As you know from our last update, in April 2020 the owner of the property obtained approval from the Committee of Adjustment to convert his house in to a 37-child daycare, which approval was conditional upon obtaining a permit from Transportation Services for commercial boulevard parking on the city-owned lands immediately north of the building.  The owner has not obtained commercial boulevard parking and understands that Councillor Matlow would trigger a poll of residents to determine the issue.

The CLRA has since learned that the owner had filed in September 2019 a concurrent application for a building permit to convert his house into a smaller daycare ‘as of right’ without the need to obtain a variance from the Committee, nor commercial boulevard parking.   It is not known how many fewer children would attend the smaller daycare.

As it happens, the building permit was granted in January, as it complied with all zoning laws.  This was prior to the February 2020 hearing in which the owner obtained conditional approval for the larger daycare.  You may have noticed that the building permit has been posted in one of the windows on the property and that work may be imminent.   It may be that the owner is content to proceed with the smaller daycare because it does not require further approvals nor a poll of neighbours.

The manner in which the owner of 105 Wells Hill received this separate approval ‘as of right’ is that the plans he submitted concurrently with his application to the Committee without the CLRA’s knowledge feature a reduced footprint for the daycare and an additional parking space inside the existing basement.  Parents would be expected to use the basement garage as the drop-off area.   Under the ‘as of right’ proposal, the parking variance and the application for commercial boulevard parking become unnecessary.

Notwithstanding that the plans were approved as of right and that the start of work appears imminent, we continue to explore options to challenge this dangerous proposal and will update you about any developments.

Should you have any questions, please direct them to Nicholas Saint-Martin at .