CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — A 41-unit apartment building proposed for Charlottetown hasn’t formally received final approval just yet.
At a public meeting earlier in June, city council approved the request to rezone 9 Pine Dr. from single-detached residential to medium density and to amend the official plan from low density to medium density in order to consolidate it with 11 and 13 Pine Dr.
However, the project is also required to pass first and second readings before it becomes official.
It narrowly passed first reading, 4-3, at a recent special meeting of council. The city did put second reading on the agenda at a special meeting of council, but Coun. Greg Rivard, chairman of the planning and heritage committee, reiterated his desire to wait until the next regularly scheduled public meeting of council, July 13, to do that.
Following the 4-3 vote, Rivard said he would like to see second reading wait until the July 13 meeting.
Rivard told The Guardian that council didn’t have to wait, but the consensus was that there was no rush.
The city’s planning board recommended council not approve the project, saying the apartment building is out of scale with the surrounding residential neighbourhood.
Pine Cone Developments, a partnership between APM and Bevan Enterprises, is the developer on the project. Officials with the developer said they did try to meet with residents opposed to the project to see if any common ground could be found, but residents would only agree if the 41-unit proposal was taken off the table.
Second and final reading is generally considered to be a formality to approval.
However, once it passes that phase, anyone can then launch an appeal with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC).
