A sigh of relief could almost
be heard from those who attended Thursday’s emergency council meeting when
council voted 5-2 to pass the revised housing agreement for the Rainbow
Development.
“This is a major milestone
for council,” commented councillor Gord McKeever after the meeting, as people
slowly filed out of MY Millennium Place into the rainy June evening.
He added that it took a lot of
contemplation for council to come to this conclusion, and he was glad to see
the project move forward.
Bill Hayes, project manager
for Rainbow, also admitted he was relieved by the outcome and was looking
forward to getting back to work so the first homes could be built by August.
Despite the night’s positive
result, discussions were tense throughout the evening.
Many councillors said they
were reluctant to pass the resolution after another emergency council meeting
was held two years ago to pass another so-called imperative piece of
legislation for the project.
“Forgive me if I am
skeptical, but history has taught something here,” said councillor Bob
Lorriman.
“We had a special meeting two
years ago when we passed fourth reading (on bylaws to move the project
forward), which we were told was dire and we had to pass so the developer could
built the housing units. And we did. And the developer did not deliver those
housing units for whatever reason.”
Mayor Ken Melamed ended the
meeting with a frank warning to developers.
“This project does not get a
free ride from here on out,” he said.
The mayor also spoke to
characterizations, finger pointing, blame, betrayal and claims of lack of
leadership that have passed between stakeholders this week after the future of
the project became uncertain.
“No one could have pictured
the twists and turns and deviations on what has been an incredibly bumpy road,”
he said.
Most councillors at the
meeting acknowledge that a resolution needed to be passed because it was the “11
th
hour” and any hold ups could further jeopardize the project. Only two
councillors voted against the revised agreement: Ralph Forsyth and Nancy
Wilhelm-Morden.
At issue was the “secondary
purchaser clause” which was added to the housing agreement almost 11 months ago
but only presented to council this month. The clause allows Whistler residents
not on the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) waitlist to buy a home in Rainbow
if no one on the waitlist wants to buy it.
The fear among councillors is
that a large portion of the homes might not go to those who need affordable
housing in Whistler, since almost half of the 150 homes will be priced above
$500,000.
Only 76 people on the Rainbow
waitlist are qualified to buy one of the 70 single-family homes on site,
currently priced between $525,000 and $625,000.
To address this issue, the
revised agreement hammered out in the three days leading up to Thursday
evening’s meeting states that only 30 of the 70 single-family homes at Rainbow
will go to people not on the WHA waitlist. And all of the 80 duplexes will go
to waitlist buyers.
The Rainbow developers also
have to try to sell the units to people on the waitlist for 90 days before they
can offer them to secondary qualified buyers, reads the revised agreement. During
that three-month period, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) has the
option to purchase the land from the developer.
During the meeting, Bob
MacPherson, general manager of community life for the RMOW, also rehashed the
history of Rainbow, going back as far as 2005 when the memorandum of
understanding was established.
At that time the agreement
stated that if the lots on Rainbow could not be sold, the RMOW would buy back
the units at a price of $110,000 for a single family home and $65,000 for a
duplex, said MacPherson.
That agreement was dropped in
2006 when “Rainbow was taking longer than we all expected”, he said, and RMOW
became apprehensive about buying back units on a project behind schedule.
“Rainbow was amenable to that
being removed,” said MacPherson. “And as part of that discussion, Rainbow said,
‘Our concern has always been if the waitlist is exhausted, we need to know
there is a purchaser out there of these lots because Rainbow is certainly
counting on that.’”
Rainbow then introduced the
secondary qualifier clause. Municipal staff negotiated with the developers for
several months to make sure the clause would only allow Whistler locals to buy
property and not allow the homes to go onto the open market. The controversial
secondary qualifier clause, which came to council on June 16, was finalized at
the end of May.
MacPherson also took full
responsibility for the fact council was not aware of the agreement until two
weeks ago.
“You do not need to start a
witch hunt and look for who to blame, and it is my responsibility to present
things to council in a timely fashion,” said MacPherson.
The revised agreement
received the first three readings and will be presented to council for final
adoption in the following months.