Peter Rukavina, whose office is located a few doors from a proposed 7-story office building for Fitzroy Street, has posted a notice from Charlottetown’s Planning Department, received by his landlords, asking for comments on this proposal. The bylaw requires notification of property owners within 100 feet of the application, but since many residents have an interest in the development of our downtown core, it would be interesting to know how the public in general feels about this, rather than just the immediate neighbours.
I should also note, the City owns a small portion of the land that would be required for this proposal. A market appraisal is underway to determine the fair value of that piece of land, and council would have to agree to sell it to the developer.
You may leave comments here or at Peter’s blog. I will be reading them all and taking them into consideration when Planning Board, and eventually Council, meets to discuss this proposal.
For some dumb reason, I kept seeing the word “office” but reading the word “residential”. Was there not a proposal at one point to build apartments on that spot?
And what’s the business case for more office buildings? Seems like we have a lot of them either empty or in the works.
You’re right. In 2004, this concept drawing for condos on the same property was circulated to the same nearby property owners.
Presumably the developers have done their research and decided there is a better business case for office space over residential. This is not the first proposal for office space on this property since the residential project was in discussion in 2004, although the last one did not get this far along. We often hear that the empty office space we have is not the right kind of office space that is now in demand.
I believe a substantial portion of the currently vacant office space in downtown has less to do with the market for office space, than with the owners making a conscious decision to stay out of the market. This is exacerbated by the tax “incentive” to keep commercial property vacant (reversion to residential tax rate after being vacant five years). I confirmed again last night with the chair of finance that we intend to remove that incentive.
Let me hlp you lead the charge on that one!
It is outrageous! Good for you for taking it on.
I received the Planning staff report on this variance request. Planning Board is meeting on Tuesday, February 19th to discuss and make a recommendation to council. To date, of the 32 notifications that went out soliciting comments, only two (2) responses have been received. The board, quite rightly I think, interprets non-responses as “we don’t care”. If you received a notice please consider sending your thoughts on this. You can email them to Planning staff.