Massive seniors development gets okay
Some Cumberland council members have concerns

Marcel Tetrault
Comox Valley Echo

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Cumberland council has given the Bell Group the go ahead to move forward with a 2,400-unit residential and commercial seniors' village on the Bevan lands, a former industrial site.

The decision comes despite recommendations from the regional growth strategy intergovernmental review panel's steering committee that the rezoning request be deferred.

Coun. Gwyn Sproule voted against supporting the request, noting that the seniors' village will concentrate both residents and businesses away from the village's existing downtown core.

"I really would like to see something on this site, there's no doubt that it is a mess," said Sproule. "But I do not see how this development will benefit the citizens of Cumberland."

She was joined by new councillor Kate Greening, who cited concerns with the engineering reports so far submitted by the developer as well as concerns about the village's expanding residential containment boundary.

But Mayor Fred Bates and councillors Leslie Baird and Bronco Moncrief were all in support of the project moving forward.

Moncrief said the developer had negotiated with the village in good faith and that they have "given more than they've taken."

"There are communities that would give their right arms to get some kind of development in these particular economic times," said Moncrief. "I think we'd be fools if we don't support it."

Bates agreed with that point and noted that the use, housing for seniors, is something that is sorely needed not just in Cumberland but right across the Valley.

The steering committee had recommended that council pass the official community plan amendment needed for the project to move forward, but that the village request a phased zoning plan from the developer and approve the rezoning requests in stages.

They also recommended that the village ask the developer to demonstrate connectivity to support the existing village core, that a mechanism be established to fund the connection to village services like sewer and water when appropriate and that a local service area be established for the development -- the developer has proposed standalone water and sewer systems.

None of those recommendations were acted on at the council table, raising further concerns with Greening.

"We keep hearing at the table that we're supposed to be also checking with the regional growth strategy," she said. "The first time we have a chance to have the regional growth strategy involved it is being ignored."

Bates said the advice was not being ignored, but that council is under no obligation to follow the advice.

The 100-hectare development would include 14 six-storey apartment buildings, two four-storey intermediate/complex care buildings with 400 units, townhomes, patio homes, a six-storey condo hotel as well as professional and commercial buildings and a nine-hole golf course.

The developer has agreed to pay the village a $3 million public amenity in exchange for granting their rezoning requests. A substantial portion of the site will also be set aside as greenspace.


© Comox Valley Echo 2009