Traffic congestion and shadow impacts rank high among neighbours’ concerns about the prospect of 491 residential units being built in five buildings — two of them 14 storeys and another 10 storeys — not far from the intersection of Gordon Street and Clair Road.

Thirty-three residents of Gosling Gardens, a street west of the Tricar Group’s site, sent the city a letter calling the proposed development “too dense” and “too high.”

One of them, John Caravaggio, told council Monday that his main concern was traffic congestion in the area and the fear that Gosling Gardens could become “a thoroughfare.

“The residents on Gosling Gardens are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of their homes, which includes safety of our children, clean air and noise restriction,” said the letter from the 33 residents.

“This development will dominate the skyline. Does Guelph want to be defined as the city of highrises upon entering the city?” it said, adding that “this parcel of land stands on the highest elevation along Gordon.”

Erica Anderson, president of the board of directors of a 33-unit townhouse condo development built on lower ground immediately east of the Tricar site, called the proposed Tricart development “very aggressive and not in keeping with good built form compatibility.”

Currently, she told council, there are no highrise developments next to low-rise residential housing in the city’s south end.

Among many concerns of the condo residents about the Tricar proposal, Anderson said, is the shadow impact of the 10-storey building proposed for the east side of the site. She said townhouses at the end of Hawkins Drive would be under that building’s shadow for six months in the afternoons and evenings during fall and winter.

Her condo complex wants to see a realignment of the proposed development so that lower buildings, instead of a 10-storey building, are at the east of the site, Anderson said.

The proposed development includes two 14-storey residential apartment buildings on the northern part of the site, with a linking single-storey amenity building. As well as the 10-storey building planned for the east side of the site, Tricar proposes two four-storey residential buildings on the south part of the 7.9-acre site.