Oshawa twin tower waterfront development earns council final approval

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Published June 20, 2022 at 2:21 pm

A pair of twin residential towers soaring as high as 35 stories above Oshawa’s waterfront earned its approval from Oshawa Council Monday, with one councillor calling the project “transformational.”

The Nahid Harbour project, courtesy of North York-based Nahid Corp., will have two apartment towers – 35 stories and 30 stories in height – built on the north side of Harbour Road, across the street from Ed Broadbent Waterfront Park and the Oshawa Marina.

Each building will also contain commercial space on the ground floor (11,178 sq. ft. in total), as well as landscaping, playgrounds, water pools, a parkette and a central square.

Oshawa Councillor Jane Hurst cast the lone dissenting vote, declaring that the height of the buildings and the density of the overall project was just too much. “Once we pass this there’s no going back. I’ve had a hard time agreeing with this since the get-go.”

Her colleagues on council did not agree, with John Gray, whose Ward 5 includes the city’s harbour area, saying the Nahid Harbour project is the type of development Oshawa has been waiting for.

“The beauty of this development is you get the high-rise towers, but they don’t block the view of the waterfront because they will be on the north side of Harbour Road,” he said. “This is transformational. It’s real and it’s going to happen.”

Gray also called the project an “important point” in Oshawa’s history, “especially for Ward 5 and south Oshawa.”

Council approved the amended project, including a slight increase in total units from 1,410 to 1,414 and a major jump in parking spaces from 1,261 (about half the required number) to a more workable 1,909, by a 9-1 vote.

The project is expected to kick-start prestige development at Oshawa’s lakefront, something that has been top-of-mind among City planners for decades.

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