A townhouse development with 114 lots is a step closer to becoming a reality on Booth Road, at Massey.
Draft approval was given to a rezoning request by a council committee on Tuesday night.
“This is not an affordable housing development,” says Franz Kloibhofer, a registered professional planner and senior associate at AJ Clarke and Associates. “This is a market-rate housing development. It is a townhouse development. Some may argue that a townhouse development may be more affordable than these $500,000 to $600,000 homes.”
He adds it’s a unique development from local company Bay Builders, and includes two- and three-bedroom townhouses, in a mix of sizes and styles.
“Some at two stories, many at one storey as well, in order to accommodate various types of population demographics,” he says, adding they have stacked townhouses in the plan and hesitates to describe them as apartment-style.
“They have separate entrances. They have separate amenity areas, and it is much more in line with a townhouse,” says Kloibhofer. “However, it does have some vertical aspects to it where you stack some of those townhouse units.”
Kloibhofer says he’s worked on about 100 similar projects across Southern Ontario, with this being the furthest north he’s been involved in a development like this.
“It’s very successful because it gets people trying to enter the housing market and people trying to downsize from the housing market,” he says.
Full council still needs to approve the draft rezoning, and there are further steps in the process before shovels can get in the ground.
That includes a traffic study and an environmental impact statement, with approval from both the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority and provincial Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
