Neighbours of two city-owned properties pegged for affordable housing aren't happy with the city's decision to move ahead with concepts first proposed last spring.
During a public meeting last night, more than a dozen delegations spoke against the concept for 0 Grand Ridge Drive and 25 Chalmers St. S.
The city has pitched zoning amendments to allow a four-storey apartment building with up to 200 units per hectare at the former St. Ambrose school property next to the John Dolson Centre. The concept was significantly scaled back from what was originally proposed.
At the vacant property at the corner of Grand Ridge Drive and Cedar Creek Road, the city wants to add multi-residential zoning and increase the permitted density to 116 units per hectare with a maximum building height of four storeys.
Interested developers would be asked to build a 50-unit apartment with one parking space per unit and about 12 visitor spots.
Traffic concerns topped the list of all delegations speaking to the Grand Ridge Drive application, with worries it will make an already bad intersection worse.
Highway 97 is frequently travelled by large gravel trucks from the west and few adhere to the speed limit, they said.
"East bound traffic is coming in hot, despite the posted 50 speed rate," said Jennifer Gibb, whose Sullivan Court home backs onto the subject property.
Each delegation described the "white knuckle experience" of turning into the subdivision from Cedar Creek Road.
Cars are often lined up during rush hour at the single stop sign on Grand Ridge as cautious drivers wait for heavy traffic coming from either direction.
"In the winter the concerns are heightened," Gibb said, with the bottom of three hills converging at the single stop sign. Large ponds on the southeast and west corner of Cedar Creek often lead to premature icing on the road.
She said one neighbour counted 120 aggregate trucks heading into Galt over a six hour period. The neighbours worry that count will rise with the planned expansion of the gravel pit a few hundred metres up the road.
The neighbours want the city to conduct a formal traffic study and have it peer reviewed.
"Some type of traffic calming is needed in the Cedar Creek corridor," Gibb said. "A traffic light is the easy answer but consider the truck braking noise coming down the hill."
"It's not about not in our backyard," said 28-year resident George Figueiredo. "It's a terrible traffic area."
He said a pedestrian island installed in the centre of Cedar Creek has helped get pedestrians to the sidewalk on the north side of the road. But when you walk that sidewalk you can feel the wind from truck traffic pushing you, he said. He fears families with small children trying to navigate it would be in constant danger.
"It's so dangerous and I can't imagine when there's ice and it's slippery and it's wet. Why would we put more families in this area?"
Doug Gibb said the city needs to provide amenities like parks and playgrounds within walking distance or they'll risk kids getting injured or killed trying to get to one.
He said the area is also not well served by public transit.
"We've got a bus stop. That's great. But we're at the end of the line," Gibb said. Anyone using it to get to work has a longer bus trip. "We're a bedroom community at that end of town."
Real estate agent and immediate neighbour of the property Clare Dejong said his experience with low-income housing is it's a drain on nearby property values.
He said he's been selling real estate for 37 years and never once had anyone say they wanted to live beside a complex of affordable housing. He suggested the city consider inclusionary zoning instead, requiring developers to build affordable housing in new subdivisions. It would eliminate the time, effort and anxiety created when affordable infill developments are proposed in existing neighbourhoods, Dejong said.
Not all neighbours were against it.
Representing the Citizens for Cambridge group, and nearby neighbour of the Grand Ridge property, Diane Goodwin praised council for its commitment to tackling the housing crisis by creating more affordable housing options.
"A four storey housing development like this is both necessary and thoughtfully placed within the neighbourhood," she said, calling it an ideal location near schools, amenities and public transit.
Neighbours of the Chalmers Street site worried about density and increased traffic as well, particularly around the nearby school.
Dave Sousa fears the height of the building would block out sunlight and cause privacy concerns for neighbouring properties. Crime will increase as home values decrease, he said.
Other neighbours echoed those concerns.
Gaylene Schulz said she was hoping luxury condos were going to be built on the site and was upset to see a proposal for high-density affordable housing instead. She fears it will mean more drug deals, gun violence and "God knows what else."
"Don't sentence our area to another housing project."
Martin Asling, speaking on behalf of Waterloo Region Yes In My Backyard, an organization of advocates in favour of affordable housing, praised the plan for Chalmers Street calling it not only a plan to improve affordability, but to provide opportunity for people to join and contribute to the community of their choosing.
"It's also about security. The people most at risk to crime and insecurity are those without housing." he said. "Lack of housing can be debilitating to anyone trying to work, find work and raise children."
Asling acknowledged the pushback from owners of nearby single family homes, but noted it's hard to build affordable housing anywhere else in the city when single-detached homes make up over 56 per cent of the existing housing stock.
"All the arguments that people make against more housing, if justified, would apply just as easily to denser areas," he said. "You have to put the housing somewhere."
If housing gets built on the properties it will help the city meet targets set out in the federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF).
The city is eligible to receive about $13 million through the Canada and Mortgage Housing Corporation if it follows through with ideas already proposed through its application to CMHC to generate more housing in Cambridge.
Under the HAF, the city needs to lay the groundwork to get just under 3,000 units built within the next three years before CMHC releases the final portion of its funding.
Reports and recommendations for each of the properties are expected to return to council sometime over the next few months.
If council approves the proposed zoning and official plan amendments, staff would be asked to seek developers willing to build affordable units to specifications outlined through concepts developed by city staff.
