HALIFAX—A development replacing the Lions Head Tavern is one step closer to approval, but worry not, off-key karaoke singers and wing night regulars, the tavern isn’t going far.

After a short public hearing at its meeting Wednesday night, the Halifax and West Community Council voted to approve bylaw amendments for a 10-storey mixed-use, residential and commercial development between Young and Demone streets, near Robie St.

The proposal from M.G.B.E. Real Estate Enterprise Limited ranges in height from three to 10 storeys, with commercial space in the ground floor on the Robie St. side and five townhouse-style two and three-bedroom residential units on the Demone St. side.

In total, there are 114 residential units planned for the building. Of those, 68, or 60 per cent, are two-bedrooms, 16 are three-bedrooms, and 30 are one-bedrooms.

The owner of M.G.B.E. Real Estate Enterprise Limited, Eli Hage, also owns GBS Communications, a Telus mobile dealer, and the Lions Head Tavern.

“He recognizes the community connection to this place for generations,” said Cesar Saleh from WM Fares Architects, who spoke on behalf of the developer during Wednesday’s public hearing.

“A lot of effort is going into making sure that the spirit of this restaurant stays the same so people can still feel that they’re going to the same place.”

Area Councillor Lindell Smith was happy to hear the Lions Head would live on, joking that there might be protests if people couldn’t partake in wing night.

The plan is to move the Lions Head, a fixture of North End Halifax, to what is currently its parking lot at the corner of Robie and Demone streets. Saleh said Hage has a development permit and is currently in the process of applying for a building permit to build a new two-storey tavern on that lot.

“I look forward to the time where we can sit in the new restaurant that’s going to be built, the Lions Head next to this project, and admire the building next door,” Saleh said.

The project has received generally positive reviews from people in the surrounding neighbourhood and from the municipality’s citizen-led Peninsula Planning Advisory Committee, staff said during the meeting.

There was some concern in the community about parking in the area, and traffic disruption. Municipal planning staff said the building would have a 146-space underground parking lot with an entrance on Demone St., along with seven parking spaces outdoors. A traffic impact study for the proposal said it’s “not expected to have any significant impacts to the level of performance of adjacent streets and intersections near the development.”

Only one member of the public spoke during the hearing, a nearby resident, who said she has no problem with the building, but is worried the construction process could be disruptive.

The municipality’s draft Centre Plan, its new set of rules for development in urban areas, allows for a 32-metre-tall building on the site. The development agreement for the proposal would cap the height at 33 metres.

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The proposal doesn’t conform to the current land-use bylaws for the area, which allow for commercial buildings of seven storeys or more in some cases, but not residential buildings. A set of municipal planning policies called Schedule Q allow for residential or mixed-use buildings to be approved through a development agreement.

The community council voted on Wednesday to approve bylaw amendments to allow the project to move forward. There’s now a 14-day appeal period for the bylaw amendments, and at a future meeting, the community council will vote on the development agreement to allow the building.

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