The people behind a proposed mobile home park and subdivision in Elphinstone are questioning a Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) policy that added development cost charges (DCCs) to mobile home parks and a planning department request for a $15,000 line of credit to help pay for a pedestrian bridge across the Chaster Creek ravine.
The project has been on the books since 2007, when it was presented as a 60-pad mobile home park with a 19-lot strata subdivision covering about 11 hectares (27 acres) bordering Chaster Creek.
That was when the developer was first asked for the irrevocable line of credit, or cash contribution for the bridge.
A rezoning was approved in 2009, but the project never went ahead.
Earlier this year the developer submitted a new application, with a handful of additional mobile home spaces and a few other changes including a larger park dedication, which SCRD planning staff said “complies with the spirit of the original plan.”
Larry Penonzek spoke on behalf of the developer at the Dec. 8 meeting of the planning and community development committee, where directors were considering whether to go forward with a new zoning amendment.
He raised two key issues. One was the impact of a change in the SCRD’s policy on development cost charges. The other was the bridge money.
“We thought we were doing affordable housing,” Penonzek told the committee. “Development cost charges have added $220,000 to this project. We already feel that we’re on an unlevel playing field with things like RV parks, which do not have development cost charges … or whether expansions of existing mobile home parks will be paying a DCC charge like we’re having to.” He also said mobile home pads don’t put as much strain on regional district resources as other types of development.
On the bridge idea, Penonzek said it appears impractical, so there’s no point in having the developer put up money for it.
Lorne Lewis, the director for Elphinstone, said the local Advisory Planning Commission agreed that the line of credit for the bridge is no longer needed. “There is no place to put a bridge without doing serious geological damage to one side [of the ravine] or the other.”
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell, however, argued for keeping the bridge idea alive and having the developer contribute. He said it could one day be a key link in an alternate pedestrian or cycle route between Roberts Creek and Gibsons that bypasses the highway.
In the end the committee voted to recommend moving the zoning amendments forward – without the line of credit for the bridge – to first reading and referral to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Squamish Nation for comment.
