OTIS | 6 fl | U/C

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Innovative condos would replace crack houses on David Street
June 21, 2014 | Terry Pender | The Record | LINK

KITCHENER — The Revel Development Corporation unveiled drawings Friday for a park-side condominium on David Street it wants to build on the site of two former crack houses.

The Kitchener-based company, which specializes in urban-infill redevelopment, wants to construct a 12-floor building with 80 units on the property now occupied by the homes at 51 and 53 David St.

The parking garage would be under the residential units. It would be the first in the city to stack vehicles two or three high on special platforms that are lifted for storage, and lowered for access. It would have 42 spaces.

The David Street side of the building would rise to eight floors where a large outdoor patio would overlook the park. The back part of the building would rise to 12 floors.

The detailed plans, made public Friday by Stephen Litt of Revel Development, come nearly two years after the company took possession of the two controversial houses. It bought the site with two derelict houses, knowing it will a prime site for redevelopment.

The 12-storey condo building proposed by Revel is not as tall as the apartment building next door, and slightly higher than another on the opposite side. The site is zoned MU-3 — the highest density zoning allowed by the city.

"The site is surrounded by high-density housing, an apartment building on one side, Kitchener Housing on the other and a retirement home at the back," Litt said.

For more than 15 years, the two houses owned by an absentee landlord were among the most notorious addresses in the central part of the city where sex-trade workers, drug dealers, homeless people and addicts lived.

"It has been a year-and-a-half since I first submitted a site plan," Litt said. "I could be building a year if city staff supported what I want to do."

It has taken 21 months for city officials and councillors to give preliminary approval for the demolition of the two houses, which will cost an estimated $75,000. Negotiations between city planners and the developer for the final design and size of the new building are ongoing, with no final agreement in sight, and are complicated by the need to upgrade the sewer that runs below David Street.

This sewage pipe bottleneck was first identified by city staff two years ago, and the fix is not part of the reconstruction of David Street scheduled to begin in a few days.

City engineers say there is a bottleneck in the sewer somewhere between the Courtland Street entrance to Victoria Park and the main trunk sewer under the park pond. City workers are about to begin the reconstruction of David, but that work will stop at Courtland Street and not clear the bottleneck in the sewage line.

The developer wants the city to extend the new, larger sewer line from the Courtland Street entrance to the park and into the main trunk line under the pond. If not, it could cost $200,000 or more in future to bring all the equipment and workers back to the site to lay less than 40 metres of sewer pipe.

"It does not make any sense," Litt said. "So essentially when I want to build this building I have to rip up the street again. This could be one year from now."

The two old houses at 51 and 53 David St. are currently part of a modern art exhibition in downtown Kitchener. One is painted black, the other white.

After a neighbourhood resident complained about the derelict buildings, the city issued an order to demolish the structures. But that order was issued months before the heritage officials gave preliminary approval for the demolition. Heritage approval was needed first because the houses are in the Victoria Park Heritage Conservation District.

Residents accused the developer of stalling, but Litt said his hands were tied and he still needs a site-plan agreement with the city to proceed with the redevelopment.

"I want them gone as much as anyone else," Litt said. "We are not the bad guy."

Find more details about the building plan at www.precedentontheparc.com.

[url=http://www.precedentontheparc.com./][/url]