An official community plan (OCP) amendment for SSC Properties Ltd. in East Porpoise Bay will go to a public hearing on Tuesday, May 26 after council gave first reading to the bylaw last week.
The OCP amendment adds a new definition of mixed residential and commercial and sets a base density of 1,000 residential units and maximum of 1,400. It would lead to a rezoning application for the former Silverback property, removing the golf course designation and reducing the density from the currently allowed 1,600 residential units.
Before voting to give the bylaw first reading, council agreed to remove a provision that would have included the 162-hectare property within the District’s urban containment boundary.
Mayor Bruce Milne recommended the deletion, saying his understanding was the project could move forward without the boundary adjustment.
“I strongly feel that it’s inappropriate to take the strongest guidelines we have in the official community plan and amend them in any casual fashion,” Milne said. “OCPs are put together with thousands of hours of work from the community and they provide guidelines for investment for everybody.”
Adding such a large property to the containment area would deflate the value of investment properties and other lands already within the boundary and would be “a gift” to newly included properties, he said.
As of 2010, he added, the properties within the urban containment boundary provided more than 20 years’ supply of residential land.
“Clearly there’s no need to put more property inside the urban containment boundary.”
Coun. Darnelda Siegers asked what the impact would be on sewer service to the area.
Milne said the District would proceed with its priorities of extending services to parts of Selma Park and West Sechelt.
“To add new property into the urban containment boundary actually shifts those priorities on the basis of new development,” he said.
“They want to be a sustainable community, so I’m sure they can find ways to do all that onsite.”
Contacted Tuesday, SSC’s Werner Hofstatter said the company was pleased with council’s decision to move the OCP amendment to a public hearing.
The urban containment boundary issue can be revisited, he said, when SSC develops a concept plan and applies for rezoning.
“We’ll cross that bridge later on. With modern technology, there’s a lot of choices.”
Following council’s vote on the OCP amendment, Milne asked councillors to raise their hands if they had met one-on-one with a representative of SSC Properties, and all six raised their hands.
Saying it was an issue of best practices and relevant in the wake of the Auditor General for Local Government’s (AGLG) report, Milne advised councillors to report on meetings with developers in their councillor reports and attempt to have a staff member present for those meetings.
“Certainly I don’t think that there’s a single councillor here who wasn’t just trying to get information,” he said, but added: “We want to be not only above reproach, but to be seen as above reproach.”
