A major seniors housing and assisted living project proposed for Sechelt has been cancelled.
Wesbrooke by the Sea was first put forward in late 2015 as a joint project between Clayton Family Lands and Wesbrooke, a Lower Mainland firm.
The latest update to the district’s Development Action Chart presented at the March 28 planning and community development committee meeting shows the application to build Wesbrooke at Trail Bay Estates was withdrawn in January.
There was little comment from councillors on the committee, but in response to a question from Coun. Darnelda Siegers, director of planning Tracy Corbett said her department had been advised an application for single-family homes would be coming forward to replace the Wesbrooke project. “We’ve had discussions,” Corbett said. “But they haven’t actually formally submitted an application.”
Tom Christoff of Trail Bay Estates, who’d been managing the Wesbrooke project for the Clayton companies, confirmed to Coast Reporter that the land will now be included in the single-family home neighbourhoods already planned for that area.
Christoff said the combination of the time it was taking to get final approvals and changes in the cost and financing estimates prompted Wesbrooke, which already has a senior living project on the Lower Mainland, to decide it no longer wanted to pursue the Sechelt location.
“It’s unfortunate we won’t get a chance for this facility,” he said. “Everyone tried their best, but we just ran out of time.”
The cancellation comes as the district is getting ready to schedule a public hearing on the Spectrum of Care OCP amendments after they were given first reading at the March 7 council meeting.
The changes would create definitions and preferred locations for so-called Spectrum of Care activities such as long-term care, home care and assisted living.
When the amendments were first proposed there were three major projects that could have fit within the Spectrum of Care.
The other two projects, Trellis Seniors Services’ Silverstone Care Centre on Derby Road and the Spani Developments project, Rockwood Ocean Stories, are both still on the books. The Spani project is listed as “waiting on applicant to fulfill the conditions of adoption” after getting through third reading.
Corbett said despite Trellis’s decision to pursue first an alternate site in Gibsons and now one on shíshálh Nation lands, the company has chosen to keep its zoning and OCP amendment applications open. She also said it’s not uncommon for a developer to “keep an option open” as a risk management strategy.
“All those questions speak to the need for the cost that we charge to developers to deal with these to reflect the true costs of that service,” Coun. Noel Muller, the committee chair, said. “We’ve had a bunch of major applications come through, take a tremendous amount of time, and not go ahead and that has nothing to do with anything that happened around the council table.”
