Teresa Oliver, project manager and new owner of Craig Developments Inc., was before Huntsville Council on March 25 with an amended proposal for a mixed housing development on Sabrina Park Drive.
The main impetus behind the amendment is to increase the parking ratio for the apartments in the development from 0.59 to one parking stall per unit. She said concerns were originally expressed about the little amount of parking allotted to the apartment component of the development. “We had to admit that that kind of was a very strong point of view and it did make sense,” she said. “We went back to the drawing board and did some changes just to get the parking closer to one parking per unit and we achieved that by changing the density.”
Oliver added that the site plan would essentially remain the same, but the floor plans for each of the five, three-storey buildings were redesigned, more one-bedroom apartments instead of bachelors were added, and the overall density of the development, comprised of apartments and townhouses, would drop from 210 units to 171—24 townhouses and 147 apartment units.
The proposed timelines have also changed with the phased construction of the development expected to start in 2020 and an expected completion date of 2028, which Oliver referred to as more realistic.
An estimated 2.4 hectares of land were donated to the developer by the Town in exchange for the creation of a mixed housing development, one which would add a significant number of much-needed units to Huntsville’s housing stock. Forty per cent of the new housing would be considered attainable, or affordable, with rental rates being 20 per cent below market rates and home ownership falling about 10 per cent below market.
Council approved the amended agreement.
Related story: Plans for a mixed housing project continue with 204 units proposed for Sabrina Park Drive
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Henk Rietveld says
Sounds like a win-win. Kudos for all parties to come to a workable solution.
Bonney Watson says
Has anyone bothered to look into the projects in Burks Falls? Complete mess. This has nothing to do with helping, just another money maker.