Gibsons council’s planning and development committee is recommending approval of the development permit for a live-work project on Venture Way.
The committee reviewed the form and character proposal for the Shazach Holdings property at its Sept. 8 meeting.
The company had already secured a development permit for a single building on the west side of the property in 2018, but decided against a phased approach to the project and resubmitted an application for the full project.
The new proposal calls for three live-work units to be built as two-storey townhouses fronting on Venture Way, 11 commercial retail units fronting on an internal road and central plaza, 54 rental apartments in two buildings and a third building that will be separated so it can be used for light industrial activity that requires a higher fire rating, such as a distillery.
The plan calls for residential parking to be underground, with surface parking set aside for the businesses.
Committee members said they were generally impressed with the proposal, although some commented that the proposed design was “a little too busy” because of the use of different types of cladding and colours to make the building look less massive, but they didn’t see it as a reason not to approve the form and character.
Mayor Bill Beamish raised a concern about traffic.
The project is being built beside Gibsons Recycling Depot, which is on a neighbouring property also owned by Shazach and that the company recently added a building to.
“Going in and out of the recycling depot, the traffic is significant,” Beamish said. “They line up on the frontage road [for the new building]. There’s a lot of traffic that will go on and off this site and the next-door site.”
Julian Burtnick of Shazach Holdings acknowledged the high traffic volume, but said it was a consequence of Gibsons Recycling Depot having to limit the number of vehicles on site at a given time because of COVID restrictions.
“Hopefully when that loosens up it will ease some of the that,” Burtnick said. “Having two access roads will help as well.”
The committee unanimously recommended that council approve the development permit.
