Wesbild, the company that owns the Gibsons Park Plaza, is working on plans for developing land it owns beside the mall, where a Walmart was to have been built in 2007.
The company has long since abandoned the idea of Walmart, and the latest concept calls for a mix of industrial, retail and residential.
Wesbild’s Tamra Groh walked Gibsons councillors through the plan at a July 11 committee meeting.
The Town’s Official Community Plan envisions the lots at 1118 and 1150 Gibsons Way as a mix of industrial and commercial. Groh said the current tenant is a boat-builder, which she described as a good fit, but added that at two hectares (five acres) the land has a lot of other potential uses.
Groh said Wesbild’s team looked at, and rejected, the idea of staying with strictly industrial and commercial.
“We thought taking the whole back portion as an industrial use would not be feasible, and to put that whole site into commercial-industrial is probably not the best use of that site,” she said, explaining that Wesbild then started looking at ways to incorporate some residential units.
“We started thinking about some residential and having a combination where we create a kind of village … that can coexist and take advantage of a really beautiful piece of property.”
Groh said, however, that residential would only work if it’s ground level and not living units above commercial or industrial space, which is what the current zoning would allow.
“People don’t move to Gibsons to live in apartments or condos on top of commercial,” she said. “We want to create a livable community that’s walkable and has some open amenities and has everything integrated.”
Earlier this year, Gibsons council rejected the idea of allowing a property on Venture Way to be taken out of the industrial zone and used for housing because industrial land is scarce.
In his report for council, director of planning Andre Boel said, “The idea was that these lands would be needed for industrial development in the future. For commercial lands, staff feels the situation is different. There is significant larger supply of commercially designated lands when compared with industrial lands.
“Most of the commercial sites are located along Gibsons Way, including vacant lands and what can be considered under-utilized lands. Despite this generous supply, the creation of the desired Town Centre along Gibsons Way has been progressing at a gradual pace. This seems to support the argument from Wesbild that even though demand for commercial land will grow, growth is slow and there is a limited market at present for large commercial expansions.”
Coun. Charlene San Jenko said she’s willing to embrace the Wesbild concept. “I like the idea that it could be a village and add to what’s going on up there [in upper Gibsons] already. I would definitely be interested in exploring it further.”
The committee voted to leave the door open for a future development application based on the mixed use for the property. It’s not clear when that application might come forward, but Mayor Wayne Rowe urged Wesbild to get the public involved early.
“I would strongly encourage early public engagement in terms of what you’re looking at,” Rowe said, “because we’ve certainly found that if we don’t get it out there early, we end up with a lot of issues that don’t need to be issues, necessarily. I’d certainly encourage an ongoing dialogue.”
