Welcome. >> Hello. >> Okay. Good afternoon and welcome to our virtual design review panel meeting. My name is Edward Winter and I am an urban designer at the city of Hamilton and the coordinator of the design review panel. On our agenda today, we have a development proposal for 1542 uh pardon me 1452 Upper James Street in Hamilton. In attendance today, we have the applicant team, city staff, members of the public, and media are also observing this meeting. Members of the public are welcome here today to observe the meeting. However, there are no uh opportunity for commenting or questions from the public and media. This meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to the city of Hamilton's DRP web page. Uh Jennifer, you may begin our meeting now. >> Good afternoon and welcome. Edward, can you please confirm that this session is being recorded? >> Yes, we are recording. >> And are there any changes to the agenda today? >> Uh, no, just um that Dennis wasn't able to make it. >> Okay. Are there any declarations of conflict of interest from the panel members? Uh, and I'll take silence as a no. Okay. On the agenda today is the review of 1452 Upper James Street. The lead planner on the file is Chris Hamson Curtis, who's available to answer any policy questions. Edward Winter, the urban designer for the city of Hamilton, will make a brief presentation. Good afternoon again, Edward. And uh we're ready for your fivem minute presentation. >> Okay. You should see my screen now and we'll get going. All right. So, the proposed development would include an eight-story mixeduse building on the west side of Upper James Street, approximately halfway between Stone Church Road to the north and Riml Road to the south, including 252 dwelling units are proposed along with approximately 820 m uh square meters of ground flooror commercial space uh including parking with a mix of surface and structured parking. The proposed unit split for the residential units are approximately 56% one-bedroom, 7% oneb bed plus den, 30% twobedrooms, 1% two bed plus den, and approximately 7% 3bedroom units. So on the screen, we can see our air air photo and the subject site marked with the yellow square. Uh just below it and above we see some of the extents of the upper James commercial corridor. Um there's a mixture of restaurants and shopping opportunities available and then behind uh we have a a mixture of suburban development and a small park. Um, and then of course along the top we have Stone Church running east west and Riml Road running east west below. All right, here we have a photograph looking onto the proposed site um looking from the north to the south. Um, next. Okay. So, and these photos are um the top photo is on the north side of the site showing the commercial um restaurant near the street and then a parking lot with uh the strip mall behind. On the bottom photo, this is on the south side of the property again with a restaurant closer to the street with the commercial strip mall in behind. Okay. And then facing on the other side, we see similar again with restaurants and then commercial behind. And looking up and down Upper James Street uh with the divided boulevard in both directions. Uh then just for a little bit of context, this is the intersection at Stone Church Road. um looking south on the top and looking north on the the lower photograph. So much the same conditions. And finally at Riml Road uh looking south on the top photograph and looking north on the bottom photograph. And here we see some newer uh commercial that was uh closer to the road uh and and in this case uh not fronting uh the street. However, and here we have our conceptual site plan showing the building outline in in in orange. Uh we have access on the south end of the property moving inward and then in a T fashion uh at the back of the property. [snorts] Um access to the ramp is is at the rear as well. Uh there is some sidewalk uh along upper games provided to support the commercial uses and some uh street trees within the right of way. And here we have one of the conceptual renderings showing a mixture of materials uh with some brick uh at the lower levels and uh projecting balconies. Okay. There was a formal consultation held uh in November of 2023 uh for an 8-story mixeduse building at that time with 310 dwelling units proposed. Some of the content uh comments from staff at that time um were provided to the applicant. Um I have a few here. Um there's additional in the staff summary that is available on the website. Um for this discussion we are looking at the building podium um and how it could be strengthened to give more presence in the pedestrian realm and the streetscape if the upper was stepped back. Um and then from transportation planning uh they were recommending a parking study as the proposal uh exceeds parking maximums. All right. And then uh we have some suggested topics of discussions for today. Does the proposed building massing and height minimize impact on neighboring buildings and public and private spaces