County of Brant Council approved a zoning by-law amendment and a draft plan of subdivision for the north side of Paris during its regular meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2025.
The subject lands in question are located on the north side of Woodslee Avenue and south of Hartley Avenue, and the 11.16 acre lot is currently vacant.
Back in July, Bob Stewart of Pinevest Homes said that the company has been hard at work to come up with a plan that works well for the area.
“We’ve been working at this one for quite some time,” he said. “We’ve been trying to develop a plan that checks all the boxes within that Official Plan, including the affordable housing units, … and we think we’ve found a plan that works well for the area.”
The concept plan for the development has slightly changed since that last meeting, and now consists of 294 residential dwellings including: 86 traditional townhouses, 48 back-to-back townhouses, and 160 units within two seven-storey mix-use buildings, of which 35 have been designated for affordable housing. The plan also includes ground-floor commercial space within the two buildings as well as a nearby park area, and the development will be done in three phases.
Odete Gomes, a senior project manager with Arcadis Professional Services, who was speaking on behalf of Pinevest Homes Inc. last Tuesday, said the project proposes now 533 parking spaces for the entirety of the development, 36 fewer than what’s required, but that an additional 64 on-street spaces could help address short-term parking needs.
Both the regular townhouses and the back-to-back townhouses will feature two parking spaces each, one in the garage and one in the driveway, as well as 57 additional spaces for visitors. The two seven-storey buildings will also have a total of 209.
Gomes said that while the parking availability may seem low, the commercial parking spaces could also be used for visitor parking during the off hours.
Councillor Steve Howes said that while he was glad to see that the developers are putting in a mix of both rental and affordable housing units, though he was worried about the parking availability.
“I’m very happy to see all that, I think this is a fairly good location for it, but parking is a concern,” he said.
Given the proposed by-law amendment includes site specific provisions to allow for mixed-use buildings, reduced minimum lot area and increased coverage for townhouse dwellings, and the developer is asking for reduced parking, Councillor John Bell later expressed some frustration.
“I have a gripe with every developer that comes here,” he said. “We have zoning by-laws and we set out what things like minimum lot areas and maximum lot coverage should be, and inevitably, developers come back and ask for something different. Why?”
Jeremy Vink, the County’s Director of Development Planning said that’s exactly why the municipality is currently working to update its zoning by-law.
“We have to get into conforming with the Official Plan [OP] and our by-laws are out of date,” said Vink. “Things have changed dramatically in the last 15 years with the housing market; we’re seeing a lot of different housing types, we’re seeing a lot of challenges, and we have to move with that. …Our zoning is going to have to catch up to what’s happening in the development world and match our OP.”
Following a few more questions and comments from Bell, Councillor Lukas Oakley then said he was overall happy with the development, noting that despite the shortcomings with the current state of the outdated by-law, it’s offering everything the County is asking for in its OP.
“We’re looking at a [plan with a] mix of housing types, we’re looking at affordable housing, mixed-residential and commercial,” he said. “…I’m happy to support this, and I think it represents the direction that we set when we approved our Official Plan.”
As the property is currently zoned Light Industrial (M2) and the developers are asking to have it changed to a modified Residential Multiple Medium Density (RM2-XX) zone with special provisions, Councillor David Miller asked if the County would have to make up for the lost employment lands and Vink replied saying “not at this point.”
Referring back to the July meeting when Andrew Guiducci of Molten Metallurgy Inc., said he and his father, Ted, were in opposition of the zone change, Councillor David Miller asked if the developer had done any work to address their concerns.
Gomes confirmed that the developer has been in contact with the Guiduccis to discuss the issues and are working on getting them resolved.
“There’s a lot of options that we’ve reviewed and discussed with our experts, so we believe that it will be resolved,” she replied. “And also it will be a requirement for the zoning by-law in block number two.”
The vote to approve the zoning by-law amendment and a draft plan of subdivision was then carried.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
