West Vancouver council isn’t passing a new area plan for its central Ambleside neighbourhood anytime soon.
At a meeting on Monday, most of council wanted to delay first reading of the Ambleside centre local area plan. That comes after the vote had just been deferred at the previous meeting on May 12, after receiving a last-minute letter from the Ambleside Dundarave Residents Association.
Council again received a letter from ADRA before the May 26 meeting, asking for more time to consider the plan.
While most members of council wanted to delay the decision, they couldn’t agree for how long. Coun. Scott Snider put forward a motion to defer a first vote to June 9, but the vote failed 3-3.
Couns. Linda Watt, Christine Cassidy and Peter Lambur were opposed, wanting to wait until the district receives incoming housing demands from the province, which they said could impact the Ambleside plan.
Watt was acting mayor during the discussion, as Mayor Mark Sager had recused himself because he owns an office in Ambleside.
At the Monday meeting, senior planner David Hawkins presented the plan to council, with coloured illustrations of what the revitalized neighbourhood could look like.
Based on extensive community feedback, the plan would now prioritize low-rise (three to four storey) buildings along the Marine Drive corridor – not the five to six storeys previously proposed.
Changes would aim to revitalize the commercial areas, including widened sidewalks and additional parking. The plan also allows for more housing, concentrated on a few key sites. Those higher-density locations include the 1600 block of Bellevue Avenue (Fresh St. Market) and the 1400 block of Clyde Avenue.
Hawkins said staff recommended council to pass first reading on Monday, and set a public hearing for June 23.
Issue should be delayed weeks or months, councillors say
Before council’s discussion began, Watt noted that the district had received a letter from the province on May 22, which outlined the results of an advisor's review of the district’s housing policy and practices.
Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Ravi Kahlon said Park Royal-Taylor Way will become a transit-oriented area with additional density requirements, and that plans must be updated to accommodate more housing in Ambleside and Dundarave Village.
“There has been considerable dialogue going on behind the scenes as to whether we should be moving forward with this [Ambleside plan] right now, because we’ve got a month to get into dialogue and send our response back to the province before they fully come down with what it is that they want,” Watt said.
Watt suggested that council should take at least the next month or more to consider how the province’s demands could impact the Ambleside plan.
Cassidy was among the camp at council that argued moving forward with the plan should be delayed even further.
“What I would like, and a significant number of the community would like as well, is they would like that one commodity that is so difficult to buy, and that is time,” she said. “They would like to go into the month of September, to have the summer months to digest this further.”
Cassidy also mentioned several potential issues with the plan, including the use of storeys for building height rather than feet, what to do with the community-use site at 1763 Bellevue Ave., and whether a scale wooden model of Ambleside should be built. Staff estimated such a model could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Yes, it may well cost money, but there is such a thing as the time value of money. So that which it might cost today, 10 years from now may look like nothing,” she said.
People need to live in commercial area, ADBIA says
Coun. Nora Gambioli was the lone member of council who wanted to proceed with the plan without further delay.
Two years ago, all seven council members walked Ambleside twice with district planners to look at every single site, she said. Last fall, planning staff held 25 in-person events, with almost 3,000 inputs to the plan. Then in January, Hawkins brought the draft plan to council.
“We now have over 50 people who have written to us just in the last 48 or 72 hours, who are begging us, asking us to forward this project,” Gambioli said. “We should be sending it to a public hearing. That’s insulting to all the people who have given feedback over the past two years to not send this.”
ADBIA executive director Maureen O’Brien addressed council during the public comment period. A lot of her members had written in to push the plan ahead, but have been “disregarded.”
“I know that the letter from the provincial government had come forward. I read it myself thoroughly, and I don’t see anything in Ambleside that they wanted to see different. They seem to be fine with the 1,200 units recommended,” she said.
People need to live in the commercial area of the neighbourhood, O’Brien said.
“Our shops are dying,” she said. “Our businesses and our buildings are old. There have been 33 studies in almost 80 years, and they all say the same thing: We need to revitalize.”
Heather Mersey, president of ADRA, said the reason her group’s letters to council were sent so late is because they had a “very short time” to examine a “very detailed document.”
“We have asked for a bit more time, but it’s a benefit to the community overall. There’s many things that are good in it, but there’s still a few things we need to work out,” she said. “How we best do that, please tell us. We will work however we can.”
With no successful vote on how to proceed with the plan at council, staff advised that a special meeting could be held.
District spokesperson Carrie Gadsby explained that the issue could also be added to agendas at upcoming meetings for modification. No dates have yet been set.
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