by creating transition and scale pardon me transitions and scale and respecting the existing street proportions? Second, does the proposed building features and material selections work to fit within the character? Oh, pardon me. There's a typo there of upper James Street and the adjacent community. Uh, does the proposal create a pedestrianoriented space that is human scale and comfortable for all of the users of the proposed development as well as the larger community? Uh, fourth, does the landscaping support the pedestrian realm on Upper James Street sufficiently to support the public realm and using landscaping features such as planters, furniture, canopies, etc. And does the landscaping provide screening and transition to the lowdensity residential to the west? Uh and then finally, does the overall design of the proposed development set a good precedent uh to guide intensification along this corridor which is uh seeing transition from suburban to an urban more urban context. And that will conclude the staff presentation. Thanks, Edward. We're now ready for the consultant to provide additional information and please uh keep this presentation to 10 minutes. Thanks. >> Okay, just going to share my screen. Uh my name is Andrea Kamina. I'm representing Armstrong Planning and Project Management. Alongside I have John McKinn from Chamberlains who's our architect on this file. Um I also have Ahmed Mahmood if he's on the call uh from Elite Developments. We prepared a presentation for today's call which is kind of similar to the one that you presented Edward. Um so subject site I won't go into too detail just because Edward did go over most of the surrounding site. Um we're a twoacre site up fronting upper James Street. Um north we have church uh Stone Church Road and then south we have Ryan Mill Road. Within an 800 meter radius we are surrounding around commercial plazas, car dealerships. We have future residential abing us to the west which I will go over in the next slide. Um here we have some area some images of the site. Um, view A shows the site across from Upper James Street. Um, then B is also showing the northern uh site. Again, here we have some other images. Um, D again is showing a cross of the site. You could see the arterial road. There's four lanes of traffic with a median. Um, number C is showing the western view of the site. And then number or letter E is showing the fenced area abing the commercial property to our site. Um the site is designated as mixeduse medium density as per the OP. Um the intent of this designation is really to permit commercial uh grade and then have the residential above grade. Um, [clears throat] oh, sorry. Um, the permitted height is six stories in the OP. However, we can build up to 12 stories without providing an addendum to the amendment to the OP. Um, subject to certain criteria such as not having shadow impacts to surrounding area, ensuring that there's a good mix of units, um, and that there's appropriate setbacks in place. Our site is zoned as mixeduse medium density. Um permitted uses include mixeduse uh buildings that have commercial or retail at grade u multiple dwellings, office, restaurant. Um the maximum permitted height is 22 m um which is equivalent to six stories. Um we are parking rate area one which means that we have no minimum parking standards applicable to the site. adjacent developments. There are two active developments uh budding the western side of the site. Um one of them is proposing 108 dwelling units in the form of street townhouse and backtoback town houses. The other one is proposing 32 townhouse units. [clears throat] Um and then I'll hand it off to John to go walk over the proposal for us. >> Great. Thanks, Andrea. Maybe you can flip to the next slide. Hi everybody. Thanks very much for joining us today. It's nice to see a lot of you again. Been on a couple of these in the last few months. Uh okay, so here's kind of the basic building statistics. We've got an eight-story building, 252 units, uh just over 23,000 square meters. We've got 822 meters of retail, uh a building of 26.6 meters, 285 parking spaces, and just over 3,000 square feet of amenity space. Uh if I'm going to go to the next slide. Okay. So I wanted to kind of break down quickly just a few of the design methodologies as we as we move through here. So we talked a little bit in or we saw in Edward's presentation a little bit about the access and flow to the site. We do have one vehicular access on the south side. Um that's basically the main vehicular access to the site and then all of the kind of internal circulation is happening on the um on the west side of the site. As far as active spaces go, um we've got active public spaces along Upper James where we have our retail area and then we have active building spaces on the third floor. We have a rooftop outdoor amenities space plus some larger terraces, private terraces along the back side of the building. uh the built form itself. Um we have a more simplified mass with undulations of different