The public information session for the proposed George Hotel and Residences project on Sept. 24 attracted more than just interested residents.
Town of Gibsons staff and development experts were joined by the Gibsons Waterfront Defense Association (GWDA) who shared conflicting information on the hotel project.
The GWDA booked a room directly across the hall from the Elphinstone Secondary gymnasium where the public info session was taking place. Members of the GWDA wore blue T-shirts and name tags and provided their take on the hotel project for Town residents who had come to learn more about the George.
Gibsons chief corporate officer Selina Williams said Town staff had not expected this. “When we arrived we saw there was a group setting up in there,” Williams said. “They appeared to be very organized. Once we opened our room for the public and people started milling through, they came over and were posing as subject matter experts.”
The info session was attended by 125 people who signed in, and an unknown number of people who did not sign in for the GWDA’s information room. People mingled back and forth between both rooms.
The blue shirts and name tags did confuse some of the attendees at the info session. One resident, William Baker, wrote to Coast Reporter after the event to express his confusion (see letters, page 9).
“I was approached by someone whom I thought was a blue T-shirted representative,” Baker wrote. “It soon became obvious that this person was there to lobby me with their own anti-George agenda.”
One blue T-shirted member of the GWDA, Marcia Timbres, said their intention was not to confuse people, but to provide a different angle on the information being presented.
“We just wanted to offer an alternative opinion to the promotion in the gym,” Timbres said. “We’ve been doing this down in the village all summer, with our displays. We wanted to get another audience here as well.”
Staff requested that the GWDA members remove their name tags to prevent further confusion, but this request was refused.
“No one wants to cause any waves, we put our name tags on because we want to be separate from the Town staff and the developer’s people,” Timbres said. “We’re very proud of what we’re standing for here.”
A compromise was reached eventually.
“Considering that they are residents of our community, we thought, OK,” Williams said. “If they’re comfortable doing that then they can do that.”
The rest of the information session continued as planned with representatives from Omicron Architecture – who have been working on designs for the George – and Horizon Engineering – who conducted an independent risk assessment of the aquifer in regards to the George project.
George proponent Art Phillips was also answering questions at the info session.
“We’ve had a lot of differing views. The blue-shirts are the opposition, but we’ve also had a lot of strong supporters,” Phillips said. “We’ve had a lot of younger couples in here talking about the need for jobs and how they’re supportive.”
Lori Kessler Gretl, an architect for Omicron, said most of the questions she had been asked were in regards to the height of the George.
“There were concerns about whether or not the overall height of the building has been increased,” Gretl said. “We’ve actually decreased the overall building massing by decreasing the floor-to-floor heights. We’ve also raised the parkade so it does not constrict with the aquifer conditions.”
Karim Karimzadegan, the senior geotechnical engineer for Horizon Engineering, said the majority of concerns he heard were in regards to aquifer protection.
“In the last two or three years, we’ve done a significant amount of work in terms of investigation analysis to come up with the conclusion that there is no impact. The conclusion comes with the safety factors associated with it,” Karimzadegan said. “It means that if we go to this level or we make these changes to the building, there is no impact on the aquifer.”
Karimzadegan also clarified that Horizon’s role in the project is not as proponents of the hotel, but as geotechnical engineers who have been hired to ensure that no damage is done to the aquifer.
“People are asking me whether this is a good project, or not. For us this is a project which, if it goes ahead, we are a part of. For the geotechnical component we just have to make sure that there is no problem,” Karimzadegan said. “We are working on that part of it, but we are not promoting the project to be four storeys or five storeys. If the project goes ahead, we need to make sure there is no geotechnical problem, and this is what we are going to do.”
The George project is currently awaiting third reading by Town council. It was set to go to public hearing on Thursday, Oct. 1. After third reading, the project will need to receive fourth reading and final approval.
