Councillors in Gibsons have taken two more steps in the development approval process for the George Hotel and Residences.
At its regular meeting of June 20, council endorsed a “Hotel Use Covenant” on the property at the foot of Winn Road. They also introduced a road closure bylaw that will see a section of Winn closed and converted to a public plaza as part of the development.
Mayor Wayne Rowe said the covenant has a simple purpose.
“This is a covenant proposed to be put on the George lands to ensure that the property is, in fact, restricted to use as a hotel in the part that’s designated as hotel,” Rowe told council, adding: “This is one step in that direction of eventually getting to, hopefully, some construction.”
The covenant was also drafted to protect the Town’s anticipated tax revenue from the development. In the words of a staff report, “when a hotel is stratified into separate real estate entities … there are certain conditions where owners can request BC Assessment to apply a residential rather than a commercial assessment.”
The covenant specifies that “the hotel building to be constructed as part of the development will be used for only hotel use, as that term is interpreted, in the opinion of the Town.”
That definition includes the spa, retail and commercial spaces. The covenant also says the development must include a “full service hotel of at least 100 rooms” and that “the owner must take all reasonable commercial steps” to keep the hotel open. There is also a clause that “prohibits the stratification (creating title for individual rooms or suites) of the hotel.”
In response to a query from Coun. Jeremy Valeriote, director of planning Andre Boel said that while covenants preventing a conversion to strata ownership are common, it’s a bit unusual to have one specifying a hotel use.
The Winn Road closure bylaw that got three readings Tuesday follows a land-swap agreement that was approved at a closed council meeting on April 18. The terms were made public shortly afterwards. Under the agreement, the Town will close a portion of Winn Road in exchange for a public plaza to be constructed between the two main buildings of the George complex. The Town will own the plaza surface area, but a covenant will make the developer responsible for maintaining the plaza.
The developers will own an “airspace parcel” underneath the plaza, to allow for the construction of a parking garage. They’ll pay $61,600 for it.
The staff report presented June 20 also explains how that $61,600 figure was set. D.R. Coell and Associates, an appraisal firm from Victoria, looked at six property sales in the area and calculated a price per square foot. They used the median price of $55 per square foot to value the 10,225 square feet (950 square metres) of land involved in the swap at $560,000.
The appraisers didn’t have any previous sales of sub-surface airspace in or around Gibsons to work with, so they used something known in the industry as the Schmutz Formula, which is commonly used in major cities like Vancouver. It assigns a value based on distance below the surface and value of the surface lot.
In this case it worked out to 11 per cent of $560,000, or $61,600.
Notifications of the proposed road closure will now be published, and people will be offered the chance to comment at an upcoming council meeting.
A group of residents, led by Marcia Timbres, filed for a court injunction last March to try to stop the road closure and land swap, alleging the Town was not following proper procedures. That application remains before the courts.
The George project still requires development permits covering geotechnical, environmental concerns and remediation, and protection of the aquifer.
