The proposed $3.5 billion Garibaldi at Squamish year-round ski resort won’t go ahead without the support of the district and other stakeholders. That was the message David Negrin, CEO of Garibaldi at Squamish Inc. imparted to community leaders Thursday.
Negrin gave a presentation on the resort to about 75 Squamish Chamber of Commerce members and community leaders over lunch at the Howe Sound Brew pub.
“This project will be decided by you, the people in this town, not by me or my company,” Negrin told the audience. He stressed that the proponents want to work with those concerned about the project including the Black Tusk Snowmobile Club and those who want changes to the way water is drawn in Paradise Valley.
“We made a commitment to Paradise Valley to meet with them… We will get our consultant out there, we will sit down and we will walk through it. If the water is not good and they prove it, then I am not willing to [go ahead],” he said.
Negrin said if the project receives its environmental assessment certificate, the proponents will enter into a master planning process, request to be annexed into Squamish and then enter the district rezoning process.
Negrin also provided more details of what the resort would include. He said he envisions it resembling European resorts.
At the top of the mountain, instead of residential housing there would be European-style pensions: rustic, barn-like structures for families and groups to stay in, he said. The overnight accommodation would include meals and sometimes an afternoon tea in its fee. He said he envisions free electric rail transportation for the mountain: so guests would get around from village to village by rail, to discourage car use.
There would be a variety of housing, including single-family dwellings, townhomes, apartments and hotels.
“Eighty per cent of these units will have ski-in and ski-out,” he said.
There would also be walking and cycling trails connecting different areas of the resort.
The resort would have a Squamish Nation theme at the resort, Negrin said.
Using all natural materials and following green building policies would be a priority, he said.
“Environmentally, we want this to be one of the top resorts in the world,” he said.
Negrin also said he would like to see a film school, an offshoot of his Thunderbird Studios, set up within the resort.
Attendee Lorna Van Straaten said she was impressed by the plans for the resort, and surprised at the conciliatory tone Negrin struck.
“It looks to me like a very complimentary project for the corridor,” she said. Increased traffic because of the resort is a bit of a concern for her, Van Straaten said, but is a fair tradeoff if the resort helps Squamish.
“Traffic in the corridor overall is a concern already, however, when you’ve got people coming in, being a resort community, it is part of how you live and you learn not to travel the road at those peak times.”
Squamish’s Eric Andersen, the event’s master of ceremony, gave a brief history of Mount Garibaldi and its relationship to Squamish. He reminded attendees that tourism, Squamish and Mount Garibaldi, known by many as “the mountain,” are interconnected. “Tourism and the mountain have always been important to local tourism and the local economy,” he said, adding the primary reason for the opening of the Sea to Sky Highway in 1958 was to increase tourism, “and reaching the mountain.”
After the presentations, the question and answer period was uncharacteristically quiet with not a single person stepping forward to speak.
The public comment period on the proposed resort closed Monday. The provincial ministers are expected to make a decision on granting the proposal an Environmental Certificate this fall.
