‘Link home’ developer gets thumbs down from city

BY TRACEY DUGUAY

An application to build a link home in Minnow Lake was quashed by the planning committee Tuesday night, even though Greater Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez made a special appearance at the meeting to support it.

The link home design, as set out in this application by CCS Group Inc., was essentially two separate detached homes connected by a concrete foundation.  According to Bill Lautenbach, director of planning services, none of the city’s current bylaws “recognize” this type of home.

Further, as outlined in the staff report presented at the planning meeting, “the concept of joining two basement slabs with concrete ties at the front and back of the slab serves no purpose and is intended only to circumvent the provisions of the by-law.”

CCS Group Inc. president Rolly St. Onge admitted this was true, saying the design got around the “letter of the law” and allowed two houses to be built on one lot. However, he said linked homes were popular in southern parts of the province and were a solution to the community’s lack of affordable housing.

The link home is different from a semi-detached or duplex structure because it doesn’t have any common shared walls. From the street, it would look like two homes, each with a garage and two stories, with the only commonality being underground concrete ties connecting the foundation of each building.

This was the city’s first application for this type of structure. St. Onge said he wanted to build the prototype in Minnow Lake as a marketing strategy to gauge the interest in this type of housing. If the results were favourable, he would consider building a subdivision of link homes on a 50-acre parcel of land he owns.

Each of the houses would sell for around $180,000, which St. Onge said would help curb the growing demand for more affordable housing. New homes in Greater Sudbury are listed in the $240,000-$280,000 range.

His application didn’t sit well with one irate resident who said it was simply a case of greed on the developer’s part.
By building the linked home, he would get around $360,000 for the two dwellings, which is probably more than he would make by just building one house on the lot or even a semi-detached building in Minnow Lake.

“What’s going to stop us from laying a cement slab on our property and building another house on it,” she also argued. “Where’s it going to stop?”

This “slippery-slope” argument was also a concern of city planners and councillors who sit on the planning committee.

Due to the fact the proposed link home only had 10.5 metres (35 feet) of frontage, versus the 15 metres (50 feet) as set out in the applicable bylaw, by allowing the application the city would be opening the door for more builders to request special consideration.

“This is a big decision,” said Ward 1  Councillor and planning committee member Joe Cimino. “Because it basically says 35-foot lots are OK in Sudbury.”

“This is definitely precedent setting,” agreed Ward 6 Councillor Andre Rivest.

The mayor, who is not a member of the planning committee, weighed in on the matter by telling a story about how his parents only had a 30-foot frontage lot.

Rodriguez asked staff about why they recommended against allowing the application when by their own admission they hadn’t done a thorough review of linked housing.

“So you haven’t done a comprehensive review, but you’re not prepared to support innovative housing, is that correct?” he asked.

“No, not really,” countered Lautenbach. “We’re not prepared to simply create this as a standard.”

Rodriguez responded by saying, “maybe I’m seeing things too practically.” He suggested the city should welcome this type of housing and just “see how things turns out.”

This “fly-by-night” approach didn’t sit well with the planning committee members who felt while this style of housing structure had merit, they too weren’t prepared to adopt it as a standard without further research and consultation.
Only Ward 4 Councillor Evelyn Dutrisac voted in favour of it.

As well, while the idea was more palatable in a subdivision of similarly designed structures and lot sizes, the majority of the committee felt it wasn’t appropriate to build it in a pre-existing neighbourhood in Minnow Lake.