While the city faces a housing shortage, there’s no shortage of people ready to oppose building more of them.
Two proposed housing developments have raised the ire of local residents.
Several showed up at Monday’s council meeting to oppose two proposed zoning amendments.
One developer wanted to build several multifamily buildings near the Meadow Lakes golf course.
The other would ease commercial requirements on a series of row houses in Copper Ridge.
While they are two separate zoning changes in different neighbourhoods, resident objections were strikingly similar.
People were worried about who would be moving into the neighbourhood.
While units in Meadow Lakes development are priced around $500,000, many still feared they would become rental units.
A condo agreement could be used to prevent the units from being rented out, said developer Jeff Luehmann.
But no such assurances were offered by the developer in Copper Ridge.
For residents of both neighbourhoods, the prospect of having more people move in was also a concern.
“It changes the character of the neighbourhood,” said Ryan McGillroy. “Once there’s a condo
it is going to be completely different.”
He also questioned the wisdom of building a condo several kilometres outside of town.
“The city says it wants to reduce our carbon footprint,” he said. “How is it reducing the carbon footprint by putting these units eight kilometers outside of town?”
Others raised environmental concerns when discussing the possibility of 22 units in Meadow Lakes.
The neighbourhood is country residential.
Wells and septic beds service homes in the neighbourhood.
The condo development would be no different.
More wells and septic beds could degrade the water table, said several people.
There is no need to fear any pollution, Luehmann assured the neighbours.
“Water is not an issue,” he said. “We’ve done due diligence with a YESAB study done in 2006, but we took it a step further.”
The septic bed will use technology that, while common in the south, has never been used in the Yukon, he said.
“It’s a bit of overkill,”
City staff also received several letters of concern about both developments.
All information will be compiled in a report presented to council next week.
Contact Josh Kerr at
joshk@yukon-news.com