A public hearing on the future of a stretch of prime waterfront space in Steveston attracted a large crowd including 21 speakers at Richmond City Hall Monday night.
“It’s probably one of most valuable properties on the west coast of North America. We don’t have the opportunity to get this wrong,” said Richmond city councillor Carol Day.
Developer Onni Group owns six buildings, from 4020 to 4300 Bayview Street on Steveston’s famous boardwalk. The 60,000 square feet of commercial space in the Imperial Landing project was completed in 2013 but has sat empty since due to a stalemate.
The vacant storefronts are only zoned for marine based businesses – part of the deal when Onni’s development proposal was approved by Richmond city council.
Multiple attempts by Onni to rezone to regular retail have been rejected. Onni’s latest proposal for the site involves amending “maritime mixed use” by adding a range of commercial uses including a 32-room hotel, retail and office space.
“The hotel option is a good solution. It actually adds to the village rather than competes with it,” said Steveston Merchants Association member Sean Lawson.
While long term Richmond city councillor Harold Steves has no problems with a hotel, he believes it should come with a marina.
“The original plan for the Onni site was maritime mixed use, which they built, and a marina out front, which the city was going to build, and we’re not getting that,” he said.
Ted Townsend with the City of Richmond said negotiating the future of the Onni site “has been a contentious process for a lot of years.”
Onni and the city of Richmond are deadlocked with the sticking point being how much the land value would increase with the proposed rezoning.
According to Onni’s estimates, the landlift would be $4,100,000 while the city’s consultant pegs it at $5,500,000. Using a mid-point value increase of $4,750,000, Onni is offering half of that, or $2,375,000, as a community amenity contribution to the city.
Day and Steves believe the cash contribution should be 100 per cent of the landlift.
“Fair is fair and they shouldn’t get a 50 per cent discount because they’re Onni,” said Day.
“I’ve never seen a developer play hardball like this one before,” added Steves.
“We’re being bullied into accepting something that we’ve never done before. We’ve never accepted just a very small percentage of the uplift in a rezoning like this before.”
Richmond has no set policy to guide evaluation of this type of situation where additional land uses are proposed in existing buildings with no density increase. Where there is an increase in density, the city looks to receive as close to 100 per cent of the landlift value before development.
In an email, Onni Group executive vice-president Chris Evans said the company’s offer is in line with other major Metro Vancouver municipalities, which “tend to seek a share in the range of 50 per cent to 75 per cent.”
Evans also said Onni Group thinks “it is reasonable to allocate 50 per cent of the estimated increase in property value toward an amenity contribution such that both parties benefit equally.”
The community amenity contribution amount was a hot topic at the public hearing, where during discussion, Townsend said Onni offered to raise it by $1,000,000 to $3,375,000.
With some councillors still expressing reservations, council voted 5-3 to defer the decision until the next public hearing on Nov. 20, to “allow time for further analysis and discussion with Onni regarding the amount of the Community Amenity Contribution and its correlation to the added value that the developer would gain from the rezoning,” said Townsend.
City councillors Linda McPhail, Steves and Day voted against the deferral – instead supporting a referral which would have sent Onni’s proposal back for review.
Prior to Monday’s hearing, Onni remained confident that the public would be on board with their latest plans for the seaside site.
“Throughout the fall we have engaged in a further round of public consultation that has demonstrated to us that the majority feels that this application should be approved,” said Evans.
Comments