Council for the Rural Municipality of Hanover has denied a request for a 30 unit apartment complex in Blumenort.

Adrian Fast of Fast Brothers appeared before council Wednesday. Fast Brothers owns a narrow strip of land at the junction of Oakdale Drive and Third Avenue North in Blumenort. Fast met with council requesting to rezone the site to Residential Multiple Unit Zone 2 (RM2) to accommodate the construction of a 30 unit apartment complex. The proposal called for the site to be developed with three modern style buildings, a paved parking surface and greenspace.

(Adrian Fast meets with Hanover council)But, before Fast could even present his proposal, Jeremy Neufeld, Manager of Planning for Hanover noted 18 letters of objection had been submitted to the municipality, including a petition with 82 signatures. Neufeld explained the letters largely suggested the land was not compatible for this sort of housing, that 30 additional units would increase traffic significantly, creating safety concerns and that this apartment complex would lower land values in the area.

With respect to traffic, Neufeld told council that the Institute of Transportation Engineers estimates that apartments generate an average of seven vehicle trips per day per unit. This would see an increased loading to Oakdale Drive of approximately 210 vehicles per day. Neufeld says while Oakdale Drive is a collector street, it was never designed to handle this volume of traffic. He adds there are no sidewalks, which results in a larger volume of pedestrian traffic along the road to access the park or school.

Hanover council denied the rezoning request.

Fast told council he would like some direction from the community of Blumenort as well as the RM of Hanover on what he could do to make this project work.

Hanover Councillor Bob Brandt questioned whether Fast Brothers could rather attempt this project on land south of Provincial Road 311.

Councillor Bernie Stahn suggested the applicant try to obtain more land to the west of the proposed apartment complex and in that way build a new road to funnel traffic down to PR 311, rather than needing to rely on Oakdale Drive.