespeler. It's iconic in the City of Cambridge and as opposed to letting the building fall down and deteriorate, Blacks Point is doing a great thing.
Expanding on the favourable aspects of the development, Devine said, it's going to add both commercial and rentals to that area.
"And we definitely need rental properties north of the 401 in the City of Cambridge," he noted.
The public meetings can be viewed via the city's YouTube channel live stream.
