Notice of Public Meeting: 540-544 North Service Road 16 & 22 Storeys (LJM)

LJM Developments is back in town for another kick at the development can, this time proposing 16 & 22 Storey buildings east of their existing buildings along the North Service Road. Standing in their shadows, quite literally would be the existing townhouses between Winston and the North Service Road.

Despite being quite a distance from the major intensification area at the Casablanca interchange, the developer thinks 16 and 22 storeys alongside family townhomes is appropriate. Obvious from the renderings and the applicant’s own reports, the proposal does not meet important design criteria such as stepbacks and angular planes, which aim to preserve shadowing and incompatibility with smaller buildings.

Given LJM’s documented track record of poor build quality, failure to provide a long-promised unit to Habitat for Humanity and the inappropriate scale of this development, it should be interesting to see the developer’s song and dance this time around. As proposed, this application should not get any votes of support when it finally goes before Council.

By wording of the Town’s website and public notice, it is unclear if this meeting is the first step of the process in the form of an “open house” or if the application is bypassing that and going directly to the statutory public meeting instead.

With this unclear, this means that the upcoming meeting may be your only chance to voice your opinion to the Planning Committee, before a final Staff Report and recommendation is prepared for the Planning Committee and Council’s consideration.

The meeting will be held at Town Hall on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at the inconvenient time of 5PM. While participation via Zoom is available, if you wish to comment on this proposal, you will be more effective attending and voicing those concerns in person.

You can find the supporting planning documents on this proposal here: https://www.grimsby.ca/en/doing-business/current-planning-applications.aspx#540-544-North-Service-Road

The public notice is as follows: