Four hundred and sixty people turned out to a public meeting at the Westbank Lions Community Centre in West Kelowna to speak out about a proposed development.
It’s called Blackmun Bay, a large development proposed for a roughly seven hectare parcel of land in West Kelowna’s Casa Loma area.
“Because of its unique location, and because of the kind of visibility of that development, we want it to be something we can be incredibly proud of,” said Robert Moskovitz, vice-president of development and operations at Landstar Development Corporation.
The Calgary-based company is proposing to build four, nine-storey structures on a hillside above Campbell Road, overlooking Okanagan Lake.
The development calls for 360 condo units, 60 townhouses and roughly 100 hotel rooms.
The development proposal will be front and centre at what’s expected to be a very large, possibly heated public hearing Wednesday night.
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That’s becasue many area residents are vehemently opposed to the project based on its size.
“It’s just too big,” said Ryan Holt, president of the Casa Loma Community Association. “The size and the scale and the density and the location is the issue.”
Opponents argue infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems, are insufficient to accommodate neighbourhood expansion of this scale.
“If there are 800 residents here now, there’s 500-plus units going in. I guess that would be basically the entire community doubled again,” Holt said.
Holt said one of the biggest concerns is the additional traffic that would be placed on the one access road leading in and out of the area.
“In order to escape a fire, or if an ambulance is needed, there’s only one way out,” Holt said. “There’s also a bridge, which is a known congestion point, so a lot of concerns there.”
The plans also include a 200-plus slip marina, below the hillside, on the other side of Campbell Road.
That, too, has some residents concerned.
“The 240-slip marina proposed in front of the agricultural land reserve, the concern is the proximity to our drinking water supply, which is a pipeline that’s under the lake right next to this,” Holt said.
“We don’t have any flitration on it and if toxins or chemcials were to get into the pipeline, that could put people at risk.”
But Moskovitz said the company has done many studies and submitted reports that show those concerns will be mitigated.
“We are not coming in to basically impose something on the community,” he said. “We are coming because we want to be there for the long term. So we want a development that, at the end, everybody is going to be happy with.”
Original plans called for the four buildings to be 15 storeys high, but the developer has since scaled that back to nine storeys.
Moskovitz said that shows the company has listened to the community but in order to proceed with the project, it has to make economic sense.
“We believe we now have reached that tipping point, that kind of balancing point between having an economically feasible development and a development that has taken into concern a lot of the issues, and the concerns that have been expressed to us,” he said.
Moskovitz also pointed out the huge economical benefits for the entire community that go along with a project of this scope, from construction jobs to property taxes after completion.
In order for the project to go ahead, council would have to do a zoning change and a revision to its official community plan.
Council is not expected to make a decision until a later date.
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