All right, I've started a recording. All right, good afternoon everyone and welcome to our virtual design review panel meeting. My name is Edward Winter and I'm an urban designer here at the city of Hamilton and I coordinate the design review panel. On our agenda today, we have a development proposal at 33 and 33 H Street South in Hamilton. Today we have with us the applicant team, city staff, members of the public and media all in attendance. Members of the public are welcomed here today to observe the meeting. However, there is no uh commenting or questions from the public or media during our pre DRP presentation. This meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to the city of Hamilton's design review panel web page. Chair of the design review panel, Jennifer Mard, will be leading our discussion today. Uh Jennifer, you may begin the meeting when ready. >> Good afternoon. Welcome everyone. Can you please reconfirm that this session is being recorded? >> We are recording. Thank you. >> And are there any changes to the agenda today? >> No. >> Uh are there any declarations of interest from the panel members? I'll take silence as a confirmation of no conflict of interest. Okay. On the agenda today, as Edward mentioned, is the review of 33 and 35 H Street South. The lead planner on this file is Eric Heinbecker, and he's available to answer any policy questions. Edward Winter, urban designer at the city of Hamilton, will make a brief presentation. Thanks, Edward. We're ready for your fivem minute presentation. Okay. All right. So here we have an overhead look at uh the city and uh we have Main Street West uh going diagonally east west and uh we see the subject land with this blue rectangle and star uh on Hess Street and the corner of George Street. Uh the applicant is proposing to construct a six-story mixeduse commercial building with 50 hotel units and a restaurant on the first floor uh with patio space fronting H Street. The applicant proposes four new layby spaces on H Street South in combination with off streetet parking in accordance with our city's zoning bylaw proposal. Um and that's within 300 meters. That's how we run that. Moving on to some site photos. We are now looking north along Hes Street um with the subject site on the right. And I'll just make a quick note that the images in the staff presentation are showing um previous conditions. The site is currently vacant. All right. So here we see our uh Hes Village arches and we're now looking west along George Street and the subject site is on the right just on the other side of these trees and uh the arches in this image. And moving around, we're now looking south down H Street and subject site is on the left just past the arches. Uh you can start to see in this uh image there's uh quite a significant uh change in grade um from Main Street uh at the top of the hill uh down to King Street and and beyond um as we move along H Street. All right. And here we are looking west along George Street uh with subjects on the left. And again, you can start to see some of the change in elevation um in this image left to right. All right, this image is taken from Queen Street looking west down uh George Street. And this is showing um the pedestrianized space uh zone of George Street which is running from Queen to Hess. And lastly, I'm showing an image here from King Street at Hest Street. So, uh you can just make out the arches in the in the in the foreground there. Uh and here we can start to see some of the uh newer developments that have gone up in the in the core um on King Street and on Bay Street. Okay, here we have our site plan. the six-story hotel shown in yellow. Uh and some patio space and upgrades along the right of way all along H Street. Um and you can see the layby is uh where the sidewalk jogs around to the south. And here we have a conceptual rendering uh from the applicant team showing their building in the foreground. In the background, you see some uh transparent massing of a proposal that's been conditionally approved uh on Main Street adjacent to the subject property. So, this project did have a formal consultation um earlier in this year. At that time, it was an eightstory proposal um with a similar built form. It's since been reduced to six stories. Um and uh staff uh at that time had asked for the submission to the develop uh design review panel um as part of the submission requirements uh as part of the planning act. So some discussion topics for today. How does the proposal engage with both Hess Street and George Street and provide a connection with the Hest Village pedestrian experience? How does the building massing, ground floor layout, and material selections fit with the built environment in Hes Village? How well does the proposal, sorry, how well does the proposed design work with the heritage character of Hes Village? How well does the landscape plan address the highly pedestrian nature of Hes Village and support pedestrian circulation on both Hess Street and George Street? And what is the relationship of the proposal with the height, the massing, and the scale of nearby buildings uh both planned and constructed? All right, that will conclude the staff presentation. I'll send it back to Jennifer. >> Thanks, Edward. We're now ready for the consultant to provide additional information. Please keep your presentation to 10 minutes. >> Awesome. Thank you, Jennifer. Uh, so I'll just make sure I can share my screen first and make sure everyone can see that before. Uh, let's see. There we go. Let's get that