The 10 municipal candidates in Gibsons staked out their positions on the height of the George Hotel and Residences before an overflow crowd at the Oct. 30 all-candidates meeting in the Gibsons and Area Community Centre.
For the first time, incumbent mayor Wayne Rowe said the George’s height would be subject to negotiation if pending staff reports conclude the project is feasible and council votes to proceed with the application.
“Certainly I’ve heard the concerns about the height and that’s one of the things that would have to be discussed with the developer,” Rowe said in response to a written question from the audience. “But it still has to make sense for the project as well. So we need to balance those two concerns.”
Challenging Rowe for the mayor’s chair, Suzanne Senger advocated strict adherence to the Town’s official community plan (OCP), claiming the George, at 125 feet (37.5 metres) above sea level, was three and a half times higher than what the plan allows and would be “selling out our town.”
“We can’t continue having a conversation about something that is 125 feet tall. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t respect what we have all agreed on,” Senger said.
In its current design, the George is comprised of two terraced buildings at Gower Point and Winn roads, with the hotel rising eight storeys (36 metres or 124 feet at the highest point) on the waterfront side and six storeys (25.5 metres or 85 feet at the highest point) above Gower Point Road. One storey lower, the condo block measures 30 metres (100 feet) at its highest point on the waterfront side and 19 metres (63 feet) at its highest point above Gower Point Road.
Among the eight candidates for council, four followed Senger in calling for a significant reduction in height on the basis of the OCP.
Saying the project was in profound conflict with the OCP, incumbent councillor Lee Ann Johnson said a hotel and condo block were appropriate land uses along the waterfront, but insisted the buildings “comply with the Town’s height limit” of 35 feet (10.5 metres).
“The development of taller buildings and greater density in Upper Gibsons makes sense,” Johnson said. “Not on the waterfront.”
Setting four storeys as the maximum height, Katie Janyk said the form and character of the current proposal is not acceptable.
“I think a hotel in the harbour area is a really good idea, but give it to me at four storeys and I’ll be prepared to look at all of the other things we need to consider,” she said.
Incumbent Dan Bouman said he might go up to five storeys but was opposed to giving the developer public land or the Town’s water lease in front of Winegarden Park.
“I think it’s too high, but if it gets off public land, off our water lease, and is brought down to four or five storeys, I’m perfectly willing to consider it carefully,” Bouman said.
Former mayor Barry Janyk suggested the building could in effect be laid on its side and redesigned as a horizontal rather than vertical structure.
“My attitude toward it is, if it’s 98 feet tall, why can’t it be 98 feet across? So it’s a matter of configuration,” he said. He also said 98 feet was “over the top as far as the official community plan is concerned.”
By contrast, the other four council candidates echoed Rowe’s call for negotiating and finding a balance so the project can succeed, without committing to an acceptable height before all the information is in.
When asked by an audience member if, as a starting point in negotiations, the candidates considered the project “too tall, just about right or too short,” incumbent Charlene SanJenko said she hoped the George “would be only as high as it absolutely needed to be,” adding there were “lots of different ways a vision can come to fruition, but we need to be open to those negotiations.”
SanJenko acknowledged the George was the number one question people asked about when she went door to door.
Jeremy Valeriote said he had concerns about the project’s height and that form and height should be the starting point for negotiations.
“Let’s find a solution,” he said. “Not just, is it too tall? But is it the right form? Is it the kind of building that two years from now everybody will believe has always been there, or will it stick out like a sore thumb?”
Silas White, having said he fully supported “making the George work,” agreed that “height was one of the major concerns out there” and for many people the George was too tall.
“For me personally, I live a block away from the proposal and it will be in my view, so from that perspective I’d like to see it as low as possible,” White said. “From the perspective of what’s best for the community, we really do need to negotiate in good faith and listen to what people are telling us and work on all the benefits and costs while involved in negotiation.”
Stafford Lumley got a laugh from the audience with his initial response to the multiple-choice question: “I want to say too short, but I was told not to joke around up here.”
Saying the George is only “a drawing” at this stage, Lumley called for a non-confrontational approach: “Let’s see it play out … let’s go through the process. I don’t want to fight about it. I don’t want to have heated debates about it. Let’s get to that point then we can negotiate.”
Unlike questions supplied to candidates in advance by the Gibsons and District Chamber of Commerce, which organized the event, the George questions came from the floor and the answers were spontaneous. Moderator Sean Eckford, news director for 91.7 Coast FM, described the number of written questions on the George as “overwhelming.”
