REGINA - A proposed rental development near the Regina International Airport sparked a long debate at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
All of this stems from the 2024 zoning by-law amendments, which aimed at increasing housing supplies in residential neighbourhoods and an increase in permitted building heights on mid-and high-density sites for the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF).
The proposed development submitted by Wave Development was to build a three-story (10.8 metres high), 18-unit complex situated at 4125 and 4129 Queen Street in the Albert Park neighbourhood that would include on-site parking.
For the new proposed development to go through per the Zoning Bylaw, city council needed to make certain changes. The first was removing "Single Family Housing" from Section 2(b) of the Lakeview/Albert Park Neighbourhood Plan, which would concur with the goals of the HAF.
Next, the property needed to be rezoned from residential detacheded zone (R1) to a residential low-rise zone (RL). An R1 allows for only one or two-unit dwellings, while an RL allows for a mixture of low-rise multi-unit building types,
As for the height of the building, the maximum height allowed under the RL is 20 meters, but the developer heard concerns from residents and the airport, so they brought it down from their original plan to below 11 meters.
Finally, city council needed to approve the development qualifying as a "Building, Planned Group," which contains single or multiple dwellings on one parcel of land.
The proposal was first tabled back in Sept. 2024, and it was then passed to a city council meeting in Oct.
After hearing concerns from residents and the Regina Airport Authority (RAA), city council decided to reconsider the motion at a later date once a full report about the topic was provided. On Wednesday, a motion to reconsider the decision date was brought forward by Ward 8 Coun. Shanon Zachidniak. During the meeting, councillors once again heard concerns about the development.
James Bogusz, CEO of the RAA, noted that the dwelling would be built on the high-noise area of the main runway at the airport.
Bogusz brought up the, which is used by Transport Canada to measure the actual or forecasted aircraft noises in the area of an airport.
The point of this measurement is to see what the community reaction would be to said noise and the level of annoyance it would cause, leading to complaints. This development would be in NEF 25, which is "likely to produce some level of annoyance," said Transport Canada.
When discussing residential developments near an airport, Bogusz said, "it is incompatible with airport operations."
Another group opposed to the development, Kreos Aviation, said multiple airports, including the Edmonton City Centre Airport (ECCA), were forced to close due to complaints about noise and safety concerns.
However, primarily due to development concerns in the Blatchford, Alberta, area.
There were also concerns that noise complaints would lead to restrictions on operations, which could mean fewer flights coming in and out of Regina at certain times.
Bogusz noted that 2015 numbers show that the airport generates over $800 million towards the Regina economy each year, and developments like these could lead to millions of dollars in revenue losses.
Bogusz kept mentioning that he wasn’t consulted about the by-law change when it originally happened until after the fact.
He wanted city council to wait until they received a full report about the issue in Q1. However, if city council kept pushing the motion back, it would continue to affect the developer.
Tom Isted, the developer who applied for the development, said the cost of building the units have increased from inflation because he’s had to wait.
Isted was asked by Ward 5 Coun. Sarah Turnbull if it would be acceptable to wait longer for a decision, which Isted replied with, "I don’t think that it’s acceptable to wait any longer.. as i mentioned, I submitted the application back in March [2024]. I’ve, you know, followed all the proper channels that the city requires in a submission like this. I’ve gone above and beyond the whole public consultations and the 10 council meetings. So, I am just looking for some closure today."
City manager Niki Anderson echoed what Isted said, asking city council to decide on this to give the developer peace of mind.
Anderson pointed out Regina needs more spaces to rent out, as Regina currently has a rental vacancy rate of below 3 per cent. According to Anderson, it’s the lowest it’s been in around 13 years.
City council decided to reconsider and defeat the motion back in Oct. Afterwards, a new motion was put forward to either approve the development or oppose it.
City Council voted in a tiebreaker 5-5 on the decision. Voting in favour of the development was Mayor Chad Bachynski, Turnbull, Ward 6 Coun. Victoria Flores, Ward 7 Coun. Shobna Radons, and Zachidniak.
Voting against was Ward 1 Coun. Dan Rashovich, Ward 2 Coun. George Tsiklis, Ward 3 Coun. David Froh, Ward 4 Coun. Mark Burton and Ward 10 Coun. Clark Bezo.
This meant the motion was defeated, and the 18-unit development would not happen.
It’s worth noting the developer can still build 12-units on three lots, with on-site parking or even build 16-units without any on-site parking.
Bachynski was asked about the long debate after city council. His initial reaction to the decision was, "at the end of the day, we had a lot of good conversation, questions, comments [and] data [provided] from delegations, you know, at the end of the day, that is the process."
Reporters also brought up a question regarding if this decision would deter other developers. Bachynski said, "I don't want to speculate [on] that, you know, [that] it's gonna [be just] this is one scenario. I would say this is one particular scenario [that] is quite specific. Part of the flight path that the airport was concerned around [was a key issue]. [So], you know, we're gonna have some of these [scenarios] come up from time to time where they're specific circumstance[s]."
