People may soon be able to have their say about an eight-storey, 85-unit apartment building in the heart of Charlottetown, as the project makes it way toward public consultation.
At a committee meeting Wednesday, Charlottetown’s planning board recommended unanimously that city council send the apartment building proposal to the public consultation stage.
City staff say the building would provide plenty of new units in the core of downtown Charlottetown — in line with the city’s long-awaited new official plan, which will favour high-density housing builds.
The new building would replace 149-151 Great George Street, including the building where the Hearts and Flowers florist shop is located, right beside Dow’s Fashions on the outer rim of the Confederation Court Mall.
The building would continue to have commercial space on the ground floor, but the commercial space on the second floor of the existing building would disappear. Apartments would be featured from the second to the eighth floors.
In documents provided to planning board members before Wednesday’s meeting, planning staff highlighted only one potential downside to the project: increased traffic in the downtown area.
Overall, though, planning staff are “of the opinion that the project has merit as well as strong potential to provide additional and much-needed housing supply within the downtown core,” the meeting package says.
