Planning approves Allswell Resort and CAPE extension

By Sharon Harrison
With just one planning and development committee meeting on council June’s schedule due to the reduced summer sitting, council was kept busy Wednesday making decisions on a number of significant planning applications in what turned out to be a four-and-a-half hour meeting.

Of note, council approved a zoning bylaw amendment for Tens of East Lake Realty Inc. (operating as Allswell Resort) for 11 tourist cabins and 12 guest rooms, for a total of 28 bedrooms (same as currently) at 41 Willow Lane in Cherry Valley.

Also approved was a zoning bylaw amendment for a three-storey rear extension at Culinary Arts Prince Edward (The CAPE) at 347 Picton Main St., to accommodate a further 20 hotel rooms.

ALLSWELL RESORT
With no discussion or comments received by council, staff or members of the public, this item went straight to the consent agenda, where council supported the zoning bylaw amendment.

The application for Tens of East Lake Realty Inc. requested a zoning change from special tourist commercial (TC-19) to permit a number of uses including un-motorized water craft rentals to overnight guests, dry storage in an existing barn, accessory uses including a club house, boat launch, boat docks, swimming pools, bar, parking area, washrooms for overnight guests and a new sewage system.

A mobile restaurant and day-use guests are not permitted under this zoning change, and are no longer being proposed from the original application.

It is proposed the 1.5 hectare resort operating as Allswell Resort (formerly Cribs Resort) will operate on a year-round basis.

In his report, County policy planning co-ordinator Scott Pordham noted the property is currently developed with 10 tourist cabins, a single detached dwelling, a frame barn used for storage, several accessory buildings, and a gravel parking area.

“The property has water frontage on East Lake with vehicle access through a short, existing easement that connects to Willow Lane off County Road 18. The tourist cabins appear to have existed for several decades. The property slopes gently toward East Lake with a manicured lawn. A parking area is located north of the existing dwelling.”

Pordham notes the new owner proposes to demolish most of the existing tourist cabins and re-develop with larger units further from neighbouring properties.

“The one existing cabin that may remain is located in the northeast corner of the site closest to East Lake,” stated Pordham. “The proponent will convert the existing dwelling into the proposed motel with an addition for the guest rooms.”

Two public information meetings took place, one in October 2023 and included a proposed mobile restaurant and day use as part of the re-development (Click here for background story).  The second meeting held March 2024 did not include the mobile restaurant or day use as part of the proposed rezoning.

THE CAPE
An application for a zoning bylaw amendment, submitted by Spike Capital Corporation (Jonathan Kearns) to re-zone lands at Culinary Arts Prince Edward (The CAPE) met with council approval.

The re-zoning will mean a change from institutional (I) to special general commercial (CG-19) to permit the development of a three-storey hotel addition to the existing heritage structure on the south side consisting of 20 hotel accommodation units. It would also include the expansion of the ground floor to include a lobby, reception, and administrative area. Click here for background story. 

Planner Ruth Ferguson Aulthouse, with RFA Planning Consultant Inc, described the history of the building and explained what the proposed zoning changes and building extension would entail.

“Most of the expansion is within the existing building footprint, and a portion of the expansion beyond that is on the existing parking lot and buffer area adjacent to the Merrill House,” said Ferguson Aulthouse.

She described the site as large, at 1.4 acres, and designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, where the expansion will consist of a three-storey addition, lobby, reception area, office, event spaces, meeting rooms and a dining room. A small conservatory is planned for the small box at the front, and an elevator will access all three floors from the lobby.

“Existing landscaping garden in the front yard Main Street will remain unchanged and it will look very different to what it does today.”

Architect Jonathan Kearns, and principal of Kearns Mancini Architects, and sole owner of the CAPE with his wife, noted how the new additional does not impact, or even connect with the original heritage building.

“We are dedicated it to keeping it and making it fully sustainable in the future” he added.

At a public meeting held March 25, comments expressed included a range of concerns including traffic impacts and parking impacts, noise, and incompatibility with surrounding uses.

