The City of Guelph planning committee has approved construction of a fifth storey on the former Northern Rubber Company building.
Additional space will accommodate 30 affordable housing units. The applicant plans to continue developing the existing four-storey industrial building into an 87-unit apartment building, while adding a fifth storey containing an additional 30 apartment units that are intended to be affordable and containing supportive amenities for the residents.
Council approved an official plan amendment to allow the building to exceed maximum density rules and a zoning bylaw amendment to residential from institutional designation.
Opponents to the plan say the streets were built in an era that did not support widespread use of cars.
“Encouraging people to use the bike as their main source of transportation is really important. We need the infrastructure to get people out of their cars, but we also need the building to invite people to use their bikes,” said Yvette Tendick, president of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation.
The plan includes 129 bicycle parking spaces on site.
The developer, Alice Block Inc. is a subsidiary of Kitchener-based Momentum Developments. Councillors voted to approve zoning amendments related to minimum setbacks, common amenity areas, unit sizes and parking.
When council approved the development three years ago, in 2017, the estimated cost of the redevelopment was $28 million.
Momentum received a $1.7 million tax break from the city to help retain some heritage aspects of the building.
In June 2020, the city applied to designate the former Northern Rubber Company factory in as a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act, saying the building is a “property of cultural heritage value or interest.”
The Northern Rubber Company purchased the site in 1919 and it is presumed that’s when work began building the four-storey factory to manufacture rubber boots and other product.
Northern Woodstock Rubber Company Ltd took over the factory in the 1940s and Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. took ownership in the 1950s.