Residents say big multi-family buildings crowding older neighbourhoods

Some long-time residents of one of Winnipeg's older areas say monster homes going up in their area are destroying the character of their neighbourhood.

Over the past 18 months, three multi-family homes, which are being rented out, have been built on Carter Avenue in the River Heights Fort Garry ward attracting the ire of neighbours. 

Kim Conklin has lived on the next street over, Hector Avenue, for nearly 15 years.

She said one of new homes is so big when she looks out her kitchen window she sees a whole of house.

"The structure is way too large for the lot that it's on to start with," she said. "It's way too big for the area it's not in character with the neighbourhood."

Bernice Stebbing, who lives two doors down from one of the new homes on Carter, said the street used to have more green space.

She said the small bungalows are being replaced with more concrete and fewer families.

"I enjoy a community where people and neighbours come out and they kind of look after one another's property," she said, adding it seems the area is changing. 

"There would be a pile of rhubarb on my steps, or some cucumbers, just that whole sense of of belonging to an area. And I'm sure we'll never see that again."

Conklin and Stebbing said a group of residents started a petition and took their fight to city hall long before construction began, but that didn't work. 

Now they want the city to re-examine its bylaws to help protect the character of neighbourhoods.

Conklin said it may be a hard battle to win.  

"I'm assuming the developers are coming here because they can buy up these small houses at a good price," she said.

"They can build these large structures where they can hold now two, three or four families in them. So it all comes down to money." 

Conklin said developers should be focusing on building more apartment blocks downtown, instead of in her backyard.

"It seems right now developers are being allowed to just build whatever they want [and] they're building a mish mash of houses," she said.

Tough balance

Coun. John Orlikow said it's a difficult balance between having development in mature neighbourhoods and keeping the flavour of the neighbourhood.

​He understands the concerns of people living on Carter who don't want to see duplexes and multi-family dwellings on their street but the current city zoning rules allow it.

That might change, though. He said the city is working on mature infill guidelines to try and help decide where the newer houses should go.

"Right now, we have one-zoning-fits-all, so it doesn't matter if it is a mid-block or a regional street or whatever, it's that [same] zoning," he said.

"So what we're trying to do right now is contexturalize it so things where you have a small little bunglalow for example, on the whole street, a three storey building should not be going in the middle, mid-block."

Orlikow can't say when those guidelines will be completed but they are looking at other cities and how they've managed development in mature neighbourhoods. The challenge is encouraging development but also keeping neighbours happy, he said.

"The people on Carter, they have expressed their concerns. I have seen these houses but again they're caught in this standardized zoning problems," he said.

"These infill guidelines will probably, hopefully, be able to address some of these [issues]."

CBC's calls to the developer have not been returned.