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RMOW waits for Rainbow’s information

Developer reiterates promise of Christmas, 2007 occupancy
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Project manager Bill Hayes at Rainbow site. Photo by Alison Taylor

By Alison Taylor

The municipality is concerned about the aggressive timeline set by Rainbow’s developers who have promised to deliver resident housing by Christmas next year.

Mayor Ken Melamed said this week that they are still waiting for critical information from the developer before the municipality can move the project along in the rezoning process. That delay, he said, is cause for concern.

“Council’s concerned on behalf of the community who are waiting in anticipation from this product to come on the market,” said the mayor.

But standing on site at the Rainbow property, with the sun sparkling on the distant waters of Green Lake through the trees, developer Rod Nadeau and project manager Bill Hayes said they are determined to keep their commitments.

They intend to deliver the promised 25 single family restricted homes and 20 duplexes for occupancy in little over a year — a portion of what the site will hold at build-out.

Developers will use local builders and modular housing to meet their goals over the next three years.

“That’s encouraging,” said the mayor, upon learning of the renewed promises. “That’s what we want to hear.”

As excavation crews move earth around the site and surveyors walk the land in what may be one of the last sunny days of the fall, Hayes and Nadeau are acutely aware of their strict schedule.

“Any schedule is ambitious,” said Hayes. “My motto is to stop worrying and get on with the job.”

There are several outstanding issues yet to be resolved before the project can get final rezoning approval from council.

Of the 22 conditions required before adoption of the bylaws, Rainbow has met just over half a dozen. Nadeau said another half dozen are very close to completion.

One of the major missing pieces is the site-servicing plan, which details the road grades, sewer, water and hydro lines and the rights of way. It’s a critical piece of the puzzle. It will be delivered several months later than originally expected.

“We had expected to see them by the fall but that’s not the schedule Rainbow has,” said Bob MacPherson, general manager of planning and development services for the Resort Municipality of Whistler.

“We asked Rainbow for a schedule of when we’re going to get this stuff and also their construction schedule because we’re hearing rumblings that a lot of time is passing and not much seems to be happening.

“It’s a very ambitious schedule.”

Rainbow’s schedule shows the servicing plans will be delivered in February. At that time all 22 of the conditions for adoption of the bylaws should be met.

“Normally there’s a higher level of information prior to third reading than we’ve had with this project,” said MacPherson. “It’s a decision we went into with our eyes wide open.

“There was a real desire in the spring to get this project to third reading so that the summer would be available for work to happen. That was a real motivating factor for the RMOW, for the housing authority and probably for Rainbow as well.”

MacPherson estimates spring as the earliest date for adoption of the bylaws, which leaves a small summer/fall window to service the site, pave the roads, pour the foundations and construct the homes before Christmas.

Nadeau said they are hoping to do everything they can to prepare the site so it’s ready for work in the spring. They will be funneling draft servicing plans to the municipality over the coming months so the final plans don’t come as a complete surprise in February.

And they recognize this isn’t the way a typical development happens.

“(The municipality is) used to seeing everything done (in planning) before people do a lot of work (on site),” said Hayes.

He suggested the approach at Rainbow is likely the same approach used at the Olympic athletes’ village in the Lower Cheakamus, which is also under strict timelines.

Neil Godfrey, project manager for the athletes’ village, said they have preliminary site servicing plans in the works but, like Rainbow, the final plans won’t be ready until early next year. He anticipates servicing the site and possibly getting foundations poured by the end of 2007.

That means both sites will be competing for the same labour and the same equipment at a time when labour and equipment are at a premium in the hot construction market. That, said Godfrey, is definitely on their radar screen.

In the meantime, employee-housing waitlisters continue to count down for the chance to buy at Rainbow.

“Not a day passes that I’m not out in the streets and someone asks me about Rainbow,” said Councillor Ralph Forsyth. “I suppose being the lone councillor under 50, it’s relevant to people my age and the people I spend time with the most.

“They’re asking what the heck is taking so long and I don’t have those answers.”

A separate waitlist for the Rainbow development has not been started. Usually that happens after adoption of the bylaws.

Whistler Housing Authority General Manager Marla Zucht said there are currently 118 on the list for a WHA duplex and 122 for a single family home — all potential purchasers at Rainbow.

Twenty-five per cent of those applicants are in employee housing already.

The Rainbow development is roughly 85 per cent employee housing with some market units. There will be a mixture of single-family homes, duplexes and townhouses delivered over three years.