Flato Development hosts public community engagement meeting

By Brian Lockhart

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Flato Developments, the company building the new development in Beeton just off Main Street on the west end of the town, hosted a community engagement meeting on Thursday, March 3, to get input from local residents about their proposed senior's housing.

The meeting was held at the community hall at the Beeton arena. 

The seniors' complex will have five buildings and 400 units in close proximity to Main Street.

Each building will have 80 apartments.

Flato's vision for the project includes a gym, yoga and wellness centre, a library and media room, an outdoor patio with gazebos and barbecues, and a faith room. It also includes open concept floor plans with wide hallways for accessibility, wide accessible balconies, private vegetable gardens, and a parkette. 

The complex has not yet been designed and the company is seeking input from the public on what they want in a seniors' complex before they started the final design.

“This is an informal public open house where we are here to get input from the general public to find out what they have to say about the proposed senior's buildings - we want to get their input on the size of the buildings,” explained Shakir Rehmatullah, President of Flato Developments. “We want to find out what size of units people would prefer – one-bedroom suites or two-bedroom suites – especially when they are seniors.”

Mr. Rehmatullah, said they are working from experience after developing other seniors' units in different communities.

“We have heard in our other communities from people who say they prefer two-bedroom suites,” Mr. Rehmatullah said. “Some people have come to us and said ‘we need wider sidewalks.' Some people have said ‘we need bigger bathrooms' or ‘bigger closets.' That's the reason we are here. We have our planner and our architect here. We just want to hear from the community to tell us how they want it to be designed and how they want it to look. They might like brick, or stone, or stucco. We want to build something that people will appreciate. We are in the beginning phase right now. We want to engage with the community and we care about the community. We want to inform them of what's happening and be transparent and get their feedback so the architect can take that feedback to the drawing board and design it on the comments were, and come up with a community people will appreciate.”

The meeting was an informal affair and local residents were encouraged to look at some of plans for the new development and ask questions or give advice on what they would like to see in the new development.