Editor:
Re: “Eagleview Heights wins final approval,” June 22.
The Eagleview Heights bylaw amendment was adopted at the June 19 Gibsons council meeting despite opposition from over two-thirds of the residents of Gibsons who either spoke or wrote to council on this matter.
Our community steadfastly maintained support for a responsible multi-family development that integrated with the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, that’s not what council approved.
Councillors ignored a critical portion of the Town’s Official Community Plan (OCP) bylaw that limits density and instead voted to adopt the most aggressive interpretation possible to maximize the density of the development, approving 87 dwellings instead of the maximum 48 permitted in the OCP.
A compromise alternative we formally proposed to council and the developer was to reduce the number of multi-family units from 87 to 64, a much more appropriate number for the neighbourhood. This “thoughtful density” alternative was not considered or even acknowledged.
The OCP bylaw (9.2.7) clearly states that the Town shall cooperate with nearby residents in planning or zoning approvals. This law was ignored despite repeated requests for meaningful consultation from our community.
At the public hearing regarding the zoning bylaw amendment, over 70 per cent of Gibsons residents who responded beseeched council to deny the application in favour of a more modest multi-family proposal.
Council chose to put the developer first and then justified their decision by suggesting they did so as an alternative to a single-family home development. Other reasonable options were available. There is a vast difference in impact between the density of a single-family development and the extreme apartment building densification that Council authorized.
Our OCP (9.2) directs that “development within and adjacent to existing neighbourhoods should be sensitive to the scale, density, and form and character of existing dwelling units.” Council approved a development that fails to meet that standard.
William Baker, Director, O’Shea/Oceanmount Community Association
