White Rock council has balked, for now at least, on authorizing preliminary work for a 30-storey highrise proposal for North Bluff Road just west of Central Plaza.
The proposal was for a combined highrise and mid-rise development at 14990 North Bluff Rd. (North Bluff at Blackwood Street) which would provide a total of 521 multi-family residential suites.
An initial review report from planning and development services director Anne Berry said it would consist of a 30-storey building providing 374 market units and a six-storey wood-framed apartment complex providing 147 rental units.
Housing stock would be varied between the buildings, including studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, she said.
But at Monday afternoon’s meeting, the proposal proved a tower too far for Couns. Christopher Trevelyan, David Chesney and Ernie Klassen, and Mayor Megan Knight, all of whom voted against recommendations to begin initial staff work on it.
Trevelyan, in particular, argued that moving the proposal forward would be the “time we get to break the promises” to the electorate.
If approved, the recommendations would have fast-tracked the proposal by having staff process an OCP amendment at the same time as developing the land use plan for the City’s forthcoming North Bluff Corridor Study – and also having the applicant get to work on a tenant relocation plan for the current 32-unit two-storey rental building on the property.
What council did do was receive the report for information, and to authorize staff to develop a scope of work and cost estimate for the land use plan for the North Bluff Corridor Study and to reach out to the City of Surrey to form a joint planning working group to co-ordinate the study with Surrey’s plans for the Semiahmoo Town Centre.
As the decision stands at present, should the proposal for 14990 North Bluff Rd. return, it would be after the North Bluff Corridor Study is complete, a process that Berry estimated will take some 18 months.
Couns. Bill Lawrence, Michele Partridge and Elaine Cheung spoke strongly in favour of moving the proposal ahead, given the shortage of market and rental housing stock in the city, the fact that the proposal would provide affordable single-bedroom and studio units, and the huge increase in density already anticipated just to the north, in Surrey’s Semiahmoo Town Centre.
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“If we don’t do something about the housing crisis, the provincial government, if I’m right, can come down and tell us what to do,” Cheung said.
“In other words, they will tell us, ‘I don’t care about your OCP, you’re going to build on your mature neighborhoods and I want you to build towers there,’ and I don’t want that to happen.
“I believe density…should be along the fringe.”
“I’m going to take the opposite point of view here,” Trevelyan said.
“I think everyone on this council ran on a platform in the election to follow the current OCP…so here we are. I’m disappointed to hear the conversation that’s going on. I do agree more density along North Bluff and the Town Centre is the place where it should go. But here’s a project that is a much greater density than we currently have, than the previous council had.
“There’s no way you’re going to build yourselves to affordability in the Lower Mainland. We could build 20 30-storey towers in the city of White Rock – it’s not going to bring down housing prices, don’t think that for a second. We have a medical system that’s absolutely collapsing, we’ve got crowded streets, and, quite frankly, the point of my job is I am a representative of the community…because we cannot fit 20,000 people in a room.
“If you fit 20,000 residents of this city (in here) how would they vote on this project? I know how they would vote…you’re going to take a two-storey and turn it into a 30 and a six? I chose not to vote this way and it’s up to the voters to decide whether I was right or wrong.”
Klassen, while he said that he did not want to repeat the record of the previous council on being too long in making decisions, said he believed proposals need to be carefully and responsibly evaluated.
“It seems to me that we are putting the cart a little bit ahead of the horse here,” Klassen said, noting that he would like a more detailed timeline on the study, “so that we can start looking at what we’re actually going to do.”
“I don’t want to see the North Bluff Corridor Study take two years. We need to get that in process…I don’t believe that a 30-storey building is quite appropriate in that area, I don’t think we need to have the highest tower a few blocks from the town centre – we need to be decreasing as we’re going away from Johnston.”
In answer to questions from Cheung and Chesney, applicant Parb Rehal, of Weststone Banyan – North Bluff Properties LP, estimated a 500 square foot studio unit in the proposed development, at market value today, would be roughly $900 to $1,000 per square foot, or some $500,000.
But he warned that the cost would be significantly higher by the time the proposed project would be complete, three or four years down the road.
“It really depends on what council wishes to do here,” he said. “If the process can get expedited, that cost can be maintained closer to what it is today, but the longer this process takes…that’s really at council’s discretion.”
Chesney said that comparisons with studio units in Whalley and Central City in Surrey – where Rehal said his company is building and selling many – are “apples and oranges”.
“The reason for the density there is that Metro Vancouver has designated it should be built along transit rail lines,” he said. “So I could see somebody buying there – a young family or a young person – given the close proximity to rapid transit to Vancouver where they work.
“We don’t have that luxury here.”
alex.browne@peacearchnews.com
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