materials that are happening helping to uh accentuate the different building uses uh which we'll talk about a little bit more as we kind of work through some of the renderings itself. Want to flip to the next page. Okay, this is a a quick excerpt of some of the shadow um implementations on March 21st. Uh so at 9:00 a.m. we can see we can see the shadows extending slightly to the west. Uh by noon they're they're pretty much all on our site projecting a little bit onto the um retail space to the north and then by 3:00 again just kind of pushing a little bit further onto that onto that space. But overall the site is kind of dropping the shadows in the places that we need to drop it into. um the kind of two towered tier approach at the rear of the site um is really helping to mitigate the amount of of sun transferring over to the potential uh residential lands to the west. I know that one has been under development for a while but I don't think we've seen anything move forward at this point. We want to move on to the next slide. Okay, so this is one of the first views of the building. So this is a view facing west from upper James. Um the facade shows an active ground floor retail and lobby entrance. Uh a little of the material articulation that we were talking about has been designed to help identifying the main entrance. So you can see kind of the lighter portion of the building funneling together and and kind of almost pointing towards the upper James side in the middle there. that's helping to identify the location of the main entrance and also kind of supporting the two wings of the retail sections that are are running along both kind of the left and right hand side of of the main entrance. Want to go on to the next slide. Uh this gets into some of the materiality of the building. Um so we've got uh some storefront glazing along kind of the entire bottom portion. Um, on the upper levels, we've got a mix of, uh, masonry finish, uh, pre-fabricated ephus and then pre-fabricated eaves panels above with different kind of trimmed works. We've got extruded balconies with some patterning on them to kind of help with a little bit of movement in the building and a slight step on the top portion of the building. We go on to the next slide. Okay, so this next view is facing northwest. Um, we can see some of the undulation now wrapping around the building and the materials um kind of stepping down uh towards the far left of the building. You can see the terracing that's happening. We'll show that in another view as we kind of come up, but it starts to show the step down that's occurring as we get to some of the more low-rise residential that's happening on the west side of the building. Flip to the next slide. So, this view is facing southwest. Um, again, you can start to see the undulation and the stepping. We can also see some additional terracing that's happening on the right side of the building. You start to see the materiality of the building a little bit more clear here where we've got our our masonry look on the lower three levels, stepping into kind of a more traditional punch window look on the above levels and some of the different undulation that we were talking about and changing in materials, kind of identifying the different aspects of the building. Go on to the next slide. Okay, so this is moving around to the back side of the building. So this is a view uh facing northeast um the rear of the property. So here we can clearly see the terracing and stepping that's occurring as we kind of wrap around the building. This is helping us work within the angular planes that are allotted for the site. Um and you know the building is starting to kind of open up towards the center of the building which we'll see in another slide coming up. uh we're using the same materiality uh a little more lighter um materials as we as we terrace the building. Um we can also start to see the internalized service locations or servicing locations for the building including the uh locations for uh access to the underground parking and above ground parking which we'll see I think in the next slide. Oh, a couple more slides to go. Um this is a south elevation. So this really kind of accentuates the stepping of the building and stepping down towards the rear side. The undulation of the materials and and kind of pattern changing that's that's kind of replicating that step as we move along the facade from the upper James side to the rear of the property. Go on to the next slide. Uh a bit of a mirrored obviously on the on the north elevation kind of the same stepping and we can see again the the terracing working down to the rear of the property. On to the next slide. So this is the west elevation. This starts to show the centralized outdoor amenity space. Um the terracing on the rear of the building. Again, we can start to see the internalization of the service area, the loading area. So from the far left, we've got our service and loading area. The second entrance where you can see the car coming out. That is the