out of the way. All right. Can everyone hear me? Can everyone hear my screen? See my screen? >> Yes. Good. >> Right on. >> I'm good. >> Okay. Um, okay. Thank you everyone for your time today. Uh, for those who don't know, my name is Ryan Ferrari. I'm a senior planner with AJ Clark Associates. I'll be the agent of this application. I'll be doing this presentation today as well with Zetto1 who are the architects on the application. Um and the second half of the presentation was presented by Bonnie Chan. Uh so you'll hear from her in just a second. Um so I'll go along here um and just start. I'm going to provide a little bit of a policy context and context analysis of the site uh to assist the panel with um reviewing our proposal and then Bonnie will take over from there go over the design and the rationale for that design as well as some of the supplementary stuff that we added uh with our submission. So, just quickly to go through some of the policy contexts. As Ed mentioned previously, uh the site's located in the Hess Entertainment District. Um we've sort of outlined what we feel the entertainment district is is the blue area in here that encompasses uh Hess Street uh both the pedestrianized version of George Street and our site uh which is outlined in red. Um Ed previously mentioned uh how there was an approved site plan application behind us. We'll show you some images of what that looks like. Um but I think just what's really important for the panel to to see is that our site is sort of a the the leftover tooth of this whole block that is going to be redeveloped. Uh moving on to this next slide very quickly on policy. Uh this is a map of the downtown Hamilton secondary plan. Oops. Uh this is a map of the downtown Hamilton secondary plan. Uh proposes a boutique six-story hotel. This is a permitted use in the official plan. Um it also permits an outdoor commercial patio uh as is proposed as well. Uh in terms of zoning, the zoning does permit the use uh permits the height proposed. Um, one little quirk that Ed uh had mentioned to you previously is we are required parking in the downtown for a hotel use. The way hotel parking is going to be accommodated is it will be located at 20 George, which is just down the street in an existing parking uh garage that was built by the applicant uh some years ago. Uh quickly, the map on the left is uh scheduled after the zoning bylaw which confirms that the maximum height of 79 meters is permitted on site technically. Uh we are going to come in under that at six stories. Um and the map on the right just really quickly for the panel to consider. Um there are building stepbacks required at 11 meters on George Street and 16 meters on H Street. Uh we provided neither of these stepbacks. We will require a variance. Um and as we'll sort of walk through the design, uh we'll show the panel how we feel that uh no step back uh is appropriate here in our opinion. And so with that context sort of wrapped up, I will leave it to Bonnie to take over from here. Thank you. >> Hi, this is Bonnie Chan um partner from set architects. I am the architect on file for this project. Um so this project is all about uh filling in a and celebrating a missing corner of H Street and George and I think um I'm going to share or um Ryan would you like to go to page eight because or I can actually take over and use my screen. Would you like that? >> Sure thing. Yeah, why don't why don't I take over and then it might be easier. Is everybody seeing the screen? I just wanted to double check. >> Good. Okay. So, um so good. So the uh proposed sixtory and revised sixtory design is actually we're looking at these um south uh uh southeast corner and sort of right at that uh corner northeast corner of an already approved uh city block proposed uh proposal and we are acting more like a missing corner for head street and transition down from this massive um I would say a high density project down to the scale of our high of a building into the podium sort of scale for for the entire block and transitioning down to a very important corner uh of Hes and George into an heritage uh uh setting. We're thinking this is really important to celebrate the um heritage of the street, the material or the history on the the restaurant and current commercial function sort of at great. So we think that it's really important to look at as small as the building as it is it has the power of celebrate a corner very very um very I mean pedestrian wise very importantly because at the back you see existing site you're looking down and this is where the missing corner I'm talking about currently is vacen you can see that is actually at the one of the pillar you know at the street corner so this is the uh character of the street you see all the restaurant great uh historic brick that's on a twotory threetory facade that translated to metal panel above and you can see there's a character in the street that you see gray related patios a few step up um to create some sort of semi-privacy for the diner and and patio user is a natural very kind of uh neighborhood setting so this is the uh six-story hotel with restaurantic gray. You can see that we uh sensitively look at the gray transition from has down to the corner and further down to George. It is really important for us to look at how the building is breaking down into a very landscape based patio that have strong that is complimentary to the uh heritage character of the street and the function is celebrated with um outdoor restaurant patio for um during throughout the