Barrie council moving ahead with two new developments

Barrie city councillors approved several staff reports with just a few more weeks of meetings until taking a summer recess.

Two staff reports focussed on development proposals requiring land to be rezoned were approved by council sitting in general committee.

One of the projects will be built on the new annexation lands on Veteran's Drive, now known municipally as 844 Veteran's Drive. This project will see ten blocks of eight-street townhouses for a total of 80 different units.

The second development project, given the initial green light from councillors tonight, is for two new residential towers in the central part of the city on Jacob's Terrace.

The towers would be 19-storeys and 23-storeys respectively, and bring 504 new units to the city. The mayor says this project's location is in the area he wants to see more proposals targeted towards.

"We certainly want to see around our transit terminals an intensification take place, close to public transit, close to the waterfront; it's very close to our wastewater treatment facility," Mayor Alex Nuttall said to CTV News before Wednesday's meeting. "These are the types of locations that we want to see intensification take place because we have all the services there."

City councillors also voted to grant approval to the Barrie Farmer's Market to apply for funding to expand the footprint of its winter market, which is held at city hall. A staff report says while there is space for 84 vendors in the summer, the space in the rotunda in the winter is much smaller.

The market wants to host an additional 20 vendors and is looking at ways to bring structures like sheds to the exterior of city hall to expand.

"The Farmer's Market, this building sits on the former land of the Farmer's Market," said Nuttall. "That was the deal that the Farmer's Market would be able to live and expand on the site that used to be theirs while it was deeded over to the city to be able to build our city hall, and I think that needs to be respected going forward."

Councillors have just four meetings left until they take a recess for the summer.