access point to the above grade parking area. And then just a little more to the right um just in front of the the black truck there, that's the entrance to the underground parking area. So the nice piece is we'll be able to kind of centralize all of this and keep the majority of the um services concealed either you know under the building or inside the building which helps with some more you know pedestrian usability of the building. We go on to the next slide. I think that kind of wraps up the presentation on the building itself and we're happy to answer any questions. >> Great. Thanks and we're just uh under time so that's great. So at this point um we're going to provide an opportunity for each of the panel members to seek any clarifications on any points that might require explanation. >> Sure. >> Uh please hold uh all comments for now. This is just questions. Um and we'll start with Olga. Uh we can't hear you Olga. Sorry, I can't see. >> Apologies. Um, thank you for the presentation. No, I'm I'm on now. Um, my question is um do you have any sustainability um approaches to this um project or goals that you're trying to achieve? I didn't hear anything mentioned in the report or the presentation. or did you want to collect them all to the end or do you want me to answer now? >> No, you can answer now. That'd be great. Thanks. >> Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Um, as far as sustainability goes, uh, we have a few different objectives. Um, one thing that we're seeing, and I think we've talked about this before on some of the other panels, the project itself, um, you know, the current proposals, we're looking at at an apartment building. Um so longevity, economical uh you know feasibility for the project is is very important. One of the material the principal material piece that we're using on the building is pre-fabricated Ephus which is probably at this point the most economical exterior facade material that we can use on a building. It's what keeps us a you know continuous 4-in insulation wrapping the entire exterior of the building. Uh the rooftops we're proposing both uh intensive and extensive green roofs to help with, you know, heat island effect. Um a lot of the windows that we've been looking at, they're simpler windows, smaller openings, more kind of punch window, which is a far more economical and far more efficient use for the um uh the building itself and the building envelope. And then I think you know as far as mechanical system goes um it will be a unitized system. There's a couple of different ways of executing that. Um, but to basically to provide um ultimate control to the end user to help kind of control their unit themselves versus a a block building use. Does that uh answer? Yeah, I I I would say um a question to the the balcony um articulation and how are you treating each of these balconies as a um what is the approach to the articulation and how are you dealing with the thermal bridging of that of that condition that's breaking that um ethus facade. >> Yeah. So, I mean, >> thermal bridging is always uh a big issue with balconies. Um, one of the strategies that we're seeing with with a lot of projects in this one in particular is we've gone with and studied kind of the I don't want to call the minimum amount, but the right amount of balcony. So, uh, balcony sizes here are about 5t deep by 8 ft wide. Um, so you know, instead of kind of a full wrap or we kind of continue that full uh penetration and thermal break, we've tried to minimize it as much as we can. Um, some of the information that Elite has gained um over their other projects is that, you know, while people do want to use these spaces on nice days, you know, unfortunately where we live, we don't get as many of those nice days. So, there's a bit of a trade-off between being able to get, you know, good usable balcony, but also, you know, think about the the durability of the building and some of the uh energy efficiencies of the building. >> I'm I'm really sorry here, but I have to run and get my power cord. >> Okay, no problem. >> I'm about to run out. So, and and we should keep the answers to to um brief >> uh brief answers. Um so, next up for questions is Graham and then Tyler. and I'll be back as soon as I can. >> Sure. >> Thank you for the presentation. Um, really easy answer. I don't have any questions at this point, so I'll give it off to Tyler. >> Sure. [clears throat] Yes. Thanks uh for the presentation, John and Andrea. Um you you kind of ended on a note about uh increasing pedestrian usability um when you were sort of speaking about kind of containing uh the vehicular use at the rear of the property. Could you elaborate on that and specifically how you see uh the pedestrian usability on the north and the south um of the design and also um you mentioned that I think you had seen um the residential designs to the west and is there any sort of future anticipation of connecting to those neighborhoods or has that um has that been considered at all or is that something that would