New Westminster city council is sending a proposed rowhouse development on Royal Avenue back to the drawing board.
On Monday night, council considered a rezoning application for 118 Royal Ave., where the applicant hoped to build a four-unit, ground-oriented rowhouse development. The site is next to Ecole Qayqayt Elementary School.
Jackie Teed, the city’s acting director of development services, said the family-friendly units would be individually owned, not stratified. She said the proposal would see an extension of the Royal Avenue multi-use pathway.
While she supports more housing units on the site, Agnes Street resident April Hurmuses said the proposed design is "really bad architecture" and puts the 12 owners of units in her building in a fish bowl.
“You can densify without screwing over the neighbours,” she told council. “I am one of the neighbours being screwed.”
Lisa Chan, who is developing the project, said she's excited about the plan because it would be the first non-strata rowhome project in New Westminster.
"This means it is affordable to a lot of people, especially young families,” she said. “It is a ground-oriented project so it's a perfect starter home for families that don't want to be in a condo, don't want to pay strata fees.”
Chan’s Realtor Darcy Schlectleitner said there's a demand for townhouses in New Westminster and suggested the units would be listed at $898,000.
Fulton Tom, co-chair of HUB – New Westminster, said the cycling advocacy group believes the city is missing out on a one-of-a-kind opportunity to create an attractive and “critical” cycling link between the downtown and uptown with the proposed alignment of the multi-use pathway. In response to this project, he said the pathway being proposed by staff would have more than a 12 per cent grade and be next to heavy traffic on Royal Avenue.
HUB asked the city to require that the development at 118 Royal Ave. not preclude the possibility of eventually locating a pathway at the common boundary of the property and the school yard.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said he has voiced concerns about this project at several steps during the process and hasn’t seen those concerns addressed.
“I want to see rowhomes in the city, and I think this density of rowhomes is really good for the city, but I get a feeling this design sort of poorly fits into the footprint that’s been given to it,” he said. “I share HUB’s concerns about the bike route situation.”
If the city were to take a land dedication from the west side of the property versus the north side of the property, Johnstone said it would lead to a better result for the city, but would also preclude the property from being developed in the way that’s currently proposed.
Like Johnstone, Coun. Mary Trentadue felt some of the challenges raised about the project at the land-use planning committee weren’t addressed as they could have been.
“I think at some point we do have to say, ‘No, this isn’t the right development, it doesn’t look right, there are challenges with Royal,’” she said. “I think it’s important to the community and to the people that will be living there that we go back and make sure we get it right.”
While he recognizes there are issues related to the bike route, Coun. Bill Harper said he fails to understand how council can oppose an application on a specific piece of property based on “extraneous” issues that aren’t part of that project.
“I am dealing with a very specific piece of property with a very specific kind of development on it. Yeah, there is issues on it around bike routes and Royal Avenue and whatnot, but that is not this particular developer’s concern,” he said.
Council voted four to two against third reading of the rezoning application, with councillors Johnstone, Jaimie McEvoy, Chuck Puchmayr and Trentadue opposing and councillors Harper and Lorrie Williams supporting the plan. Mayor Jonathan Cote lives in a nearby building and recused himself from deliberations on the proposal.
