‘Seriously tragic’ Station Street project gets council push

By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle

Oliver’s Station Street development looks set to move forward despite a lack of consensus in the public feedback and the impassioned appeal to not proceed with the current iteration of the plan by a lone councillor who called the decision “seriously tragic”.

Oliver Town Council, at its Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday voted to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the potential sale of 6359 Station Street, and another for an RFP to develop the site, disappointing those who felt an apartment building shouldn’t be built on parkland.

The plan revolves around building a four or five story mixed-use apartment building in the green space between the Coast Hotel and the Visitor’s Centre next to the river with a community plaza and playground to be built further north near the Visitor’s Centre.

The issue has been dogging council for nearly four years after it adopted “Option B” of the Station Street Concept Plan as the preferred design option for the revitalization of Station Street in October of 2020 after substantial public engagement.

That particular option included a plaza with a pavilion on the Old Centennial RV lot, along with a destination playground and future development on the Visitor Centre lot.

Despite receiving a federal grant to construct a plaza adjacent to the Coast Hotel, the costs ended up escalating to more than double the original estimate, making the project unfeasible.

Revised plan

In 2023, council commenced a process to review the 2020 Concept Plan which included various workshops to reaffirm principles and objectives and assess new ideas and possibilities. The overarching goal was to incorporate an identified need for housing in the Town Centre while also ensuring that an updated concept utilized past planning principles.

This led to the creation of the 2024 Station Street Concept Plan, which sees the plaza being relocated to the Visitor Centre lot and envisions a large mixed-use apartment building on the old Centennial RV lot to help foster the economic growth of the downtown and to help address housing needs, according to Randy Houle, Director of Development Services at the Town of Oliver.

Speaking at the meeting on Tuesday Houle said the next logical step after receiving public input earlier this year is the issuance of a seeking submissions of design proposals and an offer prices for the land. The draft RFP is available from the town website.

Some of the key components include developing the property with at least 30, dwelling units, the construction of an access road on the northern end of the property, commercial operations on the main floor fronting Station St, and various design considerations around the building’s aesthetics.

Current zoning allows for a 4-5 storey mixed residential and commercial building at that location.

Much of Council was full of praise for the work done by Houle in putting the proposed project together, with Councillor Amee Grice for instance saying: “I think there’s a lot of sort of caveats and protections built into the RFP to make sure that we have a say in what this is going to end up looking like, and that it is what we want and what’s best for for the community and for that space. So I think that you did a really good job.”

Mayor Martin Johansen also expressed his happiness but noted that “the feedback was very, very all over the place, very polarizing piece of property in town, just as a hotel was years ago . . . Really just goes to show you that there’s such a variety of feedback, it’s all over the place. I do think you’ve done a good job. I am in favour of the RFP,” he said.

Despite the mayor’s assessment of the feedback as being “all over the place” most fell into one of two categories – those who saw this as an opportunity to make use of an underutilized piece of property to help alleviate the shortage of housing and reinvigorate the downtown core and those who felt parkland should not be used to build housing on.

“Residential housing in a park area is unacceptable,” wrote one resident in their online feedback. “That housing will be either too expensive for most people to afford or become slum housing in a short period of time. Destroying all the mature trees is also disgusting. There are other lots more feasible for housing in the downtown area,” they wrote.

Impassioned plea

In an impassioned plea Councillor Petra Veintimilla expressed her frustration at how the town has gone from the “plan B” presented to the community and accepted three years ago after extensive consultation with the current plan.

“We went from mixed-use space, a couple of low community-use building spaces, community access in connection with the river in a real and meaningful way, not just a path beside the river, to an apartment block,” she observed plainly.

She wondered about the engagement numbers of the feedback sessions and noted that both dates on which physical feedback sessions were held were summer weekends when many families are out of town.

She says she was heartened by reading comments that trickled in because “many of which echoed feelings that I have and I tried to share.

“I don’t think it’s a secret at this table, I have been opposed to the idea of a full scale redevelopment into housing of this particular piece of property for quite some time.” She added that her viewpoint has solidified further after talking to Oliver residents.

“I have said before, and I will say again, that I believe this amount of riverfront park space in the downtown area of our community is an absolute gift. I think we’re fortunate to have had our predecessors intentionally or just by happenstance, they’ve ensured that we have ample park space for the health and well-being of our community.

“I believe this is something that we should be proud of, and I’m sure a position that is envied by our neighbouring communities. It is not a reason to need to abandon some of what we have.” She then questioned what the purpose was of the whole exercise of council deliberations and public engagement around the issue.

“What was the purpose of this exercise? The multiple times that we’ve gone through it and the last year that we’ve been talking about this space,” she said.

“What were we trying to achieve? We want to reinvigorate the downtown core. We want housing in our downtown to provide the opportunity for people to live, work and play in that space. We want to create foot traffic with the idea, as we all know that foot traffic will provide a new customer base and inject energy into the area and for the businesses in the area.” She then highlighted other areas that are available for redevelopment in that immediate area.

Other potential parcels

“The entire block directly across the street, from this site is available for redevelopment. It’s empty. There are two lots one block up on Main Street, including the town-owned lot,” she continued going on to list off the properties sitting idle in the immediate area.

“All of that potential development land not more than two to three blocks off of this area that we are discussing, and that’s not including the underutilized parcels in the same area that may one day be redeveloped to a higher, better use, nor the six or seven other sites within a four or five block radius,” she pointed out.

“One apartment building will not solve all our issues, and placing it here in this area, which should be kept as open as possible for the greater community to enjoy makes absolutely no sense.

“I absolutely do not accept that this is the best that we can do for our community, full stop, and I echo the sentiments of one of the online commenters who said, ‘losing public park space to housing in a prime Green Zone is seriously tragic.’”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I think that it’s our job to get creative to get what we want.” She suggested looking at tax incentives that were used in the area before but specifically related to higher, denser housing. Another idea that council has tossed around before is to look at a vacant lot tax on the developable area in the core so that they are either sold or developed by the owners.

Council members were unswayed by Veintimilla’s plea with most expressing satisfaction that the goals as they saw them were being met. Grice commented that she too liked the original plan B but it was simply demonstrated as unfeasible.

She went on to opine that the plan had to be adapted in order to maintain some of the original plan and still be able to create a community plaza and a playground. This was only feasible by adding housing, she said.

“So we found a way to use this lot to create both public spaces and have an opportunity to animate the area and hopefully bring economic benefit to the town, to our downtown businesses,” she said.

And in a sign that fatigue is setting in, Councillor Dave Mattes noted this is “probably the third or fourth kick that this has had, all the way back to the original concept,” he said. “And what has happened as a result of all of those plans and ideas and thoughts is that we’ve changed and moved as we have to adapt to what was offered to us,” he continued.

“If we put this RFP out and nothing comes forward, I would suspect that another Council in the future will readapt once again to try and gain some interest in whatever they decide at that time, just as we have done because there was no interest in the previous plans.”