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It’s common for developers and concerned neighbours at council to debate whether a building should be eight storeys or 10 storeys.

Toss in a developer banned from the City Hall hearing, reports of threats, a notoriously raucous Stampede party tent, and an architect who’s been on the job for only nine days. Stew for several hours, and you have the uncommonly spicy controversy that has been Kensington’s Osteria de Medici development project.

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“This went very, very, very badly off the rails,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Monday.

Council voted 8-6 to let the proposal crash after an hours-long hearing. The Osteria owners are still allowed to replace their Italian eatery with an eight-storey building, but had wanted to go two storeys higher, and in exchange would build a public plaza and patio at 10th Street N.W. and Kensington Road, one of the city’s busiest corners.

Instead of forcing the developers back to the drawing board, other councillors had wanted to stoke renegotiations between city planners, the community association, and the restaurant owners, after a hostile past relationship.