By Holly Fraughton, Claire
Piech and Alison Taylor
With the Holborn seniors
housing development pushed back until as late as 2016, plans are now in place
to house seniors in the athletes’ village legacy neighbourhood.
According to Gordon Leidal,
president of the Mature Action Committee (MAC), the Whistler Housing Authority
(WHA) is recommending the allocation of up to 24 units at the athletes’ village
for seniors.
These units could include the
top two floors of an apartment building on Lot 8, as well as six town home
units on Lot 11.
“In the papers last week,
(the Holborn delay) looked like a huge setback for Whistler’s senior housing,
and in a sense it was very disappointing, but something else is happening here,
and this is something we’ve been working on for many months,” said Leidal.
“Now it is a reality, that
means there will be seniors housing in 2010 (after the Games).”
The Holborn development, a
phased project which includes a senior housing complex, tennis club and market
housing, has been in the works since 2003, but was recently delayed due to the
developer’s concerns over market risk and rising construction costs leading up
to the Games.
Joe Redmond, president of the
Whistler 2020 Development Corporation (WDC), confirmed that the WHA has asked
them to modify at least one building to accommodate seniors in the new
neighbourhood, which will be known as Cheakamus Crossing after 2010.
The MAC recently conducted a
survey among members and received an overwhelmingly positive response in favour
of placing seniors housing at the athletes’ village location.
“We were a little surprised,
because we figured most people wanted to be out of the village, and of course
they have been thinking about Holborn and Rainbow for a long time,” said
Leidal.
But not all seniors are
satisfied with the alternate plans.
Betty McWhinnie had her hopes
set on the seniors housing complex at the new tennis club/housing development
since 1993.
Just north of the village,
the proposed housing at Holborn is close to the medical centre, the pharmacy
and the village for groceries. The location couldn’t be better for the
85-year-old McWhinnie.
“As far as the athletes’
village is concerned, that is so far from the clinic,” said McWhinnie.
“You can’t just run across
the road when you need healthcare… Holborn was really was kind of the gem.”
While the latest deal with
council gives Holborn, the developers, at least eight years to finish the seniors
housing complex as part of their development, that’s a long time for local
seniors. McWhinnie will be 93 years old by then.
“It’s going to be too late
for me,” said McWhinnie. “I’m really, really disappointed.”
McWhinnie is now considering
leaving her beloved Whistler and heading east to join her family in Ontario.
“That would be wonderful to
be around my three grandchildren, but when you get towards 90, you can’t expect
your family to be waiting on you, and I don’t want to go into a seniors home.
So I don’t know what is going to happen,” she said.
According to Redmond, seniors
who move into the athletes’ village seniors housing are already on the WHA
waitlist and would have to purchase the housing. Seniors will be able to move
into the athletes’ village units once the neighbourhood is handed over to the
municipality after the Games in 2010.
The WDC recently decided to
build over 110 additional units at the athletes’ village, which will be
available to Whistler residents and employees. Their original plans of the
neighbourhood included 210 town homes and only 42 apartments. Now they are
adding a 55 unit rental apartment building, which would be operated by the WHA,
as well as a 55 unit hostel.
“Based on our discussions
with the Whistler Housing Authority, we realized that it made sense to increase
the number of apartment units in the development,” Redmond said in a press
release.
‘This will provide a greater
diversity of housing options and met the needs of many more people on the
current waiting list for housing.”
The other two senior housing
options, Holborn and Rainbow, have both hit snags along the way. But the timing
for the athletes’ village is more concrete.
“Certainly those projects
have been moving along, and it is unfortunate that they have run into a variety
of different snags,” said Redmond.
“At the same time, there is
certainty with the athletes’ village… because it has to be ready for the
athletes.”
Leidal said the senior
committee plans to send a letter to council outlining the concerns their
association has with the delays on the Holborn project.
“I just want to remind them
that we want the municipality and the developer’s agreement to reserve an
option to purchase the seniors’ housing lot for a dollar, so we could in fact
advance the development of the seniors housing there if it seemed like the
right thing to do,” he explained.
Leidal added that he was
confident the developer of the Holborn property would be more than happy to let
the municipality go ahead with the development of the seniors’ complex, though
they would need to secure financing.
The WAC plans to discuss
seniors housing again at their upcoming annual general meeting, where the WDC
will give a presentation.
