Your Midtown KW Neighbourhood

On behalf of Dawn Parker and Catherine Owens who launched and led the appeal against the Breithaupt Block Phase 3, we are pleased to announce that they reached a negotiated settlement. The formal tribunal hearing, led by the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, (LPAT) was held Thursday March 7^th at Kitchener City Hall and the terms of the settlement were announced at the Tribunal. The results of the negotiation are now public.

There will be no parking garage. Some surface parking will remain but the majority of the parking will be underground. Perimeter Development intends to use the previously designated parking garage space to erect another commercial building. The new proposed building can be up to 18 meters in height with a 7.5 metre setback from the middle of the laneway and surrounding residential houses.

This is an extraordinary win, as you may recall that the original proposed garage had a ½ metre setback from the laneway.

Perimeter Development will need to submit redesigned plans for this area of the site.

Here are two articles from the Kitchener Post about the negotiated settlement:

Five-storey parking garage nixed after midtown neighbours appeal

Residents’ victory a warning for developers

Dawn and Catherine both said that this could not have done on behalf of the neighbourhood without the support of an expert witness, John MacDonald.

The work is not done yet – here’s how you can help

Help our neighbourhood raise $5000 to cover the costs of the expert witness report that was instrumental in arriving at this positive outcome. Any amount helps greatly!

Support the GoFUndMe Campaign by donating here: https://www.gofundme.com/mount-hope-midtown-neighbourhood

This case is seen to be precedent setting and has been supported to date by many other neighbourhoods in the City – residents from Cherry Park, Victoria Park, Central Frederick and Old Berlin were in attendance at the Tribunal hearing. Some of the immediate neighbours were also there and they were “ecstatic” with the negotiated settlement.

One last thing

This work could not have been done without the Local Appeals Planning Tribunal support centre. They have been de-funded by the Province of Ontario and have until the end of June to complete any remaining appeals in the works. Dawn would like you to know that you can speak to your MPP if you have an opinion you would them to hear about this!