An apartment building will not be going up in the back yard of a heritage home in Kingsville.
Council voted 4-2 against rezoning a portion of a property at 183 Main St. E. to accommodate a 22-unit apartment building. Public backlash resulted in a home on the property receiving a heritage designation without the owner's permission in May of 2020, halting the first attempt to build an apartment building.
Brotto Investments Inc.'s new plan to leave the home in place received the same opposition Monday night.
Site plan for a proposed apartment building at 183 Main St. E. in Kingsville, Ont. (Photo courtesy of the Town of Kingsville)
Councillor Tony Gaffan knows the town's decision will likely result in an appeal to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), but he's too frustrated to care.
"To be told time and time again that if the public wants this, it doesn't matter, LPAT will go above us," he says. "Why have a planning committee? Why have a councillor making that decision when at the end of the day, when we say we don't want it, we allow them to keep going back to the drawing board?"
Placing an apartment building directly behind a heritage home just doesn't seem right, according to Councillor Laura Lucier.
"Good planning has to take into consideration the right place and the right time," she says. "I don't think this is the right place or the right time for this development so I won't be supporting it."
Councillor Thomas Neufeld voted in favour of the move.
"We have to look at what is going to be best for the municipality as a whole, not just a small group of people," he says. "When I say a small group of people, I'm referring to 2,000 of 22,000."
Deputy Mayor Gord Queen also voted to rezone the land, with Mayor Nelson Santos abstaining.