Several councillors had questions Wednesday surrounding noise, parking, green buffering and garbage collection.

There will be slightly fewer parking spaces as a result of a new landscaping design on Johnson Street, where Ferguson Aulthouse said one of the questions raised by members of the public asked if there would be enough public parking. She noted that hotel room guests are also users of the event space, and that guests also walk to events or use the municipal lots on weekends. She noted the CAPE also has an arrangement with the Merrill House for overflow parking.

Councillor Kate MacNaughton reminded that the entire neighbourhood is residential, and asked how they would see the space working.

“We already do see something of a struggle, that neighbourhood wants this business to flourish, how do you see this new development impacting the existing uses, which already have a little bit of tension (buses idling outside windows, lots of overflow parking on streets, people at two o’clock in the morning and things like that)?” MacNaughton asked.

Kearns said the new design of the landscaping, the stone walls and new entrance and gates and landscaping will go a long way to make the parking function better than it does currently.

“We are not really increasing the amount of traffic, or the amount of parking over what is already existing, but making it function a lot better because it is more contained and separated from Johnson Street,” said Kearns.

He added that while they are the owners, for the last year-and-a-half, they have a professional management company in place.

“If we get any issues with noise or buses, and from time-to-time it is unavoidable something might happen, our manager is fully authorized, and backed-up by us, to not let that happen,” Kearns said.

“The design is beautiful, and I love the juxtaposition of the different eras and how they fit together and complement each other,” added MacNaughton, “and I like that you have sensitively set it back from the street, so there will be some masking.”

Councillor Brad Nieman asked about the “one little parking spot” on Johnson Street used as a loading zone, noting it is not going to be sufficient for a transport truck, and said he wants to “make sure traffic was not impeded by trucks parked on Johnson Street”.

“The loading zone is there to function as the loading zone, we don’t anticipate there will be on-street loading; there will be loading on-site,” said Matthew Coffey, planning co-ordinator, approvals, adding that the loading zone is not sufficient size for a big truck, “but a small-sized truck or van should accommodate that”.

Kearns said, “We have never had a transport truck on-site and we don’t intend to. We are keeping the existing location for the loading bay as it can serve to bring furniture or whatever is needed to the front garden or parking area.”

Coffey said the reduction in parking does account for the hotel rooms as well as events.

Parking is calculated at one space per room, then one space for every nine square metres, for a minor reduction of four parking spaces overall. He also noted there are 24 parking spaces on Main Street for overflow.

The addition of 20 more hotel rooms comes with less parking, and smaller parking spots.

In his report, Coffey notes the specific zoning provisions have the effect of reducing the parking standard from 60 spaces to 53 spaces and reducing the dimension standards, locating the loading space to an exterior yard and recognizing the Johnson Street side of the building to be the front (for height calculation requirements).

“The reduction in parking of seven spaces is justified due to the likelihood that guests attending events will be staying at the hotel or close by at other hotels and thereby reducing the need to duplicate the parking requirement,” he noted. “Revised parking provisions proposed in the draft comprehensive zoning bylaw would further reduce the parking requirements for hotel event spaces, and if implemented, would only require 56 spaces.”

“The special provisions are requested to reduce the minimum interior side yard setback, designate Johnson Street as the front of the building for the purposes of defining building height, reduce minimum parking requirements, reduce parking space dimensions, reduce loading space width, and permit a loading space to be located in the exterior side yard,” the report states.

While the site is located outside of the Heritage Conservation District for Picton, the site is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. The heritage advisory committee comments indicate that while the mass of the new addition is slightly higher (three storeys) than the historic property, it does not overshadow the historic property.

Both decisions are to be ratified at next Tuesday’s council meeting.

Also at Wednesday’s meeting was much discussion on a Fawcett Avenue 85-unit sub-division by Hildon Homes, which ended in a deferral motion. Click here to see that story.

All planning documents related to these applications can be found on the County’s website.