Affordable Housing in Beechwood

• The Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks has accepted the Record of Site Condition (RSC) for the 555 Beechwood Site. No environmental contaminants exist that would prevent the site from being used for homes. If you are interested in looking at the specifics of the RSC, please send an email to the Beechwood address (Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca) and we will forward a link.
• The Request for Proposal evaluation team is ready to recommend a developer. The report to recommend the developer will go to Regional Council on March 24, 2021. The report will be public on the Council Agenda one week before the meeting at the following link:https://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/council
• After the developer is approved, they will begin to gather feedback from the community on the specific site design options. Stay tuned to this site for more details.

The Region of Waterloo project team has an affordable housing developer they are planning to recommend for 555 Beechwood Drive. However, proposed site designs are being revised so that they more fully incorporate input previously provided by the Beechwood community. This is expected to take a few weeks to complete. The report with the recommended developer will go to Committee of the Whole and Regional Council for final approval in early 2021. After this time, the community will have an opportunity for feedback on the specific site design.

The Region of Waterloo received three proposals for developing affordable housing at 555 Beechwood Drive. They are currently being evaluated. More time is required to review the proposals. The report with the recommended developer will go to Committee of the Whole December 8^th and Regional Council December 16^th for final approval. After that time, design options from the approved developer will be shared on this page to obtain feedback from the community.

Based on requests from many of the teams submitting proposals, the deadline for submissions has been extended until October 14^th. A team of staff from relevant departments, including housing and finance, will then evaluate the proposals according to the design guidelines approved by Council. The guidelines were informed by community input and include considerations around where the building(s) will be located, how the building will be oriented, how it will blend with the existing buildings, and how landscaping and amenity areas will be included.

Because the deadline has been extended, the dates for Committee and Council approval have changed. The recommended proposal will go to Committee of the Whole on November 17^th and Regional Council on November 25^th for final approval.

As part of the environmental assessment, all soil and water samples have been collected from the site and the results of their analysis will be sent to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks for review this week. The review will take four to six weeks. Once it is complete, and if no additional samples are needed, the Ministry will deem the property safe for housing development and a notice of this will be made public. The blue barrels on the site are the storage containers for the samples. They will be removed from the site as soon as the Ministry finishes its review.

The Region of Waterloo is now accepting proposals for the development of 555 Beechwood Drive. Developers will incorporate feedback from the community into their proposals for alternative housing. The deadline to submit a proposal is October 7^th. View the Request for Proposal document here.

During the week of August 17th to August 21st an environmental consultant, MTE, will be visiting the 555 Beechwood site to collect groundwater samples from the monitoring wells installed on July 31. If you have questions, please feel free to call 519-575-4400 x3442 or email Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca.

The feedback we received from you through email and the Town Hall meetings on the design of the 555 Beechwood property is now posted on this Engage page in the "Documents for Download" section. This feedback, along with best practices for urban design, has been incorporated in the proposed design guidelines (pg. 135 of Committee Agenda) that will be presented to the Community Services Committee (CSC) on August 11th. If approved at CSC, they will go to Regional Council for final approval August 20th.

You can continue to call the Beechwood line (519-575-4400 x3442) or email Beechwood@regionofwaterloo.ca if you have questions or feedback.

The developer for this project will be chosen in early November. They will be required to share the drawings of their proposed concepts for the site with the community. We will provide an opportunity through Engage for you to provide feedback on the concepts before moving forward to ensure that your concerns are addressed.