The saga of the revised Snug Cove Village Plan may be drawing to a close. After years of debate and numerous rewrites it is finally ready to be adopted. Council has made a commitment to pass it before their mandate ends this fall. They have given it first reading (twice), there has been a public information meeting and the final bits of process are grinding along so odds are that it will soon become law. The Revised Plan has now been so sufficiently gutted that there isn’t much left to argue except for the usual things like parking, ferry marshalling, density transfers and the high number of apartments and condos proposed.
Probably the most contentious issue is the proposed number of apartment/ townhouse/ condo/ co-op/ special needs living units. The Revised Plan calls for about 150 multifamily living units to be built in Snug Cove. This is a big number. The idea is that there could be apartments over every commercial building. The houses along Davies Rd.(behind the pub) will someday be ripped down and replaced with 20 to 30 condominium units . The houses along Miller Road between Government Road and Bowen Court will meet a similar fate and be replaced by 30-40 townhouses. Of course neither of these scenarios will be economic for a very long time. Another 30-40 units are planned for the area between the school and the ridge above Miller Road (Seniors Lane). This is part of the Surplus Lands about to be owned by the Municipality.
Another area destined for multifamily is along Miller Road, between the R.C.M.P. and Bridal Falls where up to 20 units will be built. This area is a Developers dream and ripe for immediate development. It too is part of the Surplus Lands. Most of us believed that it would be where a Community Hall and Municipal Building would be tucked away in the park but we didn’t notice the condo part.
At the end of the day it appears that all the Revised Plan really does is to provide a rational for the rezoning of the Surplus Lands and guaranteeing the highest possible profit. The sale of the Miller Road parkland and the Seniors Lane ridge could pay off the entire debt that we took on to buy all of the Surplus Lands. This probably wasn’t a conspiracy on the part of council to push zoning for windfall profits. The committee that drew up the proposals for revising The Plan came up with the idea of increasing the density of Snug Cove long ago. Then, when the G.V.R.D. made the Surplus Lands proposal it all just fell into place. During the last round of public hearings many spoke out against this density increase but Council didn’t agree. Virtually all of the suggestions in the early versions of the proposed Plan revisions were dropped or scaled back, everything other than the multifamily housing densities.
Paying for the Surplus Lands sooner rather than later certainly has its appeal and there is a rational for multi family housing. It’s just unfortunate that we’re sacrificing the one piece of Surplus Park Land that really is parkland. I wonder how many people will suddenly wake up to local politics when they drive by and see the trees being dropped to make room for condos.
Post a Comment