Granite housing project passes final council hurdle after appeal rejected

Critics of the proposed 12-storey housing project set for the parking lot of the Granite Curling Club were shut down at a city meeting Thursday as councillors allowed the development to proceed.

The 110-unit building at 30 Granite Way originally meant the loss of 45 of the 80 parking spots, which the long-running club said would ruin its financial viability.

In June, the city produced a plan to add parking spots around the club by removing a boulevard and adjusting spots at another parking lot, but the club’s management called the plan inadequate.

City council’s property and development committee discussed a number of proposed variances to the building plan Thursday, including allowing the building height to reach 126 feet even though regulations stipulate a maximum 100 feet, and shifts in the width of some parking spots allotted to the residential building and the curling club. Appeals against those changes, including those by management at the Granite Curling Club, were unanimously denied by the committee.

Meanwhile, as the city forges ahead with the project, the curling club has asked Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench for a judicial review of city council’s approval, in part because the city OK’d it while rejecting a Manitoba Municipal Board direction calling on it to develop an “adequate” parking plan “to the satisfaction of the Granite Curling Club” and city.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Amiram Kotler heard the case June 9 and has reserved his decision until the fall.

Christian Pierce, secretary of the Granite Curling Club board, told the committee the city hadn’t done its due diligence in properly consulting with the community and that moving forward with development would be “a stark departure from the standards the city holds for virtually all other landowners and developers.”

“The city can’t say they support the Granite and want to see it continue to operate in the future, and then, in the same breath, apply double standards in their determination of approving this variance to get the proposed development built while failing to address the Granite’s concerns for over two years,” he said Thursday.

“If you’re approving this variance before addressing the Granite’s concerns, you’re signing off on the development … ”

A pop-up meet-and-greet held by the city and the developer last month to share information was announced with less than 24 hours’ notice, he said.

“The city’s response to us raising concerns has just been to push this forward as fast as possible, amending the rules for developments on city-owned land whenever needed, and disclosing as little information as possible along the way,” Pierce said.

The project is being developed by the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corp. 2.0 and designed by Number Ten Architectural Group, which noted the proposed height of the building is in line with other nearby buildings, including the West Broadway Commons project opposite the Canada Life Centre and the Evergreen Towers on Evergreen Place, which is across the Assiniboine River from the Granite club.

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Jeremy Reed, CEO of the UWCRC 2.0, said the project — with its new parking plan — would restore 70 of the 80 parking spots, and could offer “recreational partnerships” with the Granite to increase neighbourhood participation.

Half of the suites will have affordable rents for 99 years.

Area councillor Sherri Rollins said the concerns of the club’s board are not the views of its entire membership, and she has heard from many who support the housing project, especially considering its affordable aspect.

“In this neighbourhood, as relevant as the curling club may be to some, I will say that equally as relevant is the (homeless) encampment that has persisted for the better part of a decade along Granite Way,” Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.