The corner of Water St. and Leon Ave. will remain vacant a little bit longer after city council deferred a proposal at the council meeting Tuesday night.
The corner of Water St. and Leon Ave. will remain vacant a little bit longer after city council deferred a proposal at the council meeting Tuesday night.
The Wedge is a 6-storey office and retail building that would allow six separate tenants, with three or four employees per floor, on a tiny triangle shaped lot.
City staff and councillors were overall in support of the building’s design; however, the lot’s size does not allow for any parking.
Generally when this happens, the developer pays cash-in-lieu, which is currently a one-time payment of $32,000 per required stall, which the City then uses for parking elsewhere.
The applicant proposed a variance allowing them to acquire 10 stalls in Chapman Parkade instead, as paying the cash-in-lieu would not be financially viable.
City council was uncomfortable will approving a project with no guarantee of parking for tenants into the future and that it was not necessarily fair to allow one developer not to pay cash-in-lieu when it is standard practice.
Councillor Gail Given suggested the project be deferred to allow staff and the applicant to explore other options regarding parking.
“I would certainly be open to partial cash-in-lieu and securing some space within the parkade to give us some sort of an equitable balance and I’m hearing the applicant is willing to go down that path,” said Given.
Councillor Luke Stack took a different perspective. He said there’s simply too much building for the tiny site.
“With the suggestion that they could secure some rental parking but not on a permanent basis, I have no confidence in that and I don’t think that’s something council should ever go down the road with. There’s no guarantee, long-term those stalls will be available to this building,” said Stack.
He added the cash-in-lieu price per stall is a good value and should be enforced.
Councillors were hesitant but after some lengthy conversation, unanimously decided to defer the project to a later date.
