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Property rezoning has nothing to do with the potential 16-storey hotel development looming next to Lake Banook, a Dartmouth councillor says.

“The rezoning gave the developer no additional rights for a hotel,” Sam Austin, who represents Dartmouth Centre on regional council, said of the hotel now proposed by Monaco Investments Partnership on 307 Prince Albert Rd. at the corner of Glenwood Avenue.

Posts on the Banook Area Residents Association's Facebook page blame Austin and the Harbour East-Marine Drive Community Council for splitting a motion to rezone the property from the motion for a development application.The posts say that scuttled the group’s chances of winning an appeal to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board to abort the development plan.

“By strategically gerrymandering the process after a record (public) turnout in December 2017, Sam Austin first approved the rezoning of 5 Glenwood in the spring of 2019 and that is the trigger to the current claim for a hotel,” a Facebook post reads.

Austin explains it this way.

“Typically, you’d have a development agreement and a rezoning come forward to a public hearing,” Austin said. “Then, (community) council makes the decision at that hearing whether or not they want to rezone a property, a development agreement follows shortly after. It always happens in two different meetings.”

He said if council rejects the rezoning application, the second meeting is rendered unnecessary.

“If council says yes to the rezoning, then the second meeting is usually anti-climactic because generally if you are approving the rezoning, you are in favour of the development agreement. That’s the typical script. This one did not follow that path at all. What happened, we had the public hearing, it was very contentious and there was a lot of community concern. I moved instead to ask if the developer would consider a six-storey building on that property.”

The developer, who had originally proposed a 15-storey apartment building in 2009 and then redesigned it to 10 storeys after council said no, came back to community council in May 2018 with a compromise of a seven-storey building with a penthouse. Monaco Investments committed to submitting that proposal if the rezoning would be granted.

The rezoning happened in May 2018 and a new public hearing for the development agreement was held because the rezoning had been approved. That public meeting was held in September, Austin said.

“They (Lake Banook residents group) refer to that as the split decision because it didn’t go the usual route, because, rather than just saying yes or no, I tried to squeeze changes out of it instead,” Austin said. “It has no material impact on the hotel whatsoever.”

Austin said 307 Prince Albert Rd. had been zoned C-2 (general business) and was changed to GC (general commercial). He said Monaco Investments would have been able to build a hotel under either zoning but the general commercial zoning allows for more intensive uses.

Construction continues on the site of a contentious development at the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Prince Albert Road in Dartmouth Friday. Monaco Developments initially went to Halifax council to build a 15-storey residential building across from Lake Banook. The developer has since revised the their plan and is now developing the site as a 16-storey hotel. - Eric Wynne

The property at 5 Glenwood was rezoned from R-2 (two-family residential) to R-4 (multi-family residential, high density). Austin said no part of a hotel can be built on the Glenwood portion of the adjoining properties.

“That rezoning was entirely about paving the way for a compromise proposal, seven storeys and a penthouse because as history and current events are showing, the developer was going to be doing something with that property and I would have far rathered the eight-storey apartment building than the 16-storey hotel.”

At last week’s regional council meeting, Austin moved that staff do a report on what options the municipality might have that would ensure the hotel development does not proceed at the site. Options to consider, the motion read, should include current planning bylaws and requirements, acquisition of the site through purchase or expropriation and the potential for a negotiated land swap with the developer.

“If there is any way out of this, as I said at council, I think it’s going to be by negotiations. It’s up to the developer. He might very well be far too committed to this at this point.”

Austin said many had been under the impression that the hotel was simply a threat to leverage what the developer really wanted to build.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t consider the threat real and it’s turning out to be all too real,” Austin said. “He’s (Monaco Investments) spent $300,000 on a building permit, that’s not walking-around money.

“I don’t think this is a feint to try to get something from us. I think this is a bona fide hotel proposal that’s got a contractor, a (international) hotel operator, a brand signed on and financing in place and is starting construction.”

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