day. And then we have a twostory um stone um uh pre-cast with uh very uh uh carefully uh measures scaled with the texture of the stone that will be matching the scale of the rest of the street for the gray related uh appearance. There are punch windows and large scale uh uh sort of garage door. So is intended to be open when the weather permitted for the uh restaurant uh uh diners will be able to dine outside and it's sort of like a a joy or a catis sort of uh in downtown area that will celebrate that the the the street and you see that the hotel from the second floor up is uh we're looking at no balconies is really important to uh uh understand I think the the history of the previous uh building has a bit of a nightclub function. We're trying to transition that into more of a boutique drag hotel or something a bit more elegant and and neighborhood oriented type of boutique hotel. It will be celebrated on the top of the uh sixth floor with a bit of a um outdoor patios that will have maybe some wedding function at night or some sort of casual dining at night. Sort of celebrate as part of the uh sort of rooftop amenity sort of. You can see that at the back of the future development. They will be doing something similar, you know, throughout the block. So, we're trying to tie in how we use this corner of H and Georgia transition, this heritage character to the rest of the block. This is just that one corner and then we're going to look down. So, this is the site plan. You can see there will be proposed uh outdoor uh uh terrace at the roof and you can see the ground floor patios are great. We're using tenner for the restaurant use and the sort of wid and sidewalk and location of the various amenities and obviously very important we actually were able to fit in some trees and landscaped areas to to to celebrate that corner. So this is a very quick uh review of what we talk about and what are the uh current sort of function at gray and how we are going to grow this particular delt to sort of fitting in this corner with the rest of the site uh corner of the street. So this is a this is a basement. We do have a bit of a basement but this is the main program for the ground floor. We have a as much as we can is going to be a restaurant with garage doors that can open you know uh when the weather permits that fronting onto has and then the the back of house and the hotel lobby sort of tuck it in the back but the front is always celebrated with the entrances and and magnifying these pedestrian appeal. Yeah. So this is the uh boutique style hotel allocations of the suite landscape rooftop uh uh at the top. Uh this is the north elevation. You can see that the sort of garage uh uh door sort of you can roll up and down uh with this sort of scale is more transparent but still remaining a punch window look we think is really important um east elevation in terms of materiality we think that stone and brick is really the core of the uh base material and the main body there some metal panel uh to celebrate at the very very uh top of the roof There will be some sort of modern element at the very very top to this is a prik hotel but it's also a prique hotel in in in a modern sense. When you're looking at the window will be crisp black uh sort of Mullian base to uh just go against the sort of a more of a historic heritage brown brick that we think is uh appropriate uh as a proposal for that corner. So this is another this is the the the present of that that sixtory that corner you saw earlier and this is the uh look of that uh of the hotel from down the street. I think uh with that uh we are open for any questions. >> Okay thank you and thank you for your presentations. We're now ready for the consultant panel uh to uh ask any questions. Um at this point it's just uh questions and clarifications on policy or or the material presented. Uh comments will come in the at a later time. Uh we will start with Sharon. >> Thanks for your presentation. I actually have no questions. So thank you very much. Olga. >> Yes. Thank you for your presentation and um and this building that's in the heritage context. My question is where did the round corner uh come from within the context of this heritage area? Where did it where is its origins and its relation to um the heritage district? >> Okay. So this one here um we are looking at the color of the brick down the street. So we were trying to match the color of the brick uh with the house that you can see the twotory commercial uh lift work um building next to it. So we're trying to mimic that character and vibrancy at that corner. And in terms of um that round corner uh we trying to the building itself is uh six story they're not two story they're not three story. We're trying to break down the corner a bit by introducing transparency into that restaurant. And I we think it's important, you know, like if we actually have them in a very sh format, it sort of takes away the current um very beautiful gateway that's already pres presented on site. If we were going to create another shop corner at that point, we're not receiving and accepting and emphasizing the beautifully built gate that has village pillar at the corner. So by having that uh sort of round corner is going to at night that is going to make the uh gateway stand out a lot more than versus a uh solid uh 90 degree corner. So this is why um is during the design process we uh and the developer and think about hey we got to receive this heritage portions already built at the corner of the site. We need to celebrate it and how and we came with an idea that using that lighter background to just go against this very solid uh important sort of piece that is at the at the street. I think that gateway will stand out a lot better using this arrangement that that's why we came out with this round corner. We reduce the GFA by doing so by the way to celebrate that and accentuate that corner by doing so architecturally. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> No. No other questions. >> Soften it but celebrating it, accepting it and trying to fit in. Yeah. Not fight against Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh over to Eric. Do you have any questions? >> No questions. Thank you. Uh Shotti, do you have any questions? >> Um yeah, just quickly, I just want to make sure to understand the relationship between this building and the ones that are uh conditionally approved. The walls to uh on the sides, are they going to be visible, the blank walls from the public street on once everything is built on this block? >> Yes. Yes. So, let me just go back. This is by the way this is just an earlier study and how the podium height of a building is going to slightly lower you know uh as existing podium along the newly approved uh uh high density block the rest of the block I want to go back to answer your question >> and sorry repeat your question one more time Shotty >> the the blank walls that are shown on the elevations on the side walls I just want to understand once the block is fully developed as we can see it in this rendering would be any of those blank walls on the side of the proposed building be visible from hence or George Street? >> Uh very very no it's not it's not it's not visible from the blank wall. So then uh is not uh it it it comes out slightly but is is is not um let me just get back to the plan. I want to answer you in detail. Okay. It comes out um but it's going to be uh uh it's going to be it's going to be uh characterized with a brick. It is a blank wall. Yes. Okay. Thank you. May >> maybe if I can add Shotti, just to your question, I think um that's sort of a back of house area for the proposed development as well. Um I think there's a driveway going into um um an underground parking area with some plantings back there that'll help kind of soften that blank wall. But in terms of the blank wall uh that would be facing Hess um it would be screened from view by the proposed building. I think that's that's a fair summary of it and if staff have any more details on it. Uh I know we have Eric here. I don't know if he has any f further details. Um but I'm pretty sure that area will be is planted or will be planted. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you for that question and the answers. Uh over to Jen. Do you have any questions? >> Yes, one of my questions has already been answered. So, thank you for that and thank you Ryan and Bonnie for your presentations. Uh I did want to ask the heritage consultant, uh I noticed in the HIA, uh there weren't any recommendations for reflection of the building that was on this site previously. Uh, I wasn't sure if there was anything additional that could be done to either celebrate or reflect that building that I I believe it was a heritage building, but maybe correct me if I'm wrong on that. >> Do we have the heritage consultant present in this meeting? >> Megan is here. Maybe she's having a hard time unmuting herself. >> Hi everybody. >> Uh can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Yes, we can. Thank you. >> So I'm Megan Hobson. I did the HIA. Um the buildings weren't designated um but they were on the uh heritage inventory. So um we haven't had a discussion about that, but it's certainly something that that could be a discussion. Uh, and that could be integrated into the interior or into the patio area, I'm guessing. >> Thanks, Megan. >> Yeah, that was all my questions. >> Thanks. >> Okay, thanks. Question. >> I have one question. Um, if somebody could go to a ground floor plan that shows the sidewalks. Uh the yeah the other plant that showed some Yeah, maybe this will Yeah, this is great. So um understanding that the building comes up to the property line except for the curve, whose responsibility is it to do the landscape patios and the trees uh along Hess and George? >> Yeah. Um I can jump in here, Jennifer. Thanks for the question. So it's certainly an interesting one. So, uh, we'll have to apply for an encroachment agreement through the site plan application process, uh, to encroach onto the public right away. Um, something that I think the panel should know is every single patio in history is in the public right away. Um, these are old houses that have had patios built out uh, from them over time and all those patios are in the public right away. And so um on our landscape plan, we will show what we're building through the site plan process. We'll go through what's called an external works agreement with the city and the external works agreement will secure the landscaping, soil cells, whatever it ends up we uh we finalize on and that'll be registered on title. So we'll be responsible for building it and securing um everything on the public right away, including the layby, the side sidewalk and the patio. to ask your question. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. At this point, we're going to close the Q&A session and uh based on the information presented, each panel member will now provide feedback and recommendations and we'll start with Sharon. >> Hi again. Thanks for your presentation. Um I I actually have quite positive comments. Uh, I think the building is a good height to fit into the corner of this site and transitions nicely to the adjacent buildings that will be one day put in place. Um, I'm just wondering though, I know you're supposed to have a setback and I know the site is too small to have a setback, but I wonder if maybe your materiality can be raised to those heights. Um, so that you can better uh relate to the adjacent buildings. Um, and particularly the one across the street with the with the white stone. Um, if you can uh sort of mimic not mimic that, but just add to the character of the area. Um, and uh I appreciate your your patio and um it looks like your landscape plans. Um uh and your patio is actually in line with all of the other patios. Um and if maybe you want to just confirm that through later discussions, that would be great. But it does look like they are in line. So I have quite positive feedbacks for you. Thank you. Jennifer would feel great if I asked a clarifying question of Sharon at this time. Just one. >> Let's keep all those comments to the end. I just want to make sure we've got enough time. You will have time at the end. Yep. Okay. Thanks, Ryan. Um over to Olga for comments. >> Uh yes, thank you. Um and thank you for your presentations. Um I too uh have I'm receiving this really quite positively. I like the scale of the building in in its context. I really appreciate the materiality. I think that's um it's going to be a quite a beautiful project. The only thing I would like um to see further developed is that with this boutique hotel having a a faceted glass corner um is is a lost opportunity. You could do something really special um with other another another way of making that transition. Uh what I see in the rendering is a is a window wall, multiple mullions. Um it's an opportunity that I I would like to see a little bit more study on um to do something quite special for this location. >> Thank you, Olga. Eric comments. >> Sure. Uh thanks Ryan, Bonnie, and Megan. Um, a lot of positive things to offer from my end and a few few things I'll suggest. Uh, really, uh, just noting the property development here is absolutely critical to the success of Hess Village. So, I I really recognize the importance of your sites and and the importance of this intersection. Fully support the land use choice. Uh, appreciate the height, scale, and massing. Uh, I support not having the stepbacks for the upper stories given the building height. So, all good there. support the parking arrangement that you're supposed uh proposing particularly given you've got a garage down the street and your proximity to the future LRT. So I think there's a lot of uh good rationale for doing that. Uh I'd like to see a little more recognition of the lost heritage resources. I know it's already been brought up. I won't get into that. Um also I'm not a big fan of the corner. I'm just going to repeat what said. Uh it to me it the commercial the curved element looks a little like um office form. Um and I actually don't think the building should be the highlight of the site. I think the intersection is the highlight. So the the archways are actually the important thing in the area and the building should be complementing the archways and not trying to take away from them. Um, so I'd also add that, you know, the curved element typically what it's going to lead to is an attraction of clutter, garbage potentially with the way the wind moves through the area. Um, so I also think it's typically cheaper to to construct from my understanding when you just go squared off too. So you might benefit from that sense. Uh, it's small, but your renderings don't actually show the archways in one of your in one of them, and they're also showing a a step in the sidewalk. So, I suggest when you do go out to your whatever your publicly uh public offering is or show whether you're showcasing at all that you you clean a few things up. Um the retaining wall that or that you're talking about for the patio area really needs a little detail. Uh I'm worried it gets a little too high at points which can create graffiti situations or or other issu situations like that. Usually when you see these kind of things in my experience is when you're providing for underground parking underneath something like that and you don't have that situation here. So I think you have an opportunity to limit that that impact. Um and so that similarly that follows the north facade uh just avoiding as much as blank. I know you've shown some planting and I think the planting could do pretty well in in managing that situation. So I think just reaffirming the need to give good consideration to that. And one final thing is I feel it's like often less is more when it comes to things like glazing from either a cost, privacy, noise abatement, environmental or aesthetics reasons. You're talking about uh uh a hotel right in a very noisy area too. So I'm probably sure if you're aware of that, if you're ever there on a Saturday night, that area is absolutely loud. So So uh less glass might help you, but I leave that to you. So uh thank you for the opportunity to provide some feedback and thanks for this Thanks Eric Shotty your comments. >> Thank you Jennifer. Uh thank you Bonnie and team for the presentation. So uh and Eric sorry I um I echo everything that the positive uh comments that my uh colleagues here provided in terms of the massing the height. Um, one comment that I want to just bring up again specifically uh what Sharon shared about