201/207/211 First Ave West - Update

It's back. A proposal by this proponent was first presented at a Committee of the Whole meeting on October 16, 2024. At that time, the project consisted of 57 residential units, 3 commercial units, a medical clinic with 14 examination rooms and 47 parking stalls. The discussion by council dealt mainly with the height and mass of the building ("too big, too tall"), the apparent lack of parking, and that building of the medical clinic could not guarantee the arrival of medical professionals required to actually open and operate the clinic. The presentation seemed to be that the Town would get the much needed medical clinic if council approved the building as presented.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Mayor Westbroek stated that council was not making a decision at that time and that the meeting was to provide the developer and the public with council's views on the project. I reported on this meeting and predicted that we would see another version of this project at some time in the future.

Back to the future. At the council meeting on June 18, 2025, a new proposal for this property was presented to council. The number of residential units was reduced from 57 to 55. The medical clinic, previously proposed for the ground floor, was gone. In its place, additional parking stalls were added, bringing the total to 62 (one for each of the residential units and seven for the commercial units). This presumably was to address council's earlier concern with the lack of parking. In introducing the new proposal to Council, Luke Sales, the Director of Planning, referenced a reduction in massing of the building. This may be the case, however, it was not obvious when comparing the artist's rendering of the new proposal with the old. The artist's rendering of the current proposal is at the beginning of this article. In any event, the height of the building remained at 5 storeys. One thing noticed in reviewing the plans of the building was that the height of the building for the new proposal is stated as 20.6 metres, whereas the height of the building in the October 2024 proposal was 17.17 metres. This variance was not mentioned at the June 18 meeting and may be irrelevant since Councillors Skipsey and VanderValk wanted the number of storeys reduced from five the three. It was suggested that Town staff work with the applicant to come up with a three storey building. Further discussions by council revolved around density (as in, we need the density to provide housing but don't want the height) and retaining the village character.

In the proposal, the developer offered to give, at no cost to the town, approximately 5000 square feet of commercial space in the building for (in the developer's words) "future use as a medical clinic". The developer's opinion was that the value of the commercial space was between $3.5 and $4 million. In exchange for this gift, the developer required approval of the current proposal as presented, waiver of all of the commercial development cost charges, a reduction of the residential development cost charges, use or ownership of the lane abutting the property and approval by the town of the stratification of the property.

With respect to the waiver/reduction of the development cost charges, Mr. Sales advised that there is a bylaw currently in place that would, unless repealed by council, waive and reduce the development cost charges in the manner requested by the developer. Mr. Sales also noted that if the current DCC waiver/reduction bylaw was repealed, any project currently underway may still be able to avail itself of the waiver/reduction.

Regarding the adjacent lane, Mr. Sales advised that it was closed off as a lane in a previous proposal for the property and that the transfer (or use of the lane) to the developer would need to be negotiated with the developer. There was no indication in the application as to why the developer needs the use or transfer of the lane.

The developer noted that the stratification of the property would allow the commercial space to be gifted to the Town. Not mentioned, however, was the fact that this would also permit the developer to deal with the residential units as separate titles, enabling the sale of individual units. It was not clear in the current presentation, or the one in October 2024, whether the developer intended the building to comprise rental apartments or self-owned condominiums. It appears that the latter is likely the case.

The main component of the developer's proposal is the gifting of the commercial space It is the developer's opinion that this has a value of up to $4 million. Obviously, this would need to be supported by an independent appraisal. It should also be noted that the developer refers to this space being used for a medical clinic. This may be simply a result of the view that the Town desperately needs doctors and, accordingly, the provision of medical office space would appeal to council and provide an impetus to approve the proposal. Mr. Sales's report to council refers to the use of the commercial space to be as determined by council at a later time, emphasizing the need to eliminate the ability of the developer to restrict the use of the space by the town if the gift is accepted. Mr. Sales's report also mentioned that additional considerations required further discussion related to the gifted space including costs required to fit out the shell into a functioning space, operating obligations, tax status, rental structure and lease to the actual operator. None of this was raised or discussed at the meeting. As they say, the devil is in the details.

The discussion by council mainly revolved around the project being too big, too tall, lacking village character and density (which it seemed to provide). Reducing the height of the building to three storeys was emphasized by some councillors. It was also mentioned that the reduction in height will result in the loss of the medical clinic. Ultimately, Councillor Skipsey put forth a motion to reduce the height of the building to three storeys. However, this was seen as too restrictive, with Mayor Westbroek asking if the motion could be amended to provide for discussion between staff and the developer and not be a hard and fast restriction to three storeys. Mayor Westbroek stated that what we (presumably, council) are looking for is an attractive building that works for the proponent and works for the town. When asked by the Mayor what he needed to work with this concept, Mr. Sales responded that three storeys means different things because this project currently has three storeys in some parts of the building and asked whether council was proposing the removal of storeys. Councillor VanderValk noted that the building is essentially 6 storeys at the back, that these concerns were raised at the October 2024 meeting and that nothing had changed with the current proposal except for the gift of the commercial space. Mayor Westbroek then stated that council needed to make a decision, but that he was not comfortable with a strictly three storey restriction, that the developer knows that council is serious in maintaining the character of the town and that the developer will have to take notice that council got elected because the residents did not want five and six storey buildings. The Mayor further stated that we are not like the previous council and that it needs to honour the commitment to no tall buildings. The Mayor then proposed an amendment to councillor Skipsey's motion. The amended motion "to reduce to three storeys, with some flexibility that still maintains the character of Qualicum Beach as we know it." The vote was called and the motion was passed unanimously.

Where does this leave us? Presumably, the developer will work with Luke Sales and the planning department staff to come up with a building that may, or may not, be three storeys and that maintains the character of Qualicum Beach (whatever that may be) as we (whoever that is) know it. Clearly, the scale of this building needs to be reduced. Whether this can be accomplished with the "guidelines" set by council is a good question.

By way of background: This property has been the subject of a number of proposals in the recent past. One proposal was in 2020. The applicant at that time (it should be noted that this is not the applicant for the present proposal) submitted a plan for a 40 unit multi-residential development comprising two buildings. It not known what happened to that proposal as the applicant subsequently submitted a revised application for a multi-unit residential development in the form of 18 townhouses and two units above a commercial unit. Subsequent to this the applicant submitted an amended proposal that removed the two commercial units and proposed a multi-residential development with 18 units. In the report to council about the 18 unit proposal, staff noted that the maximum height in the Village Design Guidelines is three storeys (the proposed buildings were three storeys with maximum heights between 8.87 metres to 10.3 metres). The Village Design Guidelines also provide that "building style and image should be consistent with traditional village design [and that] designers are encouraged to draw creatively on authentic design elements of Qualicum Beach". In their report, staff acknowledged this and stated that "the style of the proposed development has elements of the authentic Qualicum Beach design". On August 10, 2022, the land use and subdivision bylaw authorizing this proposal received third reading and council authorized staff to issue a development permit, subject to completion of a number of conditions.

This is the artist's rendering of the 18 unit proposal.

So, what happened to this proposal. It was never built. On paper (and in the artist renderings), it seems to be exactly what the current council is looking for from the current applicant: three storeys with the character of Qualicum Beach. The only things that seem to be missing are the density that council wants and a medical clinic. We can only wait to see what the applicant and the planning department come up with to meet the flexible three storey village character concept wanted by council.

James Noel

June 23, 2025

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