Back Bay Community Association to lodge Bartam Court appeal

A Yellowknife residents’ association is appealing the city’s decision to allow a new apartment complex on the edge of Old Town to be built.

The Back Bay Community Association submitted a notice of appeal against the Bartam Court development, at the foot of School Draw Avenue, stating residents feel it is “out of scale with the site that it’s going on.”

The 65-unit development would be four storeys tall.

“The densities are too high, the scale of the buildings too big and the city has stretched to the max a lot of its zoning bylaw provisions to get that,” said Dave Jones, the community association’s president.

“So for those reasons, we’re going to appeal this decision.”

Jones says more grounds for appeal will be outlined in written submissions 10 days before the appeal hearing.

Milan Mrdjenovich, co-owner of the Nova Group and developer of the building, says the appeal process should not affect construction.

Mrdjenovich plans to start building in April 2021 and expects the work to take just over a year to complete.

“It’s a rather large project and it depends also on this whole Covid situation and isolations and all that stuff too,” he said.

Mrdjenovich says has not spoken with the community association or Old Town residents about their concerns, and does not plan to do so.

“They haven’t reached out to me and I haven’t reached out to them. There are a few residents there that are pretty angry individuals and they’ve already started yelling and screaming at me so I’m going to try to avoid them as much as possible,” he said.

Jones says the association is not upset with the developer but with the City of Yellowknife, arguing city staff did not listen to their objections regarding the development’s size, design, and parking requirements.

“None of our concerns were taken into account, not a single one,” said Jones.

“We want the city to follow their zoning bylaws.”