Fredericton's College Hill area could see 6-storey apartments under proposed changes

The City of Fredericton wants to make it easier to build taller, denser buildings to help alleviate the housing crunch for university and college students.

City hall is proposing changes that would allow developers to construct apartment buildings as high as six storeys in parts of the College Hill neighbourhood, currently reserved for single detached homes.

The changes are being made to encourage the construction of more off-campus student housing, and to meet obligations under an agreement the city signed with Ottawa to receive $10 million as part of the Housing Accelerator Fund.

"With the vacancy rate less than one per cent … anyone looking for rental units is impacted, but we're certainly seeing it in the student population that wants to be close to campus," said Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers.

Speaking to councillors at a recent committee meeting, senior city planner Frederick Van Rooyen said development in the area has been dictated for the past 30 years by a plan that has become "quite outdated."

Adopted in 1994, the College Hill secondary municipal plan sought to address neighbourhood concerns about non-owner-occupied homes and significantly restricted permitted uses for properties in that area.

The area it governs includes properties within the boundaries of Beaverbrook, Windsor, Montgomery and Regent streets, consisting mostly of single and two-unit detached homes.

Van Rooyen said the neighbourhood has seen an 18 per cent growth in population, but the current planning guidelines limit the neighbourhood's ability to accommodate it.

"So you have a policy area that doesn't really permit any intensification, yet the area grew 18 per cent," Van Rooyen said.

The proposed plan involves repealing the College Hill Secondary Municipal Plan, and changing the zoning of properties to allow the construction of multi-unit buildings.

The plan would see the largest buildings allowed on properties on Graham Avenue and Windsor Street between Beaverbrook Street and Kings College Road. On that block, properties would be rezoned to MR-4, which allows buildings of up to six storeys with a maximum 100 units per hectare.

Properties on other streets, like the eastern sides of Regent and Windsor streets between Kings College Road and Montgomery Street, would be rezoned to MR-2, which allows for buildings up to four storeys with a maximum of 62 units per hectare.

Properties on the western side of Graham Avenue and Windsor Street, as well as the northern side of Montgomery Street, would be rezoned R-5, which allows semi-detached and townhouses.

"What's really important is to recognize that this sets the stage to meet those conditions for allowing that intensification similar to the four units [zoning changes]," Van-Rooyen said.

"This would be very gradual and really require a substantial lot consolidation to actually come to fruition."

Off-campus housing scarce, expensive, says student

Camila Baquerizo Bayona knows first-hand how difficult it can be to secure off-campus housing in College Hill, and how expensive it can be.

The St. Thomas University student lived on campus in her first two years, and last fall moved into the basement unit of a duplex with three roommates.

She said securing the lease felt like a contest pitting her against several other students, all looking to convince the landlord they were the best, most reliable tenants.

Then there was the price — about $790 for each of the four roommates.

"It's a good price for being right next to university, or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself," she said.

Baquerizo Bayona said she's hopeful the city's changes will result in more off-campus housing near the university campuses.

But she said the question outstanding will be whether the units in new buildings will be affordable for students.

"Yes, everything on paper sounds fantastic," she said. "It always comes down on how much you actually need to pay for it.

"And just to also remember that students are not only paying for housing. Some of them paying for tuition and some of them are paying for, well food and a lot of other things that they need to pay, so... it's not an easy job to keep a balance of all of it."

Public consultation coming

In April, Fredericton council approved changes to the zoning bylaw to allow homes across the city to accommodate up to four units — a change the city agreed to make in exchange for $10 million under Ottawa's Housing Accelerator Fund.

The changes proved controversial with the public, and were met with dozens of letters of opposition and jeering from an audience of residents toward a councillor who spoke in favour of the amendments.

Rogers didn't say whether she's expecting opposition to the latest planned changes but encouraged residents of the neighbourhood to attend an information session the city is holding next Tuesday.

"I hope people see that they can be, be part of coming up with the ideas and the solutions to delivering more housing," Rogers said.

The session will be held at Centre communautaire Sainte-Anne's Beausoleil Room at 5:30 p.m., and the proposed changes will go before council for first consideration on June 9.