0.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Bezaire Partners (Bezaire) has been retained by MAA Ashapuri Enterprises Inc. (the applicant) to hear the concerns and provide additional information to the concerned residents in the area of its proposed development of a hotel at 4100 7th Concession. Specifically, nine residents had contacted the City of Windsor prior to the Planning Heritage Standing Committee Meeting on April 14, 2020. Eight were opposed to the development and one was in favour.

Under normal circumstances, those 9 residents would have appeared as delegations at the standing committee; the applicant would have had the opportunity to respond; and the committee would have made a decision based on the merits of what they heard. The issue normally would have been decided at that meeting. But these are unusual times and this public meeting was being conducted on-line. We acknowledge that it would have been difficult to adequately hear the delegations in that format. Consequently, the committee chose to defer the application to allow the public consultation to occur.

The chair indicated that since construction was in a shutdown mode in Ontario, there would be no negative impact on the applicant. I was available to the committee by phone, having advised the clerk that I was available for questions, and would have liked to comment on that statement because it is false. Since we are in design mode and perhaps six months away from actual construction, a delay at this point prevents the design from proceeding and results in an actual delay for the project. It will have the impact we believe of delaying start of work until the spring of 2021.

At this point, the applicant is entirely focused on having this matter brought back to the standing committee as soon as possible and have undertaken to meet with any resident willing to do so to make sure that they have all the information necessary to make an informed decision.

This report documents the concerns of each of the residents and provides a response. While it is not possible to satisfy all of their concerns, I believe that our response in each case is reasonable and will be supported by administration and helpful to the committee in terms of reaching a decision on the subject rezoning.