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The Salvation Army isn’t keen on the idea of the city’s regulating the number of shelter beds in a social services complex the organization plans to construct in Vanier.

Glenn van Gulik, spokesman for the Salvation Army, said the organization believes council has already addressed the planning questions through the November 2017 vote approving the necessary land-use changes for 333 Montreal Rd.

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“We’ve already been down this path,” van Gulik said. “City council has already gone through the different options for limiting the space to emergency shelter.”

The Salvation Army is “comfortable” with the council-directed restriction of 801 square metres for the shelter, van Gulik said. Ideally, the Salvation Army won’t need to have 140 shelter beds, but it’s hard to predict what the social need will be in future years, he said.

Council actually reduced the shelter’s gross floor area from the staff-recommended 900 square metres.