When we last heard, the venerable Navvy Jack House on West Vancouver’s waterfront was going to be restored with a small café to fulfill the vision for the site: “a coffee, muffin and a side of history,” as a heritage advocate put it.
Seems now there will be quite the spread.
And, I suspect, quite the spirited debate.
If you’ll recall, the historic 1873 home lived in by John ‘Navvy Jack’ Thomas and his Sḵwx̱wú7mesh wife, Sla-wiya, was slated for demolition in 2020. Following community pushback, in 2022 the previous council committed $1 million and the community was required to raise an additional $1.6 million to restore the dwelling, the oldest in the Lower Mainland. Of note: a small bistro was in store, a large bistro was ruled out by district staff.
In March 2023, newly elected Mayor Mark Sager announced that a contractor had been found to restore the site and operate the café. He hailed the plan as a formidable rescue mission. He told North Shore News: “It will be a lovely place to go and have coffee, at no additional cost to the taxpayers.”
And it seemed, quaintly, to be planned as such.
The formal contract was awarded last fall to a property management company. The district said the company would complete construction within three years and bear any costs in excess of the district’s $1 million contribution. It would add “a coffee shop, wine bar, or a combination of both” in a 500-square-foot space. It was granted a 25-year lease, with an option for it to renew for another 15 years, at which time it would return the land at no cost.
But that was then, and this is now.
In mid-September, a new proposal was filed with the district, and it’s like a Beach House in Ambleside – only in its case with, I guess, a side of history.
The proposal would see the home of the North Shore’s first settler adjoin a two-level restaurant, nearly six times larger than the original plan, at 2,772 square feet. “Bistro Navvy Jack” proposes to seat 112 indoors and have an open patio with a retractable roof.
Remember, Sager said back when: “It will be a lovely place to go and have coffee, at no additional cost to the taxpayers, so I think this is a nice outcome.”
Former mayor Mike Smith sees it as a horrible outcome for the community donors. “They’re calling me to say they want their money back and can’t get it,” he told me.
The architectural drawing says the “donor commemoration location and design to be determined.”
Smith points to the process here – that if the objectives of the mayor and council involved an ambitious waterfront attraction, shouldn’t we have known?
“It’s preposterous,” he says. “There’s never been a hint of this.”
To be fair, we are many moons away from a bustling bistro.
The plan is in the hands of district staff for comments. Building on the waterfront is no can of corn, as they say in baseball.
There are natural hurdles, and the management company’s application seeks an environmental development permit and a foreshore development permit. Lawson Creek runs along the site’s eastern property line and work will be done within the 15-metre setback of watercourse bank. There will need to be alterations to the house within 15 metres of the ocean boundary. And given there are two legal lots to the site, a permit is needed for the new property to straddle them. Oh, and the Navvy Jack House will need to be raised.
Somewhat like the ongoing kerfuffle involving the proposed addition to beachfront property at 30th Street to restrict public access, there is a similar flavour to this proposal, in that there were changes to what the public thought was in store without an opportunity to put the prospective plan out for bids in the market.
Two differences in this proposal are notable.
For one, the public has an early heads up to refine or argue against what it doesn’t like, and one would expect there will be public discussions on whither bistro. We will then hear what council thinks.
I suspect we will very much hear what the steamed donors think, too, the ones who thought they were financing a side of history and not a side dish of a restaurant.
Kirk LaPointe is a West Vancouver columnist with an extensive background in journalism. His column appears biweekly in the North Shore News.
