Charlottetown looks to add housing with official plan, but residents have mixed feelings

After more than two years of developing an official plan, the City of Charlottetown is getting close to voting on adopting it. Some residents have concerns with higher density housing the plan could make way for, but others are welcoming it.

The last time an official plan was drafted for P.E.I.'s capital was back in 1999.

The draft of the official plan considers increasing housing density along nodes and corridors.

Corridors include sections of some of the major routes through the city — University Avenue, St. Peters Road, Belvedere Avenue, Capital Drive — and the nodes will fall where the intersections of those arteries meet such as the corner of University and Belvedere Avenue.

Corridors are high-traffic roads which have a mix of residential and commercial development. The draft of the official plan would allow for six-storey apartment buildings in those areas.

In the node areas, eight-storey apartments could be built under the draft of the official plan.

That has some residents concerned about what could go up next to them. About 30 residents filled the council chamber for the public meeting on Wednesday night, with others sitting outside the council chamber watching the meeting on a TV.

"If you are going to do it in our neighbourhood, you do it in the heritage neighbourhoods too. Right now everything is up for grabs; where there is empty space, use it," said Carolyn Walsh, who lives in Charlottetown.

"There is a lot of other space that can be used… then you have to deal with a contractor who might have bought a house and he is going to go in and decide, 'OK, we're going to make this into a four-unit or five-unit.' How does that even address the situation of bringing more business or anything else. It brings more problems," Walsh said, adding she worries about crimes, such as break and enters, which she claimed could come along with higher density housing.

Walsh does agree the city needs an official plan, but she doesn't think this is the right one, she said.

In the plan there is also protection for the 500-lot area,  where many heritage homes sit in the downtown core. Proposed housing in that area would be required to go through a design review process and incorporate storm surge protection.

However, Charlottetown's Mayor, Philip Brown, is clear the draft plan isn't the official guiding document when it comes to what buildings go where.

"It's only a vision. It's not the nuts and bolts that will come after we start on the zoning and development bylaw," said Charlottetown Mayor Philip Brown.

The city has received $10.2 million funding from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, but a caveat of that money was for the city to allow as-of-right four-unit buildings.