be considered? >> Sure. Uh, okay. So, for pedestrian usability, I think one of the challenges that we've seen with the site is, you know, Upper James is is a is a busy is a busy road. Right now, the sidewalk is basically at the road or uh pushed back a little bit. In our concept, um, you know, we we there is still obviously a public realm sidewalk, but there's also a sidewalk up against the building. So the the thought process there is that push that pedestrian traffic as far as we can away from the road while still keeping the building at the building at the you know setback edge um just to kind of help with some safety. On the north side of the building we have a far more elaborate landscaped area for kind of more pedestrian preferred pedestrian traffic and on the south side you know a continuous sidewalk that runs along that side. Um, and then as far as connections to the other property, we actually in in some of the original concept did have some connections, but after further conversations with uh transportation, um, those have been removed. Um, they there's a possibility still there in the future as you kind of saw from the site plan. Um, but at this point at this point there is not a connection. >> Thanks. That's all for me. Thanks for that. Um u next up for questions is Sharon. >> Sure. Just a just a confirmation. Um in the marketing um you've uh done this to uh high-end users or luxury tenants. Is this a a condo or a rental? Can you just confirm? So, I don't think we have Ahmed on here, do we? Oh, there he is. Ahmed is here. Uh, Ahmed, any further thoughts on I think Elite's just in the process of investigating that further, but there's been discussions of both. >> Yeah. So, this is going to be a purpose uh built rental. >> Purpose rental. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> Eric. Do you have any questions? No questions for me. >> Okay. And Shotti, >> no questions for me. [clears throat] >> Okay. I have one question and forgive me if it was answered or asked when I was stepped out. Um, uh, a comment from the city about a required traffic study to justify the additional parking. Has the additional traffic study been executed provided? >> So, we submitted a revised traffic impact study. Um, a parking study was not submitted, but we will be going in with the minor variance. >> Okay. To to stick with the plan of providing the additional parking. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. So for now we'll we'll close the Q&A session and uh based on the information presented each panel member now has the opportunity to provide feedback and recommendations. Uh and we'll start with Olga. Okay. So my first comment is that there's the you've set your building back from the street. Um, but then in the planning of your building, you have if if there are future developments that also abide by that same setback, you've you've located your gas meter and your electrical transformer right in line within that setback um to the north and to the south. So, some of that planning would be nice to push those back so other projects can abide by that same setback. Um, so that's that's one comment. And then knowing that this you're exceeding the sixth story, um it'd be nice to be able to create more of a pedestrian base or podium base and set back the mass of the building along um along Upper James. So something that we've been looking at, it is a very big building on Upper James um that exceeds the sixtory um rise. So some more articulation. You do mention slight um setback, but that's very very slight. Uh if there could be more articulation to bring back down the mass of the building, um that's something that we we'd like to see explored. >> Okay, thanks Hoga. Over to you, Graeme. Yeah, just looking at the at the landscape realm on the ground floor. Um I think you've got your circulation. It works well throughout that around the building and you've got some areas, you know, put out for um sidewalks, which is nice and a little bit of buffer. I think um it'd be worthwhile to have just a little bit more thought about the areas. You mentioned that area to the north, which is a nice buffer to the north, but I think there's an opportunity to do a little bit there. um you know, you don't want to put a pet hanging out there. It might not be comfortable, but maybe that's an opportunity for a pet relief area or something like that. Um you know, you've got the space as well as uh maybe some more tree plantings. Um for the street front, I see you've got the existing sidewalk to remain. I think this is the time to move the sidewalk closer to the property line and give your a little bit more boulevard. um that allow for tree planting on the boulevard side and give a little bit of separation from the street um to the sidewalk. Um and I appreciate all the planting on the front. That's really nice to see. Um but just want to be careful about uh you know creating a clear connection and sight lines to that commercial. It's always a little bit of a balance. You know commercial wants