November 28, 2019 • Volume 34, No. 14
Santa Claus is coming to town
St. Nick will be paying his annual visit to Orléans this Saturday during Santa’s Parade of Lights which gets underway at 6:30 p.m. Toys and cash donations will be accepted along the route.
Next edition December 12
Trio of projects have residents up in arms By Fred Sherwin The Orléans Star Nothing gets a homeowner more riled up than the prospect of a high-rise or a similar obelisk like, say, an inflatable sports dome, sprouting up in the neighbourhood. Three proposed projects are currently in the planning stage in three different parts of Orléans that have raised the eyebrows and ire of hundreds of residents. Two of the projects are high-rise apartment buildings. The first is being proposed for 3484 and 3490 Innes Road just east of Pagé Road adjacent to the Chapel Hill Retirement Residence where Groupe Lépine wants to build eight midrise to high-rise residential apartment buildings and small-scale commercial retail space. The second is a 16-storey high-rise building being proposed for the corner of St. Joseph Blvd. and Duford Drive across from Farm Boy.
The project is an inflatable sports dome that the French Catholic school board wants to erect between École élémentaire Saint-Joseph d’Orléans and École secondaire catholique Garneau on Carrière Street in Chateauneuf. All three projects require amendments to the city’s zoning bylaws which opens the door to public input both for and against. Over 100 people turned out for an information session on the high-rise being proposed by the Toronto-based Torgan Group on St. Joseph Blvd. Current regulations limit such projects to six storeys. The developer had originally applied for a zoning amendment to allow for nine storeys, but after discussions with Orléans Ward councillor Matt Luloff forced them to go back to the drawing board, they came back with a proposal to build a 16-storey albeit much thinner tower. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2