Residents are moving into the new townhouses near the Bradford GO station, and the commercial units could start filling up soon.
Anyone walking or driving by the development at 200 Dissette St., south of the intersection with Jay Street, has probably noticed the buildings taking shape and filling in the landscape, after construction began in the fall of 2022 with underground servicing and grading followed by the start of work on home construction in February 2023.
“Despite industry-wide constraints like material delays and shortages impacting our process, construction of the community has progressed well,” Lauren Marotta, a representative of the developer, Cachet Homes, said via email.
The new neighbourhood includes 106 three-storey back-to-back residential townhouses with underground parking, 16 two-storey townhouses with surface parking, and 16 independent commercial units fronting Dissette.
As the commercial units were sold to individual owners, Marotta said Cachet is not aware of any confirmed tenants.
However, the core commercial zoning applied to those units could allow for retail, restaurants, medical offices, laundromats, fitness centres, business offices, service shops, private schools, places of worship and more.
Cachet anticipates full occupancy by June 2024, according to Marotta.
According to real estate listings, the townhouses are between 148 and 186 square metres, with three to four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
To accomplish a residential density of about 52 units per hectare, the townhouses have no private yards, but landscaping is proposed throughout the site, including a central green space to serve residents. In total, the plan proposed 9,195 sq. m of shared outdoor amenity space, which equates to approximately 78 per unit.
To accommodate all those new units and customers, there are a total of 257 parking spaces, with 162 underground spaces and 59 above ground, including 16 dedicated to residential use and 43 to be shared between visitor and commercial use.
That’s fewer than the 368 total spaces that would have normally be required by the town for such a property at the time, and during a public meeting on June 5, 2018, residents and councillors raised concerns that it wouldn’t be enough.
However, in a report to council on June 18, 2019, Ryan Windle, then manager of community planning, explained the reduction (then expected to result in 266 spaces) was acceptable given the development is within walking distance of both local bus stops and the regional GO station, which offers connections by both bus and train.
According to the report, Cachet claimed: “The proposed urban form provides the opportunity to encourage a more walkable built form, which reduces automotive dependency and encourages both active transportation and transit use.”
The application for the development was originally made to the town on March 18, 2018, and after feedback from the public meeting, some changes were made, including road widening, providing access to commercial units from Dissette and reducing the total number of units from 127 to 122.
Based on those changes and following the guidance of provincial, regional and local planning policies, staff recommended and council approved rezoning the site in June 2019.
Then in October 2020, council approved $700,000 in downtown community improvement plan (DCIP) funding for the $53-million development, including $680,000 under Program 5, the tax-based redevelopment grant (TIG), and $20,000 under Program 3, planning fees and building permits.
To justify the request, a representative of Cachet explained at the time that the development would fulfill the DCIP’s goals of promoting social, economic and physical enhancement of the downtown.
They noted the average household at the time spent about $38,000 in retail services, meaning the 122 households could bring as much as $4.6 million in spending each year, and over ten years, the development was expected to generate more than $1.58 million in municipal tax revenue.
Only a few residential units remain for sale and for more information interested buyers can contact a Cachet sales manager at [email protected].
— With files from Jenni Dunning and Natasha Philpott
