A new single-family home subdivision is planned for Brackendale.
Council passed third reading of rezoning that paves the way for 35 single-family homes on 10 acres of property at the end of Judd Road.
Former mayor Greg Gardner is the landowner of the property located at 41601 Brennan Rd.
Only Coun. Karen Elliott did not support the rezoning, saying “the era of single-family homes should be behind us.”
Coun. Ted Prior disagreed saying, “I really feel strongly we do need single-family neighbourhoods. We don’t need lots of them, but we do need some of them,” he said.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman agreed with Elliott, to an extent, but voted in support of the development.
“I am not 100 per cent happy that it is all single-family homes, but I do appreciate that it has been in the hopper long before we started that conversation and created that expectation,” she said.
“I think down the road we need to be re-conceiving how we develop single-family neighbourhoods.”
Heintzman added she would like to see Squamish have subdivisions with all types of housing together; families just starting out all the way to seniors in housing suited to them.
However, she acknowledged the District’s current rules don’t make that easy. District staff and council are working toward changing policies to draw a mix of housing types within a subdivision, she said.
The rezoning of the land in question is from Rural Residential 2, which allows single or duplex housing to Rural Residential 1, which allows only single-family detached housing.
Squamish real estate agent Darren McCartney supports the development.
“Existing and planned single family inventory is extremely low and prices are still rising in all areas of our community,” he said in a letter submitted to council.
McCartney added that, generally speaking, the only new single-family homes planned for Squamish are in the most expensive area of town, at the top of the Garibaldi Highlands neighbourhood, where homes are in the $1.5 million range.
“This development will offer inventory in a more median price range and Brackendale is one of the few areas where there is an opportunity for infill development, single family being a natural fit for this particular neighbourhood, without straining infrastructure or traffic flow.”
The benchmark price of a single-family home in Brackendale in June was $871,000, up 16 per cent over June of 2016, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
At the two public hearings held for this development, nearby residents to the property expressed concerns about an increase in traffic to the area and worry about flooding.
The property is east of Judd Slough and adjacent to, and upstream from, the Squamish River dike, which District staff described as “deficient” in a report to council.
There’s a “no-build” covenant on the property, which will remain in place until the portion of dike protecting this property meets Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC requirements for a “standard” or “adequate” dike, according to the staff report.
