Charlottetown planning board rejects apartment/townhouse development

A controversial development in the Sherwood neighbourhood of Charlottetown may be stopped if city council agrees with the recommendation of its planning board.

At a meeting Monday night, planning board decided to send a recommendation to council to reject the proposed development of a 30-unit apartment building and 17 townhouses at 88 Brackley Point Road.

In the a report staff said that they had received 39 letters in opposition of the development and six letters in favour. They also pointed out that several residents voiced concerns at a public meeting in March.

There were four options for the board to consider: reject or accept the proposal, defer the proposal to give the developer time to address the concerns, or accept only the townhouse portion of the development.

Residents happy

In the end, the board chose to reject the proposal, stating that deferring was difficult because the developer was not there to provide a clear explanation for deferral, as to what they hoped to address. The decision pleased local residentMike Eyolfson.

"I think that the planning board has made a wise decision to reject it based on the evidence presented at the public meeting the other night," said Eyolfson, adding he was concerned about the prospect of letting the townhouseportion go, without knowing what would happen with the second portion of land in the future.

"It's sort of a situation where we're forced to pick the lesser of two evils."

Staff also made it clear that to go ahead with a large development on the site a traffic study would need to be done, something Eyolfson agreed with.

"Just from every day living there, you can certainly see the increase of traffic in the morning and at the school drop off times," he said.

"It's chaos some mornings, and I don't think adding 60 or 100 cars will help any."

The recommendation will now go to council for a final vote on April 8. If the proposal is rejected the developer can resubmit a proposal for the same land in a year's time.

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