Regional district leaders have given staff the OK to re-engage with a company proposing a large, mixed-use development in southern Britannia Beach.
At its May 26 meeting in Pemberton, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) board voted unanimously to rescind an order adopted in October 2013 that staff not spend money or engage with Taicheng Development Corp. officials until they submitted a formal application for development of the 500-acre Makin Lands.
Maurice Freitag, the SLRD Area D director who made the motion to rescind the order, said he had recently attended meetings organized by Taicheng at which community members were present but SLRD staff was not.
“I had gone to some open houses that they had done and the staff was not in attendance, but the community was involved,” he said.
“I thought that was strange that the community and developer were there but not regional district staff. To not have staff engaged in that process just seemed wrong.”
Last fall, the SLRD board rejected an application to amend the Area D Official Community Plan to allow Taicheng to build up to 3,000 residential units in the southern portion of the hamlet. The developer, which has yet to submit a formal development application, has been working since then on a revised proposal that’s more in line with the 1,000-unit limit set out in the OCP.
“The board was pretty clear the concepts we were presented with last fall did not come close to what is acceptable to consider in that area,” board chair Patricia Heintzman wrote in an email to the Squamish Chief.
“All the work to date has been pre-application and the board determined to direct staff not to continue working on an application that was so outside the OCP, etc. Now that they are on a new track, it is important that our staff is involved and working with them through pre-application.”
Freitag, who lives in Britannia Beach, said he thinks a development of 800 to 1,000 units, with a commercial area that includes a “mid-sized” grocery store, is a realistic prospect for the time being.
“I think that 1,000 units over there is reasonable as long as they can prove out what they have to, including water,” he said.
“Those numbers in the OCP were set out for a good reason. If, in 25 or 30 years, there’s potential to push for more units in there, then that can be considered when we reach that point.”
Taicheng is working to finalize the master plan application and have it ready to present to the board at its regular board meeting in late June or late July, company spokesperson Mary Chen said in an email.
“There is a lot of information in the coming new Master Plan… The application will comply with OCP for the range of 850 to 1,000 units,” Chen wrote. “If my understanding is correct, the development footprint would be around the same as the previous one, but leaving room for flexibilities and uncertainties such as transportation chain area, highway right of way, etc.”
