Qualicum Commons rumors confirmed

Late last week rumors on Facebook surfaced indicating that the town no longer intends to renew the lease with the school board for the Qualicum Commons property and presumably sub tenants in the building were notified that their sub leases would not be extended. This was confirmed by the town on Tuesday in a news release.

"After a year of supporting the Qualicum Commons to continue operations, Council has made the very difficult decision to not renew the Lease Agreement due to the failing building systems, associated costs of repairs, and potential impact to the Qualicum Beach taxpayers.  

The Town understands the value of the Qualicum Commons to the community and came into an Agreement last June to help keep the building open for a one-year period. The goal of this Agreement was to allow the tenants to continue providing important community services, while the Town undertook due diligence to understand the state of the building and associated cost implications.  

During the past year, the Town has faced many challenges with the deteriorating condition of the building, including significant floods in three areas. Major systems, like HVAC exchange units have been identified as failing, or at end-of-life, and replacements are required for the roof, windows, doors, plumbing, electrical, and fire suppression systems. To address only the immediate, short-term needs, including roof replacement and other major repairs, the Town has received cost estimates in the range of $1.5 - $2 million. The revenue from the Commons’ tenants would not come close to covering these required capital cost replacements. "

In Facebook postings, members of the public expressed outrage at the towns decision and questioned why buying a golf course was higher priority over maintaining the Commons lease. In the towns news release an attempt was made to justify the towns decision making;

"As the Town does not own this property, multi-million-dollar investments would not make financial sense. The difference between investing in a leased asset versus one you own is key to understanding the business case. Continuing to operate and maintain the Qualicum Commons would result in an increase in property taxation. Investment in the Commons is very different than the purchase of the Eaglecrest Golf Course lands which is now a significant Town owned asset. This purchase is being funded without impact to the taxpayer through the sale of Town-owned and Golf Course Properties, and a $2.125 million private donation. "   

Sub Tenants outrage... is it fair response?

The Facebook posts over the past few days indicate that sub tenants in the building are shocked and outraged at the towns decision to pull the plug. The comments imply that they feel strung along by the town and that they were promised "a long term runway" for the building. The Save the Commons group will no doubt again organize and try to influence the town to change it's mind.

The reality is the town does not have the reserves to fund these repairs. The building is not owned by the town and we don't have the money to buy it, even if there was a will to do so. Many of the programs operating at the Commons are School Board driven. Some sub tenants are for profit businesses. Some are Oceanside community based non profits.

The sub tenants have benefited as QB taxpayers have funded this site for the past year when this is a building that the town does not own. Essentially the town has been covering costs on behalf of the school board. Is this a fair expectation of taxpayers? Are we not already paying school taxes separately? Are we now expected to willingly take on Capital Costs for the School District?

Lack of transparency and accountability of process

I note several areas of concern related to the towns involvement with the Commons property. Firstly the entire transaction from as early as the summer of 2024 until now, has been undertaken entirely in closed meetings. The public has not been provided with any staff reports nor business plans nor actual costs already spent for this venture. We have never seen council in action actually discussing the meritsor risks of this project nor do we know who voted in favour or against this venture.

Secondly, the financial aspects of the project have not materially changed since the summer of 2024 when the school board released the end of life building condition reports and determined they could no longer justify operating the building. The town had from the summer of 2024 to June 2025 to do a business plan, confirm the buildings condition, evaluate the operating expense estimates and assess the reliability of the tenant base. While the public was not privy to the business plan, the council did approve a $590,000 contingency fund in a March 2025 closed meeting to fund emergency expenses. Clearly this was not sufficient to cover all the capital costs identified in the building condition reports. What changed between June 2025 and now, to convince Council that all of a sudden this transaction makes no fiscal sense? Did the town actually need to experience building failure before accepting the building condition reports?

Finally, it appears the town has no intention to provide any cost center accounting for this project. The 2026 -2030 financial budget recently adopted does not separate the Commons property from other lease revenue nor are Commons related expenses separated from other operational expenses. I don't expect the audited highly consolidated year end financial statements will add any further transparency.

It will take a brave councillor to make a motion asking for a staff for report to outline both an estimate of staff time consumed, and disclosure of the funds actually spent. This report is essential in order for the public to get fair transparent disclosure of this apparently ill conceived and poorly executed experiment wherein no one wins.

Marie Noel

April 8 2026