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The developer argues the tower will be beautiful and its 840 units will generate important foot traffic to support businesses.

The widest tower is 55 metres from east to west, well over the 36-metre limit in city policy. But it has large terraces, angled balconies and a bend in the facade halfway along to make it look smaller for pedestrians, said Stantec’s Simon O’Byrne, urban planner for the project.

Passersby can’t see the whole mass of it at once, he said.

“They’re doing something really handsome,” said O’Byrne. “We don’t have a lot of buildings that turn and move like that.”

Peter Ohm, the city’s chief planner, said his team recognized the developer needs a return on investment.

“If you want high-quality infill, we have to understand there has to be a return for the developer to fund that,” Ohm said, adding the wider tower gives a larger floor plate, which means more units for sale or rent. “It’s a pretty attractive building.”

The project will fill in a gap in the neighbourhood’s treed boulevard and turn the alley into a pedestrian mews. It will add street furniture such as benches and bike racks and line 81 Avenue with townhouses, creating a welcoming street with lots of windows and doors.

The facade will use brick and other high-quality materials. The developers, One Properties and Wheaton Properties, will contribute up to $1.5 million to a park or other amenity and invest more than $350,000 in public art.

The wider tower will sit right beside The Mezzo, a similar and contentious project city planners did not support last April. But they learned from that, said Ohm. Planners saw council did want to support that height and shape near Whyte Avenue if the project hit a high bar for quality urban design at the base. That project was approved in a nine to three vote.