Region of Queens council wants to change the rules after all, so that a developer can build apartments on Main Street in Liverpool.
At their regular meeting on Tuesday morning, councillors voted unanimously to start the process to amend the municipality’s land use bylaw.
A public hearing will be held on Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. in council chambers about changing the bylaw to allow more ground floor space to be used for residential uses in the downtown commercial zone.
Currently, no more than half of a building’s ground floor can be used for apartments.
Developer Eric Fry approached the region in February to change that rule to allow him to turn all of 194 Main St., commonly known as the old Stedman’s building, into apartments.
His latest proposal for The Stedman is for 18 residential units, four of which would be “hotel suites”, and two Main Street-level commercial units of 300 square feet each. One of those would be a laundromat.