A local housing company (definitely not me), purchased a large corner Killarney property a few years ago, and attempted to change the land use from a grandfathered R2 class to MCG, which is a grade oriented townhouse use.  In my view, this was a very reasonable choice at the time, and the fact it lost at the Council level is more a reflection of how politics work than how planning should work.  This was an informative process for me to watch unfold because it was classic effective NIMBY'ism at play, and some of the same tactics were used against my own land use change application in 2016, thankfully my application was strong enough so that I emerged the winner on that one.

The owner of the Richmond Road site, (a multifamily building specialist) has now held this property for three years, it is highly under utilized as a rental, and must be bleeding them dry monthly on the carrying cost.  Of course I am super sympathetic to this situation because I have been in it so often myself.  It only gets worse that they overpaid for the land in the heady days of 2013-4 (as well all did and still do).  They tried to dump the lot (if you'd call this dumping, I sure would not) for $200k more than they paid for it, and pretended that building the site as a six unit townhouse project would be rubber stamped at City Hall. Those among us not born yesterday knew this was a total farce.  I featured this property on my February 9th post as a hideously misrepresented land deal.  I highlighted the contentious site plan the company had put forth as likely impossible to ever get permitted based on my own dealings with townhouse planning and permitting.

I think the builder must have agreed with my assessment of the land value, (despite pretending it could sell for $200k more than they bought it for), that it would be a non-starter to reapply for the same impossible project.  They'd have been happy to take the buyers money and basically screw them, but, as a rational player in the business, they needed to do something different.  

Here is the situation they are now in:

1. They overpaid for land and failed to get it rezoned to a use that the could make a business case out of.  

2. They tried unsuccessfully to sucker someone into buying it.  This failed because the potential buyers weren't dumb enough to pay the asking price.

3.  They are losing a lot of money carrying the property and likely need the funds to build elsewhere in the city (because they have a lot on the go right now).

4.  They realized that since the land can't be sold, they are going to have to build their way out of this mess (or likely sell the land and take a loss - builders are too stubborn to accept this outcome).

5.  They need to try again with a higher likelihood of passing the re-designation despite the emboldened and vigorous local resistance.  

6. A new land use class has been introduced, RCG (the rowhouse class) since the original failed application

7. The site is an ideal RCG candidate, this property is 99% likely to pass at the Council level

8.  They want to build six units to capitalize on the investment to date.

Here are my thoughts on the site. I don't think six units will work under the RCG zone.  I think even five will be difficult due to the length of the lot.  Unfortunately the lot is very wide, but only 120 ft long. After accommodating the garage which must be detached, and the contextual setback which is very large, there is hardly a building pocket left of perhaps 60 ft? How can you fit six row houses on this?  The units would be 10 x 65 ft long.  No sane builder is going to proceed with that layout.  Unless the builder has hired a more creative person than me, the unit count needs to be cut to four, or the arrangement something I have not considered, which is likely the route they will take. I am sure the builder has a design team and a draft in production now of some favourable arrangement to retain six units (no doubt the builder needs six units to have a viable project here given the investment to date).

My preference would be to have this site rebuilt as a rowhouse project.  I would be very pleased to see the existing house torn down.  I think the builder deserves a chance to build his way out of a money losing property and in doing so build something that the majority of the community would come to accept (of course a few neighbours will never agree to this - but they should not be given veto power).  I am hopeful our new Council (this vote will not happen until after the election in October), has the wisdom to grant the RCG application.