By Alison Taylor
One small residential development got the nod from council Monday night while another one raised red flags again.
A development for the Cheakamus North lands, in between Spring Creek and Bayshores, will now move along in the rezoning process. Council turned down an earlier iteration of the project last year.
The latest proposal calls for zoning to create three separate lots for homes up to 5,000 square feet. In addition, the developer will donate a portion of the land for a park and build a section of road that will connect to the two bordering subdivisions.
The road will provide a secondary emergency exit from Spring Creek as well as opportunities to improve transit in the resort’s southern neighbourhoods.
To complete this plan, the developer needs 12 additional bed units, the tool the municipality uses to measure development. (Each home needs six bed units and the land only has six associated with it.)
Six more will be created from the road. Another six will either come from existing municipal inventory or created anew if council deems there are justifiable community amenities.
As the Cheakamus North proposal moved forward, the Bunbury proposal was almost sent back to the drawing board again Monday night.
The latest plans for Bunbury lands north of Kadenwood call for zoning for three 5,000 square foot homes to legitimize the three homes on the property. In addition the developer is looking for zoning for two more 5,000 square foot homes next to the Kadenwood property. The bed units for these would come from existing Whistler Mountain inventory in exchange for allowing a ski out linking Kadenwood to Creekside.
The developer has also promised to prepare three lots for future employee housing and dedicate more than three acres to park.
“It hasn’t moved forward,” said Councillor Bob Lorriman, comparing the latest application to the one submitted more than one year ago.
Lorriman, along with Mayor Ken Melamed and Councillor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, voted against moving the project to the public open house stage.
The rest of council, however, supported taking the project to the public for comment and for getting new eyes on a very old rezoning attempt.
