麻豆社国产council has knocked back a 29-unit townhouse development proposed for Dentville.
At their regular council meeting on March 4, councillors were narrowly split on whether to support a second and third reading of a rezoning application for 38779 and 38795 Britannia Ave.
With four votes to three, council defeated the proposed rezoning for the development due to parking issues and concerns over lack of housing diversity.
The proposal
District community development planner Aja Philp told council that the application was given its first reading on Oct. 15, 2024 and has since modified a few components.
The three-bedroom townhouse units were given a form and character revision from “a modern approach to a more traditional design with colours and materials reflective of the neighbourhood.”
Visitor parking increased from two spaces to three spaces, and the garage door vertical opening height was increased to allow taller vehicles to fit inside the garages.
Lastly, the interior side setback was increased from two metres to three metres “to pull the southern end units slightly further back from the neighboring property.”
She also noted that a parking reduction was required by council.
“Residential parking is proposed within side-by-side garages, so two spaces per unit. Three visitor parking spaces are proposed, and this does not meet the minimum zoning bylaw requirement of eight visitor spaces; a visitor parking reduction is supported by staff,” Philp said.
“Dentville is served by transit and is located about a kilometre away from downtown Squamish. The site has three road frontages that are also available for on-street parking.”
Two development drop-in open houses were held to do further community engagement on the rezoning. The first was at Howe Sound Secondary School on Jan. 30 and the second was held virtually on Feb. 5, and both gave residents one week's notice of the events.
Philp noted that public comments received at and following the open house “criticized the notification channels and the short notification timing.”
At the Jan. 30 public hearing, residents told The 麻豆社国产 they were concerned that the development was “a massive footprint” to add to the Dentville community, additional traffic will cause safety issues for children who currently play on the quiet streets, and the architectural design did not fit with the current neighbourhood character.
The rezoning application would also trigger the District’s community amenity contribution (CAC) policy and, as such, the applicant proposed $1,107,887 of cash in lieu for critical amenities, as well as in-kind transportation infrastructure improvements.
These included upgrading the five-way intersection located at the northwest corner of the site to install a traffic circle and build out the five corners around the traffic circle, as well as a sidewalk along Madill Street from the development site to Buckley Avenue.
The rezoning application sought to rezone the properties from Residential 1 to Comprehensive Development Zone No. 116.
Council comments
Councillors in favour of the development were Andrew Hamilton, John French and Mayor Armand Hurford.
“First, I'd like to thank all the residents of Dentville who have communicated very clearly with us how challenging this development is for them. As a community, we are growing, and we have a choice of growing out or growing up,” Coun. Hamilton said.
“This council and previous councils have made a very clear, and I think wise decision to densify before sprawling. This is exactly the hard conversation that we need to have when we make that choice to densify. And I think it's the right choice, because I would rather have five new neighbours than live five more blocks from a green space.”
Hamilton said he believed the developer had responded to form and character concerns raised by the neighbourhood.
Hurford echoed similar sentiments and added that he was concerned a future development application for the properties could see a higher density project proposed.
“The province has moved the bar for what the lowest allowable density is, and it's hard to wrap our minds around what the impact of that is.
“The zoning that we're comparing against here is the new baseline. So a sub-area plan or a neighbourhood plan of this area ... is likely to result in something that is a step or two further from what we're looking at here.
“So I think that, although it's an important exercise for many reasons, the actual building form, I think, is likely to evolve in the other direction. I think there could be rationale to support something more dense.”
On the matter of the visitor parking and tree reduction, Hurford said he was willing to allow the variance if it meant enhancing the green space of the area and tree protection.
“Given the scale of this, I'm happy to accept that with the additional parking from what we would see; the protection of the significant trees in that group, and that strata park space that will be created, as well as the substantial commitment to improve frontage is on three fronts and beyond as part of this,” he said.
Coun. French reluctantly supported the proposal on the premise that when the application returns again, it would include important missing details.
“In supporting the resolution in front of us, I want to call on this developer to understand the high bar that we have here in Squamish. There are some things in this package that concern me. The 3D images omit a few key details; the mailbox and the bike storage structure … along with an accurate depiction of the trees that are being preserved beside Garibaldi Avenue are missing from those images,” he said.
“I would expect that important details like these, we'll see a higher bar when this comes back for further approvals. If we don't, I'm prepared to not support a development permit for this project.”
Against the development were councillors Chris Pettingill, Jenna Stoner, Lauren Greenlaw and Eric Andersen.
Coun. Pettingill said he was against the proposal due to the lack of green space and visitor parking.
“This isn't actually the resolution I was expecting, and I'm struggling with this a bit. I think we do need to make more efficient use of our land, for transit, for walkability, all the sort of good things we know that can come about,” he said.
“There is some discomfort about living closer together, and I think sufficient green space, and not just sort of a net total somewhere else, but in and amongst some of the building forms we're doing is really critical to make it livable and acceptable and enjoyable. And for me ... when I see it sort of conceptually and what it might result in, I'm actually quite uncomfortable.
“I see a lot of just contiguous cement and sidewalk and paving and building and very little green.”
He also said he would “prefer to see less parking” offered to residents.
“The issue is when we've built up an expectation that people with three cars should or could move into buildings with one car. And I think that's the tension point we need to address, and that by sort of piling in two cars or three cars per unit, we're actually making the parking and traffic problems worse for everyone, not better,” he said.
Coun. Stoner also noted that she thought too much parking was offered per unit.
“If we're talking about it being close to amenities, then why are we providing two parking spaces for each of the residents, but not enough visitor parking, which are the folks who would typically be reaching our community by vehicle, because we don't have regional transit,” she said.
“Hopefully the folks who are living there on their day-to-day would be able to actually just live with one car as opposed to two or three.”
Stoner also said that she believed the housing diversification also fell short with the application and that the units were a “cookie cutter” style.
“We know that housing is a critical need within our community, but to me, this falls short on a number of different perspectives in terms of delivering on the housing that we know we need in the community,” she said.
“If this was presented as market rental or achieving some of the other areas of housing that we know we really need in the community, I would perhaps be a little bit more sympathetic to where we've landed.”
Councillor Greenlaw and Andersen both echoed their colleagues' opinions on what they believed were the downfalls of the proposal.
“I worry about our assumptions and the implications of making a mistake with this sub-optimal plan. What will be the impacts on these streets, and their livability, their safety for pedestrians,” Andersen said.
The future
District manager of communications, Rachel Boguski said that by council defeating the proposed zoning amendment, the process of consideration of the current development application has “concluded.”
The developers have a few options if they opt to move forward with a development on this site.
“The property owner could choose a number of options going forward including working within the existing zoning on the property, or reapplying with the same proposal after Sept. 4, 2025,” Boguski told The 麻豆社国产.
“They could also come back sooner with a substantially different development proposal.”
