Proposed 48-unit development at 14194 Tecumseh Road East

At a glance

What is being proposed

Site area

±3.06 acres

Former D.M. Eagle Public School

Units proposed

Four buildings, twelve units each

Storeys shown

R3 zoning would permit 4

Current zoning

Institutional

No housing of any kind permitted

Requested zoning

R3 Residential

Plus an Official Plan amendment

Parking shown

≈85–93

Current by-law requires 96

The part most people miss

Where residents actually get a say

There are three places a development like this can be decided, and they are not equal. Which of them ever happens depends on what Council writes into the rezoning.

Rezoning — Council

Happening now

Public meeting required
Written notice to owners within 120 m
You may speak; written comments go on the record and staff must respond to them
Sets what is permitted: use, height, density, parking, setbacks
Since 2024, residents cannot appeal the decision

Minor variance — Committee of Adjustment

Only if a later proposal breaks the by-law

Public hearing required
Written notice to owners within 60 m
You may attend and speak
Since 2022, residents cannot appeal the decision
If nothing needs a variance, this step never happens

Site plan control — staff

Always, at the end

No public meeting required under the Planning Act
No notice required to anyone
Only the applicant may appeal
Covers landscaping, lighting, drainage, waste, walkways, exterior design
Cannot touch use, height, density, parking or lot area

So the answer to “what if it needs no variances?” is the whole point.

A variance is what triggers a public hearing. If a future proposal complies with the by-law, no variance is needed — so there is no hearing, no notice, and nothing for residents to attend. It goes straight to site plan control, which under Ontario’s own guidance “cannot be used to regulate matters that are covered by zoning by-laws such as minimum or maximum parking requirements, minimum lot area, or height and density.”

So what actually holds this to three storeys?

Only the zoning. Height is a zoning matter under the Planning Act — site plan control is expressly barred from regulating it, and a site plan agreement cannot cap it either. There is no other lever. If three storeys is not written into the zoning, nothing holds it to three storeys.

That does not mean reopening the Town’s zoning by-law. It means the short, site-specific by-law Council will pass for this one property — a document that does not exist yet, and whose wording is the entire subject of the meetings ahead.

And it is the Town’s ordinary practice, not an unusual ask. Tecumseh’s zoning by-law already contains a run of site-specific R3 zones, and every one of them carries caps written into it: R3-2 is limited to 118 units in two buildings; R3-3 to 96 units; R3-4 to 60 units; R3-13 to a maximum height of 65 feet; and R3-11 sets separate storey limits for each wing of the building and prohibits balconies and windows on two named elevations.

A plain, uncapped R3 would be the exception here, not the rule. Asking that the by-law say “three storeys” rather than stay silent is asking for exactly what Council has done every other time.

The current standards

What the by-law requires, and what the drawing shows

Measured against the zoning by-law in force today. The drawing carries no dimensions of any kind, so every distance below was scaled from it and is approximate, to about ±5%.

Village of St. Clair Beach Zoning By-law, 1994 — R3 and general provisions
Requirement	The standard	What the drawing shows	Status
Residential use	Not permitted in the Institutional zone	48 dwelling units	Rezoning required
Maximum height	R3 permits 4 storeys	3 storeys shown — but a drawing is not a by-law	Needs a number in the by-law
Accessory buildings	753 sq ft for any single building; 969 sq ft for all of them combined	Garage block ≈2,800 sq ft · amenity building ≈1,245 sq ft · two waste enclosures ≈90 sq ft each — roughly 4,200 sq ft in total	About 4× the limit
Parking	2 spaces per unit → 96 spaces	≈74 surface spaces plus ≈11 garage bays	Appears short; no schedule provided
Rear yard (north boundary)	The greater of 25 ft or the height of the building	≈29 ft — but no building height is stated	Cannot be tested
Side yard (west boundary)	The greater of 10 ft or half the building height	≈11.5 ft to the nearest building	Appears short

A separate town-wide zoning by-law received first and second reading on 11 August 2026. It sets a different parking rate — 1.25 spaces per unit rather than 2, or 60 spaces rather than 96. Which by-law governs this application has not been publicly confirmed, and it changes several of the answers above.

What we still don’t know

Questions worth asking on 1 September

One drawing has been circulated, and it carries no dimensions and no building height. These are the questions it leaves open. Open houses are informal — the project team will answer things in person that never appear in a written report, so it is worth arriving with specifics and writing down what you are told.

How tall are the buildings, in feet or metres? No height appears anywhere on the drawing.
Will the amending by-law cap the number of storeys, or leave it at the R3 maximum of four?
Where is the dimensioned site plan showing the setback to every property line?
How many parking spaces exactly, and at what rate? Where are the visitor and barrier-free spaces?
What is the total floor area of the garage block and of the amenity building?
Has a shadow study been done? Will one be done before this goes to Council?
What is proposed along the boundary shared with the Derby Road and Pentilly Road homes — fencing, planting, screening?
Are balconies or windows proposed on the elevations facing those homes?
What is the waste plan — bin locations, collection frequency, truck route and hours?
Where does surface water go once the site is regraded?
Does anything proposed sit on the storm sewer easement registered on the property’s title?
Which items are you proposing to leave to site plan control?

The last question is the most useful one. Anything left to site plan control is settled later, with no meeting and no notice — so their answer to it is a list of everything that needs to be nailed down beforehand.

Where to go

The open house

Tuesday 1 September 2026

5:30 – 7:30 pm · drop in any time

Former D.M. Eagle Public School
14194 Tecumseh Road, Tecumseh

Hosted by Dillon Consulting Limited, on behalf of Fortis Group.

This is the developer’s own information session — not an official Town meeting. Comments made here do not go on the Town’s record.

Already happened 9 April 2026 The property was sold by the Greater Essex County District School Board to The Fairway Collection Inc. for $2,500,000.

Stay informed

Be told when the public meeting is scheduled

Anyone who lives in Tecumseh may attend the public meeting and speak — you do not have to live next door. Every person who attends gets a chance to address Council. What the 120 metre rule decides is only who gets a letter in the mail, which is why most people never hear about these meetings at all.

No date has been set yet. Leave your name and email and you will be told when one is announced, when Town staff release a report, and when any of the missing documents are made public.

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