their signs to be seen and access but um and also you know nice planting. Uh, so maybe just a little bit look at that. And then, um, I just wanted to touch on that outdoor menu. You've got a on the rooftop. It's it's a great size. I think it just needs a little bit more thought in programming. Um, it looks, you know, a little bit bare and and I know there's no requirement for that. Um, but it'd be nice to have a little bit more separation from the private patios to the amenity space and just a little bit more programming of of what your tenants can do in that space. So, but lots of planting on the ground floor, which is nice. Um, so that's it for me. Thank you. >> Thank you. Over to you, Sharon. >> Sure. Thanks. Um, thanks for the presentation. Uh, I like the, uh, massing um, the overall U-shape of the building. Always a great, um, opportunity for this site. Um just a couple of comments um in regards to your architecture in general. Um, the reason I asked if it was a rental or luxury, um, as it's kind of been on the website, uh, is because your architecture very much reads to, um, a rental or, um, uh, trying to be very kind in saying this. Uh, reads a little less um, sustainable, maybe lower end. Um, if you'd like to elevate maybe your um elevations once you've decided uh that you're going rental or or um condo, uh you may want to have a little more um look into the materiality and and potentially the setback. Um not sure if you've integrated your noise study into this uh your noise and vibration study. I see that there's a almost a 2 m high um barrier that's required on all amenity spaces. Um, so that may change your facade and also your treatments along your facades. Um, uh, I I do like that you've added a good portion of the boulevard, but I do agree with um, Graham that the you should flip the sidewalk at the front of the building and and have more interaction with the retail along the base of the unit. Um, your the landscaping seems to be a bit more of a barrier to getting into the retail to make it successful. Um, I I do like your uh driveway in and uh would encourage you to work with the city to um do an access agreement. I know you said you looked into that and that was great that you you um initiated that. Uh I'm just afraid that the site to the south won't uh be able to get access to its properties if there isn't some sort of agreement between your two properties. Uh it it's a tight site to the south south. Um, and in regards to your hydro transformer to the north of the site, I know hydro and any kind of utility is difficult or challenging to work with, particularly um on a on a mid-rise built form and it's difficult economically to put the transformer within the buildings. But if you could explore that a little further. Um it's it's sort of an awkward to have a nice um urban built form and then have a big transformer sitting out front. So if you can somehow integrate that into your building um that would be ideal and obviously it's treated appropriately. And um the sidewalk on the south of your building or the page south of your building um is 2 mters wide with balconies over top of that. Maybe you can spend a little more time exploring um that area and having maybe a more pedestrian friendly use. Particularly when you want to have the retail service by the surface parking at the rear of the site. You want to have a better integration for pedestrians to um make it to the front of the building. And I think uh I think that's it for me. Thank you very much. >> Thanks Sharon. Over to you, Eric. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Uh pleased to have an opportunity to chat. Um really pleased to see some of the continuous transformation occurring in the area and what's being proposed. Uh I'd say as a bit of an early change maker, uh I I'm less worried about the impact on adjacent uses um as you transition going forward. Um, alongside of what some of my colleagues have said, the bulk the bulk is a little large on the building, stepbacks on the west elevation are actually quite impressive. Um, I'd love to see something a little more on the front of the building. Um, whether it's just for aesthetics, wind impact for pedestrians or otherwise. Um, or even just a step a step back after the third or fourth floor. uh first floor heights could be a little bit taller in my in my take. They seem a little short which would benefit the commercial users. Um and that really touches on it. Sharon touched on the uh the surface parking so I'm not going to spend any more time on that. Thank you. >> Thanks Eric. Over to you Shotti. >> Thank you everyone. So, um, my main two comments is what's been already said. I'm going to just very briefly touch on them and echo what Dram and then Olga and Sharon and Eric kind of alluded to. Um, the first one is really about that frontage, the facade along uh, James Street, Upper James Street. Um I I appreciate it but with the change of materiality you uh tried to break it up and create a perception of the height but I think um it would uh be great