Affordable Housing in Beechwood

Late last summer the developer for the 555 Beechwood site, Southside Group, held two virtual community engagement sessions. Following these, a survey was posted on Engage to allow for more feedback on the design of the site. During these winter months Southside Group has been working with their architectural and engineering consultants on a site plan application to have the plan for 555 Beechwood approved by City of Waterloo staff. Southside Group and their consultants have considered all of the comments and survey responses received and have provided their responses. If you have any questions – please feel free to contact us through the Beechwood phone line (519-575-4400 x3442) or the Beechwood email (Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca). We will pass on your questions to Southside. Project completion is now anticipated for early 2024.

The survey for providing input into the design of 555 Beechwood Drive will remain open until this Friday, September 17. You still have time to submit any last minute feedback you may have.

The notes from the Beechwood Community Outreach Meetings held in August have been posted in the Documents to Download section of the webpage.

The developer team for 555 Beechwood Drive held two community outreach meetings on August 19th and received helpful feedback on their proposed design.

To hear the information shared at the meeting, you can watch the video of their presentation.

There's still time to provide your feedback on the design. To provide your input, you can complete the survey.

MTE consultants have been and will continue to be on site to do some geotechnical investigations to assess the impact that the soil and rocks below the surface might have on a construction project. This is required for any development.

On June 28^th the City of Waterloo Council will consider a request from the Region of Waterloo to reduce parking requirements for the affordable units at 555 Beechwood. The Agenda is on the City of Waterloo’s webpage.

The development of 555 Beechwood continues and we would like to invite you to hear about the work that has taken place so far to design these new homes in your community. We are hosting two virtual neighbourhood meetings where Nicholson Sheffield (the architect) and Southside Construction Ltd. (the developer) will showcase their draft designs for the property. During these meetings, there will be an opportunity for you to provide feedback on building design and site features.

The meetings will be held on the following date and times:

Thursday, August 19, 2:30pm (afternoon session)

Thursday, August 19, 6:00pm (evening session)

If you would like to attend one of the virtual neighborhood meetings, please email: info@nicholsonsheffield.ca

In your email include include the following:

1. your name
2. your postal code
3. your email address
4. the session you wish to attend - afternoon or evening

After receiving your email, Nicholson Sheffield will send you a Zoom link to the meeting.

We are arranging to record the meeting and will post that on Engage for those who may not be able to attend the virtual meetings. We are also creating a survey to allow those who cannot attend the meeting to provide their feedback. The link to the survey will be sent out through Engage in August.

If you have questions about the meeting, do not have a computer, or need other accommodation to attend the meeting(s) please connect through the following email or phone number:

Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca

519-575-4400 x3442

Leave a message and someone will call you back.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and questions!

• The Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks has accepted the Record of Site Condition (RSC) for the 555 Beechwood Site. No environmental contaminants exist that would prevent the site from being used for homes. If you are interested in looking at the specifics of the RSC, please send an email to the Beechwood address (Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca) and we will forward a link.
• The Request for Proposal evaluation team is ready to recommend a developer. The report to recommend the developer will go to Regional Council on March 24, 2021. The report will be public on the Council Agenda one week before the meeting at the following link:https://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/council
• After the developer is approved, they will begin to gather feedback from the community on the specific site design options. Stay tuned to this site for more details.

The Region of Waterloo project team has an affordable housing developer they are planning to recommend for 555 Beechwood Drive. However, proposed site designs are being revised so that they more fully incorporate input previously provided by the Beechwood community. This is expected to take a few weeks to complete. The report with the recommended developer will go to Committee of the Whole and Regional Council for final approval in early 2021. After this time, the community will have an opportunity for feedback on the specific site design.

The Region of Waterloo received three proposals for developing affordable housing at 555 Beechwood Drive. They are currently being evaluated. More time is required to review the proposals. The report with the recommended developer will go to Committee of the Whole December 8^th and Regional Council December 16^th for final approval. After that time, design options from the approved developer will be shared on this page to obtain feedback from the community.

Based on requests from many of the teams submitting proposals, the deadline for submissions has been extended until October 14^th. A team of staff from relevant departments, including housing and finance, will then evaluate the proposals according to the design guidelines approved by Council. The guidelines were informed by community input and include considerations around where the building(s) will be located, how the building will be oriented, how it will blend with the existing buildings, and how landscaping and amenity areas will be included.

Because the deadline has been extended, the dates for Committee and Council approval have changed. The recommended proposal will go to Committee of the Whole on November 17^th and Regional Council on November 25^th for final approval.

As part of the environmental assessment, all soil and water samples have been collected from the site and the results of their analysis will be sent to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks for review this week. The review will take four to six weeks. Once it is complete, and if no additional samples are needed, the Ministry will deem the property safe for housing development and a notice of this will be made public. The blue barrels on the site are the storage containers for the samples. They will be removed from the site as soon as the Ministry finishes its review.