A crowd of 30 residents of the Lockewood Heights subdivision in Morrisburg packed South Dundas council chambers December 5 to express their objections to a minor variance application.
This was the second consecutive Wednesday evening that the group raised their concerns with the minor variance committee.
Those who are neighbours to the house for which the variance is being sought see the minor variance being applied for as anything but minor.
The house, which is already built, is a rental property. It has an accessory apartment, which is allowed, but the owner wants a minor variance to allow that apartment to be much larger than the 25 per cent size of the primary dwelling unit which is allowable. He applied to have the apartment be about 75 per cent of the size of the primary dwelling unit.
The property owner said that he was not aware of the apartment size limitation when he built the home, but neighbours say he is simply trying to use the minor variance application process as a loop hole to allow him to legally have, what is essentially a horizontal duplex, in a part of the subdivision, not zoned for multi-residential housing.
The minor variance committee, stating that they could not ignore the objections of area homeowners, denied the minor variance application.
The decision can be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.
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