The proponents behind a major development on the shores of Sechelt Inlet have told the district they hope to get to a public hearing as early as mid-March.
Sechelt council’s planning and community development committee heard an update from SSC Properties at its Jan. 27 meeting. It was one of two significant projects on the agenda. The other was the proposal for a seniors’ living complex and single-family lots on the Clayton family lands near downtown.
Mark Sager of SSC outlined the company’s revised plan for the 170-hectare (420-acre) waterfront property, which he described as “a collection of unique neighbourhoods, which we believe reflect the best of Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast.”
Those neighbourhoods would include one SSC calls Ocean Walk Quay on the waterfront. Sager said they’re hoping to recreate the feel of Ganges on Salt Spring Island. In the areas upland of that, SSC is looking at several types of housing, including live-work units for artisans, larger estate properties and agricultural land.
Sager said agricultural land might be suited to a “single use,” such as a winery.
It would all require Official Com-munity Plan and zoning amendments.
SSC’s Werner Hofstatter told the committee that with the refinements they’ve made to their plan, and the work done using a new screening tool to assess how the proposal meets Sechelt’s sustainability goals, the developers are ready for the next step.
“Most of this is based upon about a year and a half now of public consultation, public input, surveys, door-to-door research, workshops, all kinds of information sessions,” he said. “We want to get to the public hearing stage, because we want to make sure we’ve heard the community properly and we’re really looking forward to that feedback.”
The committee did not make any recommendations on SSC’s suggested timeline, which asked for first reading of the necessary bylaw amendments at the Feb. 17 council meeting, and a public hearing in the second week of March.
The committee did, however, make several recommendations around drafting OCP and zoning amendments for the Clayton lands development. The most significant was to have planning staff begin a parkland exchange process to swap a 0.12-hectare section of the existing Clayton Park for a similar sized plot of land northeast of the park beside Clayton Avenue.
Municipal planner Angela Letman told the committee that this is the first time Sechelt has considered a parkland exchange, although there is a provision in the Community Charter that allows it. She also noted that the whole development, as proposed, hinges on the exchange.
Coun. Noel Muller highlighted the importance of parks, greenspace and preserving trees or replanting.
“For me I like what I see in this development – it’s a good quality building in a good location. My concern with these multi-unit [developments] when they come forward is that we provide for adequate park space,” he told the committee. He added that it’s especially important given the other development in the area. “We keep adding density to that area and we need to take into account that it’s a future neighbourhood, with kids, and it’s going to lose the feel of what the Sunshine Coast is.”
Other recommendations from the committee included a reduction in building heights to 14.5 metres (four storeys).
One proposal was rejected by the committee – having planning staff “include in the upcoming Bylaw 530 public consultation, the ability for a single-family residential lot to have up to 35 per cent lot coverage of buildings and structures and up to an additional five per cent lot coverage for unenclosed decks, balconies and porches, on lots over 15 per cent grade.” The Clayton lands are very steep in some areas, and the developers are hoping to see some of those changes applied to the single-family lots.
Coun. Darnelda Siegers said that idea is worth looking at, but needs to be separate from the development proposal.
“I would like to hear what the community has to say about this,” she said. “We’re redoing the whole bylaw, so if this is something that’s coming up in one area, I’m sure it’s a conversation in others, and we’d be selling our community short if we didn’t have that conversation with them.”
The recommendations on the Clayton lands development were expected to go to a vote of full council at its Feb. 3 meeting.
