City staff warn against plan for McDonald's at Adelaide and Windemere

City Hall planners are recommending against a developer's plan to build a McDonald's drive-thru restaurant as part of a commercial development at the corner of Adelaide Street and Windermere Road, citing the property's location on a flood plain.

Council's planning committee on Tuesday will consider an application on two side-by-side lots across from the Waltzing Weasel pub on the east side of Adelaide Street in north London.

• Read the staff report here.

Royal Premier Development has submitted a planning application to build two commercial buildings on the site: one a 5,000 square-foot multi-unit commercial building, the other a standalone drive-thru restaurant. Drawings submitted to the city show the restaurant as a McDonald's.

The developer is offering to dedicate some of the frontage on Windemere Road as a right of way for part of an eventual extension of the Thames Valley Parkway trail. The developer is also offering to build a 700 square-foot field house for the adjacent sports fields. Royal Premier is suggesting drainage improvements to reduce the flood risk, including an naturalzied drainage channel and special landscaping.

The site was formerly home to tennis courts and a small Goodlife Fitness Centre. A fire destroyed a vacant home on the property in 2021.

In their report on the application, city staff say the property's existing zoning is restrictive and doesn't allow for new higher-intensity uses due to its location on a flood plain and proximity to the Thames River. Flooding in 2018 left the Adelaide and Windermere intersection closed as water rose to just below the street level.

Staff are recommending allowing other, lower-intensity commercial uses for the site, including a bake shop, convenience store and food stores, but not a drive-thru.

The report said staff, in consultation with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, can't support uses that "affect groups of vulnerable people such as day cares, and medical/dental offices, and uses which could increase the overall intensity on site such as restaurants and financial institutions with a drive through facility."

Royal Premier president Farhad Noory told CBC News that a drive-thru restaurant is essential for the project to be economically viable and that he's confident the flood measures he's proposing will mitigate the risk.

"We did all engineering studies to make the site flood proof," he said. "From an engineering perspective, it's flood proof."
Mike McCoubrey, owner of the Waltzing Weasel, told CBC News he wasn't against seeing the site develop, so long as it didn't add to the flood risk at the pub.

Fern Hill, who lives across the street from the Waltizing Weasel, expressed a similar concern in a written submission to council.

"I am concerned that the displacement by the required infill will cause increased and severe flooding to the adjacent properties and my property, in particular," she wrote.

The city's planning committee will consider the proposed development at its Tuesday meeting.