CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor. They can be submitted through the website or emailed directly to [email protected]. Please include your full name, address and phone number for verification. The following letter is regarding the Town of Collingwood's official plan update, which considers a change to allow building heights up to 12 storeys. The plan has not been approved. Read more about it here.
*****
Editor,
I would like to draw your reader’s attention to section 5.1.8 “Land Use/Built-Form Specific Policies” of draft one of Collingwood’s new Official Plan (see pages 31-33). The first portion of this section sets out the main parameters under which the Town will allow the building of buildings of various heights from three storeys up to 12 storeys, as follows:
- Low-Rise Buildings shall have a maximum height of three storeys, or 11 metres in height
- Mid-Rise Buildings shall have a minimum height of three storeys with a maximum height of eight storeys or 27 metres
- High-Rise buildings shall be taller than eight storeys with a maximum height of 12 storeys or 45 metres
For a long time the height limit in Collingwood was five storeys.
But that is all history now. The new Official Plan could permit 12-storey buildings. There are two critical requirements that must be met (according to the draft plan);
- High-Rise and Mid-Rise buildings “must be specifically identified as a permitted use within any designation in this plan”; and
- They must “have frontage on a collector or arterial road”
Welcome to the future of Collingwood. Gone will be mature residential neighbourhoods like Third Street. Gone will be five or six storey buildings and gone from view will be our town clock tower that rises above the historic district. The town’s new skyline will feature endless 12-story buildings, crowded streets, less green space and fewer trees.
Precedent for the future tree canopy has already been set. Even though our town policy calls for a tree canopy of 30 per cent. Harbour House (31 Huron St.) is required to keep 15 per cent minimum landscaped open space. Future taller buildings will ask for the same.
On top of that, we can’t even manage the below-ground infrastructure of old pipes and old storm sewers and such with smaller buildings that we have now. Just imagine what the town will have to do below ground to accommodate 12-storey buildings. We don’t have enough water now until we get a new water plant; but that plant did not envisage a town full of 12-storey buildings!
If, like me, you are concerned about the unprecedented and ill-thought idea of allowing eight- and 12-storey buildings along our collector and arterial roads as set out in our Official Plan may I suggest that you ask all candidates running in the municipal election where they stand on 12-storey buildings for Collingwood.
This issue could emerge as one of the most profound and important matters that we will be voting on come Oct. 24.
Ulli Rath
Collingwood, ON
