St. Michael’s zoning request approved

By Merna Emara
Staff Writer
memara@fortfrances.com

Fort Frances council approved the zoning request submitted by the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board (RRDSSAB) to change 820 Fifth St. East to Residential Type Two (R2), with a site-specific permitted accessory use as an EarlyOn Centre within the seniors’ apartment building.

The council vote was not unanimous. All councillors voted in favour except Coun. John McTaggart.

The former St. Michael’s school will be renovated to have 13 apartments for seniors and a portion of the remaining property will be used for the construction of five 8-plexes. On the main floor of each building, there will be two bachelor units and two, one-bedroom apartments. The second floor will be four one-bedroom apartments.

When construction comes to an end, there will be 40 units available for rent. While some of the units will be classified as affordable with 30 per cent of rent being less than market value, the rest of the units will be priced for market rent.

Unlike the seniors’ apartments, the units in the five 8-plexes will be rented to any age group.

Dan McCormick, chief administrative officer at RRDSSAB, said the $11.5 million project will take place over a period of time as they try to seek more funding from the province.

“These are higher end apartments, but a portion of them have to be classed as affordable and that depends on the funding source that we actually use,” McCormick said.

Prior to the majority of council approving this, many letters were received from members of the public in support of or opposition to the rezoning request. Two petitions were also created in order to give council a numerical perspective of those in favour and against.

Dawson Mihichuk, 22, created the petition in favour of seeing the housing developments come to fruition.

He said there is a severe housing shortage in Fort Frances – a reason why many young people choose to live in Thunder Bay or southern Ontario.

On the concern that the five 8-plex developments would decrease property value around the area, Mihichuk said affordable housing developments do not result in increased crime, and they do not result in decreased property value.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of stereotyping and a lot of preconceived notions from a lot of the people in the neighbourhood,” Mihichuk said. “They think it’s going to be drug addicts; they think it’s going to be people that are going to bring crime to their neighbourhood. I can tell you who’s going to live in those buildings. It’s going to be people you know, it’s going to be your friends, your neighbours, grandparents, brothers and sisters.”

On the other hand, most of the letters submitted in opposition to the development of the five 8-plexes cited concerns over losing green space and the potential loss of property value.

Dave Legg, 59, also lives around St. Michael’s. He said he was concerned about the timeline from when the request was made to the public meeting held on April 12.

Which is why he wrote to council asking for more time to gather around a virtual table to ask questions about the developments the neighbourhood would witness.

“I just felt that there wasn’t enough time since those plans were made public to allow the public to make a decision and provide comments to council,” Legg said. “We weren’t allowed to ask questions about the proposal that DSSAB has because council’s only concern was should they rezone it or not. It had nothing to do with what was being built on there.”

However, according to Cody Vangel, chief building officer and municipal planner, all the legislative timelines were met from the day they received the rezoning request from RRDSSAB.

The request was submitted on Feb. 26, 2021, the public meeting notice was put out on March 4, and the public meeting took place on April 12.