By Jessica Lovell
Guelph Tribune

Townhouses along Arthur Street, high-rises along the river and parking buried under a man-made hill were a few of the ideas presented at a public meeting in the Ward on Monday night, and overall, the residents did not seem impressed.
About 100 people came out to the Italian Canadian Club to get an update on the residential development planned for the former W.C. Wood industrial site. The presenters saved the best for last, finishing up the meeting with a series of colourful elevation drawings illustrating their ideas, before opening up the floor to questions and comments.  “I really feel the examples you presented do not reflect the character of the Ward,” said Ward Residents’ Association chair Maria Pezzano.
She criticized the ideas for showing only two extremes – short squat buildings or tall skinny buildings – and asked the planners to go back to the drawing board.
Working for the site’s future developer, Fusion Homes, architect Mark Sterling actually presented several ideas for the site, debating the merits of things like enclosed courtyards versus more open, publicly accessible space.
He talked of the possibility of townhouses with their own yards along Arthur Street, stacked townhouses or low-rise apartments. But the overall vision seemed to be one favouring gradually greater heights as the development approaches the river.
“I’m biased toward this idea of having more openness,” said Sterling.
The drawings he presented showed how greater heights could mean more open space on the ground and wider corridors leading from Arthur Street to the river.
With lower buildings fronting onto the street and the highest buildings at the greatest distance from the street, the neighbours in the Ward wouldn’t feel like they were in the shadows of highrises, he suggested.
“The tall buildings, from street level on Arthur Street, really aren’t going to be all that visible,” he said.
But Ward residents weren’t just concerned about the view from their front door.
Scott Gammon, who lives just up the hill from the Ward, got a murmur of agreement from the crowd for his comments on the impression that tall buildings along the river could make.
“For people from outside of the Ward who might want to come and enjoy the space . . . it closes off the neighbourhood from the rest of the city,” he said.
Another resident suggested that a built-up hill, one of the suggested solutions to allow underground parking on the shallow, bedrock-filled site, would effectively cut off views to the river from the east.
“This is a huge cost for making that parking disappear,” he said.
Another man got a round of applause from the audience for suggesting the developers eliminate the parking altogether.
Others seemed dismayed by the overall boxy appearance of the buildings in the drawings that were shown, wanting to see different building materials and design features used to complement the neighbourhood heritage.
But as Sterling pointed out, the drawings were just ideas, not actual design plans. “We haven’t designed these and we haven’t costed these,” he said.
In answer to another woman’s question, he said the development would likely include between 600 and 700 units on the eight-acre site, depending on the demographic. But he could not yet say what group might make up the largest part of that demographic.
“I was hoping they’d have a better idea of what the forecast would be for the number of families moving in,” said Diana Mooij, part of the parent council for Tytler school.
She came out to the meeting hoping to hear that the development would bring more families into the neighbourhood, lending support to the Tytler parents’ fight to keep the school open.
Another woman hoped the developers would make efforts to appeal to the senior set.
“In about 20 years, I’ll be ready to leave my house and I want to move there,” said Joan Hug-Valeriote, pointing at the map showing the riverside site.
She suggested turning the heritage buildings, which were once home to a distillery, into a seniors centre.
There is no specific plan yet for the heritage buildings, which are the only thing still standing on the site. “I think they’ve got a lot of potential. We’re still searching for the right partner to make that work,” said Sterling.
People at the meeting were told it would be at least a year before the site was anywhere near ready for redevelopment.
“It’s going to take a fairly long period of time,” said David Harper, a managing partner with Kilmer Brownfield Equity Fund, the company that has been working on remediating the site.
The property has been home to a number of industrial uses since the 1830s, including a distillery, a foundry, and most recently, an appliance manufacturer.
Kilmer has finished demolition of all the buildings on the site, and next month the company will be back “to start the environmental cleanup in earnest,” said Harper.
That cleanup will mean some noise for the neighbours as heavy machines come to remove contaminants from the property, he said.
The contaminants include foundry sands, which are a byproduct of the metallurgical process, and hydrocarbons associated with fuels and solvents used in the manufacturing process, he said.
“Most of the soils that have been impacted will be taken off the property,” he said.