u considering testing uh extending the height of the base and the um the stone that you have at the base of the building that I am assuming echoes what is across the street in the townhouse with the white stone. um just testing and see if you extend it to be like a three story rather than just two story how it would help potentially uh to contextually fit better in the uh on the block. Um and um in terms of what Eric said above the uh retaining wall at the bottom where the patio going to be sitting on um maybe the use because I see other patios using the the materiality that they have on the buildings. Um, so maybe bringing that material, the stone to those retaining walls, uh, can help a little bit to make it an integral part of the building rather than just concrete. Um, but otherwise, I think this, uh, corner really needs to be redeveloped, and I'm glad to see a well-designed building. Thank you. >> Thanks, Shotty. Jen Sison, >> thank you. Um, thank you everyone for your presentations. I really appreciate uh some of the comments from other panel members that came before me. I think Eric said it really well uh about this being a very prominent corner of Hess Village. It's definitely important that this is done really well and I think you're definitely making strides in that direction. I'm happy to see this development before us today. Um, with that said, for the public realm, I've noted a couple of things that I was really happy about. The raised patio I think is cohesive with the character of the area. However, I'd agree with there's that the materiality of the retaining wall for the patio needs to be really like a high quality and something that's going to be complimentary with Hess Village as well as the proposed building. Um I was also happy to see uh soil cells supporting the trees in the patio space. I think that's a really good um really good addition to the design to provide shade for the public realm and reflecting conditions of the site in the past as well where there were mature trees in this area. I'd love to see that uh fully implemented. So kudos on that. Um, I'd agree with others as well about having some change in materiality or other visual definition around the third story to help in defining and continuing the street wall in absence of a full stepback. Um, and I'd also encourage consideration for setting the building back a little bit along H Street so that it's better in better alignment with existing built form in the area. Uh, one other thing I wanted to note was noting that we have some blank walls kind of to the south and east of the building. Uh, one of the existing characters in this area in general is there are a number of murals in the area. So, a mural might be something that's also appropriate to those walls to kind of avoid the the blank facade and also to continue some of the character that we see along this stretch. That is all for my comments. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Jen. I'll provide a few comments in summary and then we can pass it back to you, Ryan, for your your comments and questions. Um, I also support the uh the strategy with no stepbacks at upper levels. I think a a consistent street edge for this height of building is um makes it a stronger corner and a stronger transition from what we see here on the on the left the the residential scale up to the scale of the towers. I think uh a step back in that building would actually diminish the strength of the transition. Um I also uh support the uh application to varants for providing no parking. Uh and good to hear that you've got a strategy with an adjacent lot. Um uh I think the your application of proportion of opening and texture is well done. uh it it recognizes the texture and the proportions of the of the heritage buildings that are still there and and and the ones that are gone. Um I I think you've heard a lot of comments about materiality and I think the success of this very very important corner um it will be to detailing and execution and quality of materials. Uh the stone base is is really important. uh it uh the stone base and the brick top differentiate that building as as a more public building from the from the residential buildings that are to that are now you know commercial but but uh it it it reads more like a hotel and I appreciate that. Uh I think you've heard comments from the panel panelists on playing with the height of that stone base versus the brick top. I think it's a and and I think study is is the right word there. Um proportion is also very important. Um uh if we're if we're talking language of a public building, there's a base, a bit, a middle, and a top, right? So, and I I think um the they should all be considered carefully, including the top. We didn't talk about the the roof garden, but but that cornice and that edge is the top. and and uh success again will be in the execution of the details. >> Uh so congratulations. I think this is a great uh submission. So now I'll open the uh the floor to your comments. >> Jennifer, I think uh with the rest of the panel's comments made on the sort of the materials and my question was about the stepbacks. I think that's been clarified for me. So thanks everyone for your comments. >> Okay. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments or or um concerns from anyone else? >> Okay. In that case, we can adjourn the meeting. Thank you for your attendance. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you everyone. Take care. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Bye. Bye.