Centretown residents allege city lost their development concerns, approval goes ahead anyway
Residents say their comments on a 513-unit MacLaren and O'Connor highrise were lost by the city. An IT error meant 39 people's submissions went missing before the April planning meeting.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
A highrise apartment development at the intersection of MacLaren and O'Connor streets in Centretown has been approved, despite an IT error that resulted in the city losing comments from 39 residents, including Barbara Kagedan, a 70-year-old widow who had raised accessibility concerns about the project.
Kagedan initially submitted her concerns to the city's development applications website in summer 2025, receiving confirmation that they were received. When she attempted to learn when she could address the planning committee, she discovered the application had already been approved at an April 22 meeting she was never notified of. The city's planning department later informed her that staff could find no record of her correspondence.
After Centretown residents wrote a joint email to the city on June 8 with their concerns, the city responded on June 26 with a report acknowledging "an error in public notification." The error, an IT issue affecting an individual staff member's account, had caused comments from 39 individuals to go missing.
Kagedan, whose late husband Allan navigated the city in a wheelchair, had expressed concern that the approved 513-unit building—with 319 garage vehicles, plus Amazon deliveries and Uber traffic—could create safety hazards for low-mobility residents and obstruct views of the canal.
Somerset Councillor Ariel Troster said density concerns are common when new development arrives in neighborhoods, and noted that past high-density projects in Centretown have brought services residents wanted, such as a grocery store at Albert and Lyon.