if you can explore actual um um s not significant but uh some step back that really creates a street wall along the street. Um I believe the height with you the it was suggested three or four and um uh the other one was but but Graham touched on but the streetscape I think it may for the retail it would be better if you have more of a like a heartscape in front and push the landscape um closer to the curb. Uh it's safer and it provides more room for the retail. Thank you. Thanks, Shotti. Um, so in summary, I'll I'll summarize what we're hearing and then and also add a few comments of my own. Um, um, this project's been, uh, considering additional height if certain things are provided, including stepbacks. And I think in our our premeating the the team found the stepbacks on the rear much more pleasing than than the step back you're calling a step back on the front and that might be minimal. You said it was minimal but I think additional effort is really needed to to mitigate that that somewhat harsh uh front on the street frontage. Uh we always wanted to rotate and and look at the back because it's just more more pleasing. Um uh and given that that's a stipulation for the for the permission of additional height, I think it should be looked at again. Um uh also noted is that this is a a precedent setting project for development in the area and and therefore uh uh maybe some additional responsibility on you as the first to go. Uh but I think uh you've noted that the Ephus panel, the prefab panel is economical and yeah, we we know that that's that's great to get a building built, but I don't think it's good at setting a precedent and um I I think what we should what we try to prioritize is the human experience at grade and maybe an upgrade of the materials at at the first level is is needed to kind of elevate this into a precedent setting project. So, uh where you've got the dark ephus, I could imagine that as a dark brick. Um so, it is a dark brick. >> Oh, there's a dark brick on the ground floor. >> Okay. Sorry. Um I'm sorry if I missed that. >> Um uh that's great. Um where there's uh the ephus wood, is that on the ground floor as well? >> Yep. in the back, right? >> Pardon? >> Sorry. >> It's in the back, not in the front. >> Uh, yeah, it's mainly on the sides and the back. Correct. Yeah, the brick is around. >> So, the whole front is just bricks. >> Okay. Okay, that's great. I think a commitment to quality is needed here. And and uh um I I appreciate budget. I I know how tough these these uh budgets are, but um given that you're setting a precedent and asking for additional density, I think uh giving back a little bit, it' be great. Um I like the the treatment of the upper being a lighter in color and if that was coupled with an additional step back on the street side, then then I think the the massing and the color treatment would be more successful. Um there was a comment earlier about the landscape planters being a bit much of a a block to the retail entry. And I think uh you know we've all seen residential uh projects that are built out and occupied but there's no retail activity at grade. And uh we need to make sure that we have a lively uh neighborhood. um it's safe, it's uh uh you know a 247 neighborhood, so people are using that retail. So making that retail as welcoming and accessible as possible, I think is really important. So maybe we should take a closer look at how those planters might might block. And I'm not sure they're they're completely blocking it now, but but making it more open to a more welcoming retail experience would be great. um uh in the photos of the existing area and I I know it's an area in transition and there are a lot of strip malls and it's not pedestrian friendly but there are some very nice mature trees in in some of those boulevards and and uh and lot frontages and uh so I encourage you to use mature trees as much as you can afford uh just to again to um make this a a living friendly environment. Those are all my comments. Uh we have a few minutes. Uh are there does the proposal team want to add anything here in response to our comments? >> No, I think those are all uh great comments. We appreciate the feedback. Um, you know, as everybody knows, uh, development in the current times are very challenging. So, we are we are certainly doing our best. Elite's doing their best. Um, you know, I would say they are one of the developers that are are still pushing ahead and and trying to get these buildings built because there is a big need for for, you know, residential development right now in southern Ontario. So, um, no, we we appreciate the comments. We'll take this back. We're looking forward to the next steps and um yeah, we're we're excited about the project. >> Great. >> And thank you for your efforts. I know purpose-built rental is much needed and and uh it's great to see uh projects going forward. So, thank you for everyone uh who attended and we'll call this meeting to close. >> Thank you. Thank you everybody. >> Bye >> bye. >> Thank you. Bye.