Urban sprawl is a fact of life and, while building up instead of out is today’s mantra, virtually all major cities continue to slowly eat up the surrounding countryside. Vancouver is a bit different. It has the U.S. border to the south, mountains to the north and ocean to the west. So, most of the sprawl has been to the east. However as commuting times to the valley increase the lure of potential profit to be found in developing our little island also increases.
Next Monday, April 20 our council will tell us whether they’ve decided to indulge the latest large scale suburban development scheme to hit Bowen or whether they are going to listen to the vast majority of Bowen Islanders and opt for a low-density development.
Before we look at that let’s look back for a moment at the public meeting held a couple of Sundays ago and review what council was told. The topic of the day was the Cape Roger Curtis Neighbourhood Plan. The CRCNP proposes to take land zoned for something in the order of fifty homes and put on it more than ten times that amount. While the community at large soundly denounced the proposal we should look at what we learned from this exercise and keep in mind the issues that still aren’t really resolved.
Everybody seems to agree that access to the waterfront is important. The debate has been whether the trails to beaches and 32 acres of waterfront park that would be included in a small subdivision are enough or if it would be worth allowing hundreds of additional building lots to get more waterfront access. Closely aligned with that discussion is the debate over whether it would be better to get 300 acres of park and 1,600 people living next to it or spreading something less than 200 people over 600 acres. The overwhelming sentiment that emerged at the meeting is that we are further ahead with less park and fewer people.
One cornerstone of the plan was an 80-room Inn but it was hardly mentioned. The developers said that they didn’t need it but the community wanted it. Yet those in favour of the overall proposal made very little, if any, mention of an Inn as a desirable addition to the area. Those opposed to the plan concentrated on the sheer size of the development and the negative impacts that it would have on the island but the proposed Inn which would have occupied four of the most valuable acres of the cape was the least of the myriad problems with the proposal.
Items that were not a high priority to the community as a whole, but which were raised by residents of the west side of the island, included a local corner store and evening bus service. While it is debateable as to when these two things will be economically viable, it is a good bet that both will happen long before the CRCNP would have seen a single finished home.
Affordable housing and senior’s housing were offered as part of the CRCNP proposal and reflected very real community concern. Hopefully there will soon be an announcement that the long awaited expansion of the Snug Cove sewer is a go and several projects currently on hold will go ahead in the Snug Cove area. These projects will dramatically increase the amount of senior’s housing and bring to market both rental and lower cost multifamily housing. It was repeatedly pointed out at the meeting that Snug Cove is a far more logical location for these types of developments.
So, how will council deal with the CRCNP next Monday? As I see it there are really only two choices. Either council agrees to entertain a revised NP which would give the developer a green light to come back with another plan that is again outside of our Official Community Plan or they don’t. If they don’t then the ball is in the developer’s court but council is in control of the game.
Let me explain. If council decides to reject or defer the NP then the developer has several options. They can put up a fence and build a house, or they can apply to the Approving Officer for a subdivision within the existing zoning, or they can apply to council for rezoning within the current OCP or they can become involved with the upcoming OCP Update and attempt to get the community to build some of their ideas into the OCP. Or they can do some combination of these options. However, every option other than closing their gate will ultimately require the developer to come before council again for some form of approval.
Conversely, if council attempts to negotiate with the developer and asks for a scaled back but still over OCP Neighbourhood Plan then we’re in real trouble. Then the developer will be justified in saying that they listened to council and did everything they could to come up with a compromise. The revised proposal will again wend its way through a public process, stealing the public’s energy from the OCP Update and reinforcing the deep rifts that this process has already inflicted on our community.
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